To be unforgiving means I have an erroneous sense of power. If I can justify the wrong done to me, I can hold onto the inexcusable, deplorable, and abominable acts that harmed me. 

Like a long pity party, I can ruminate on my wounds which prolongs taking any action or making any effort to alter anything about myself. Unforgiveness can be an effortless state to live in. But, the long-term consequences can be hazardous to our health.

Awakening to Forgiveness

   Before we discover our need and the benefits of detaching ourselves from unforgiveness we need to grasp an understanding of how we arrived in the first place.  

The journey to forgiveness for me was a lengthy one because it took me a long time to face my unforgiveness. I knew I was angry, but I did not know that my anger was attached to unforgiveness.  My dad had ended his life, and my mom lied about it. I had two good reasons to feel enraged. 

In my mind, those two things should never have happened in the first place. My dad should have stuck around and Mom should never have lied. These were my expectations and to me they were reasonable beliefs. After all, moms and dads should be trustworthy to take care of their offspring and have their offspring’s best interest in mind. Obviously, something was wrong with my parents since they’d failed to take my needs into consideration.

Because of my parent’s wrongdoing, my life had turned out to be miserable. As long as I held onto blaming them, then I could justify my anger and my misery. Although my state of unforgiveness was an unconscious thought, it still drove my anger, resentment, bitterness, defensiveness and grudges. I was a woman consumed with many fears and anxious beyond all measure. 

Then, the thought of forgiveness entered my mind. I’d grown sick and tired of my ways and had been searching for a solution. My search had taken me to a monastery where I first learned about contemplative prayer. In its simplest terms, contemplative prayer is the practice of sitting still and considering that God is God and I am not. Ruminating more on God and less on how my parents had hurt me, altered my thinking in such a way that I literally awakened to the idea of forgiving them. It was a “eureka” moment. 

Did my anger, resentment, bitterness, defensiveness and grudges disappear all at once? No, but gradually over time they did. Forgiving my parents was the first step in learning to think differently about myself and others, and about letting go of expectations no matter how realistic they felt to me. As my anger, resentment, bitterness, defensiveness and grudges lessened, so did my  anxiety and fear.

Why bother being unforgiving? We can stay in a state of unforgiveness without any effort. But forgiveness puts us in an altogether better state of mind and is never hazardous to our health.