Recently I was talking to someone, who, shortly after completing extensive medical treatment, experienced an enormous emotional blow from a significant person in their life. In their words, “What they did is unforgivable!” Feelings of being hurt, angry and emotionally distressed were running rampant. While understandable, these aren’t emotions that foster health and well-being.
The neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, author of My Stroke of Insight, describes something called the 90 Second Rule. Basically, when you feel a strong emotion, such as anger, fear or even joy, it takes the circuitry of the brain less than 90 seconds to process and then let go. We all know what it feels like when we suddenly move into fear. Something happens in the external world and all of a sudden we experience a physiological response by our body that our mind would define as fear. So in my brain some circuit is saying something isn’t safe and I need to go on full alert, those chemicals flush through my body to put my body on full alert, and for that to totally flush out of my body, it takes less than 90 seconds.
So, whether it’s my fear circuitry or my anger circuitry or even my joy circuitry - it’s really hard to hold a good belly laugh for more than 90 seconds naturally. The 90-second rule is totally empowering. That means for 90 seconds, I can watch this happen, I can feel this happen and I can watch it go away. After that, if I continue to feel that fear or feel that anger, I need to look at the thoughts I’m thinking that are re-stimulating that circuitry that is resulting in me having this physiology over and over again.
When you stay stuck in an emotional response, you’re choosing it by choosing to continue thinking the same thoughts that retrigger it. We have this incredible ability in our minds to replay but as soon as you replay, you’re not here, you’re not in the present moment. You’re still back in something else and if you continue to replay the exact same line and loop, then you have a predictable result. You can continue to make yourself mad all day and the more you obsess over whatever it is, the more you run that loop, then the more that loop gets energy of it’s own to manifest itself with minimal amounts of thought, so it will then start on automatic. And it keeps reminding you, “Oh yeah, I was mad, I have to rethink that thought.”
Taylor’s neurological perspective is that you have a choice to stay stuck in your anger, and the longer you stick with it, the more likely it is to stay. The Buddhist concept of forgiveness has the same idea that you need to forgive as the longer you hold onto harmful thoughts the more likely they are to impact you negatively, “creating bad Karma.”
Ultimately, holding on to anger and resentment contributes to ill health. Anger produces the same physiological and psychological effects as stress. This means that dysfunctional or unhealthy anger can impact on every aspect of our life in exactly the same ways: fatigue, sleep disturbance, lowered sex drive, withdrawal, lowered tolerance threshold, increased alcohol, tobacco or drug dependency and weight issues (elevated cortisol levels cause a slower metabolism and weight gain).
Anger is a systemic phenomenon, with chronic anger having the potential to lead to disease and ill health in every bodily system. For example:
• cardio-vascular: heart disease, stroke, blood pressure
• musculo-skeletal: general aches and pains, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia
• gastro-intestinal: IBS, ulcers, certain cancers
• auto-immune: arthritis, lupus, diabetes http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counselloradvice9771.html
Keep in mind that as long as you delay forgiveness that person has power over you. The sooner you can forgive, which doesn’t mean forget or feel the need to reinvest in them, the sooner you regain control. "Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for it to kill your enemy." - Nelson Mandela.
If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now. Marcus Aurelius
So how does one forgive and stay on the healing track?
A helpful place to start is recognizing that forgiving includes grieving. The hurt that has been done carries with it loss. You may no longer trust the person, or you find that they created such anxiety for you that they can no longer be part of your life. The grievance may change how you perceive yourself or your relationship to the other person.
Dr. Theresa Rondo’s Six Rs of Mourning/Processing Loss is relevant to helping processing the loss so that you can do forgiveness.
Recognize: Acknowledge what has been done to you. Understand why it happened. Your feelings are valid. However, recognize that the more you dwell on the feelings the more you are imprinting them.
React: Feel, identify, accept and give some form of expression to the loss.
Re-experience: Remember realistically what happened. Sometimes by being as honest as you can be in remembering you’ll find that the person may not be all wrong. You may even understand what your role might have been in it.
Relinquish the old attachment to the person and all the assumptions you might have made about yourself or them. Lay down your weapons. Anything you can do to “hurt” or “even the score,” such as name calling, being passive aggressive is a weapon.
Readjust: Develop a new relationship (consciousness) with the person and yourself. Form a new identity (one who is not a victim)
Reinvest: Forgive. "If we haven’t forgiven, we keep creating an identity around our pain, and that is what is reborn. That is what suffers."
There are many views on how and why forgiveness is important. The suggestions posted above may or may not be relevant to you. Tap into your own spiritual traditions and seek professional help. Just keep in mind that the longer you harbor ill will, the more it keeps you from healing whole.
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