Why do people need to learn how to forgive?
I have worked with college students, middle-aged adults and women from Northern Ireland who have lost their children to violence. Research shows a reasonably brief training in forgiveness helps people in almost every way it’s measured. They become less angry, more hopeful, calmer and more self-confident – it frees them in a way they would have never anticipated before the forgiveness training. Other research has shown that short training in forgiveness can help physical well-being as well. The negative physical responses when you’re frustrated or angry are meant to exist for a short period only. Our body has exquisitely designed mechanisms to alert us to danger and to give us energy to get out. After that short period, it’s wearing on your body. Without the skills to turn it off, you store that piece of anger – and then the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Each one of those is corroding your body’s finely tuned balance. It can wear out your nervous system because it simply
