How To Forgive Even When You are Still Angry

One of the hardest things to do is to forgive. We cling to our resentment and can hold a grudge for years. The problem is, the person we are really hurting is ourselves. So, how do you forgive even when you are still angry?

What Happens When We Don’t Forgive?

Psychological Symptoms of Resentment

When you refuse to forgive and cling to blame, you become filled with a resentment that colours every area of your life. It taints your relationships and fills your mind with negativity. You become stuck in the past, unable to enjoy the present.

Often, you replay the event over and over in your head, triggering the same stress responses the original event created. Your mind can’t tell the difference between an actual event and you replaying the event in your head, therefore it creates the same stress response in your body. On top of that, the Law of Attraction states that what you focus your attention on is what you create. So what you are creating when you are filled with resentment? If you guessed sunshine and rainbows, I hate to tell you but you’re wrong. You actually will be attracting more events that will create the same resentment in you.

If the Law of Attraction is a little too Woo for you, how about your reticulating brain? The reticulating brain filters out information you don’t need. How does it determine what you do and do not need? It bases it on your beliefs and what you spend your time thinking about. If you are full of resentment, you have a belief that you were wronged. Your brain will look for events that match that belief. You won’t notice anything that contradicts that belief, thus creating more resentment within.

Having this negative tunnel vision will prevent you from perceiving the opportunities that are available to you. You will become stuck in a life full of malevolence. A malevolence that hurts you more than anyone else.

Physical Symptoms of Resentment

Not only does being unable to forgive hurt you psychologically, hanging on to our resentment can actually be detrimental to our physical health. Yes, not forgiving your best friend from high school for wearing the same outfit as you to prom, can actually make you sick.

Resentment, is a lot like extreme stress. It messes with your hormones and throws the delicate balance out of whack. If left unchecked, you can experience minor and major health issues.

When you become attached to those feelings of bitterness and outrage, they become toxic. Overtime, those emotions lead to escalated anxiety, depression and anger. You can experience elevated blood pressure, insomnia, a weakened immune system, post traumatic stress and even vascular resistance, all from being unable to forgive.

Why is it So Hard to Forgive?

One of the reasons forgiveness is so hard is because we believe the person doesn’t deserve our forgiveness. We think that if we forgive them, than it must mean they were right or that we somehow deserved their mistreatment. How do you forgive someone when they did something so terrible to you?

We also struggle with forgiveness out of fear. We fear that if we forgive, it will make us vulnerable to being hurt again. So we harden our heart and use resentment as a shield to protect us form ever being hurt again. How do you forgive if it will open you up to being hurt again?

Finally, we just don’t know how to forgive. Where do you start? What do you do? How do you forgive when you have no idea where to begin?

What is Forgiveness?

Most of us struggle with understanding what forgiveness actually is.

Forgiving someone is more for us, than the other person. To forgive someone does not mean that they were justified in their actions. We are not providing excuses for them.

Forgiving them does not mean that the relationship has magically been repaired.In fact, the relationship still may be over even if we have forgiven the person. You don’t even have to tell them that they are forgiven.

Our forgiveness does not make them right. It simply means that we are not going to cling to that toxic energy of resentment that is poisoning us anymore. We are not going to continue to play the event in our head on repeat. We are not going to live in the past, but rather move into the present moment.

Forgiveness means we are ready to be free of our resentment.

How To Forgive; Seven Steps to Forgiveness

1. Examine your feelings:

How do you really feel about what happened? Often we get so caught up in how we think we should feel, that we don’t realize how we actually feel. For instance, if a partner cheats on you, you may react with anger. However, if you take the time to examine your feelings a little deeper, you may find you feel hurt and betrayed. When you look underneath the feelings of hurt, you may find that you are questioning whether or not you are worthy of love. It is difficult to move to a place of forgiveness until you are aware of how you are really feeling.

2. You have to choose to forgive:

Once you make the decision to forgive, you can start the process of healing. Until you decide that you want to forgive, you will continue to hold on to your animosity.

3. Change your perspective:

Try putting yourself in the other persons shoes. Did they set out to deliberately hurt you or were their actions unintentional? Most people don’t set out to hurt others, they are simply too focused on fulfilling their own needs to notice what they are doing.

4. Decide if you want to tell the other person you have forgiven them:

You can forgive someone and not tell them. They do not have to have any part in your forgiveness, because again, forgiveness is for you not them. You are the one that needs to heal.

5. Find the lesson:

Our entire lives are filled with lessons to help guide us along our path. When we are hurt by another person, there is often a lesson in it. An example may be, if we leant money to someone and they never repaid you. Although you may be tempted to believe the lesson is don’t lead money to anyone, if you look deeper, you may find that when they asked for the money you got a really bad feeling. You wanted to say no, but you didn’t want them to think badly of you. So, the lesson isn’t don’t lend money to anyone, it’s listen too your intuition when it’s trying to warn you that you are on the wrong path.

6. Be in the Now:

Holding a grudge is all about living in the past, being stuck in a time loop. You are reliving the moment you were betrayed over and over again. You imagine it as it really happened, you imagine what would have happened if you had done something different or if someone else had intervened. The truth is, the past is unchangeable, clinging to it only keeps you from moving forward. Let go and focus on this moment, because this moment is the only one you can change.

7. Move forward:

Now it’s time to move on. Do everything in your power to move forward and live the best life you can. Don’t look back.

How To Forgive Yourself?

What if the person you can’t forgive is yourself? For many of us, forgiving ourselves is much more difficult than forgiving someone else.

We hold ourselves to higher standards and expect so much more from ourselves than we would ever expect from someone else. It helps to remember that everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect.

By forgiving yourself, like forgiving others, you are not making excuses for yourself. Therefore, the first step is to take responsibility for your actions. Admit to your mistake. You won’t be able to heal until you can accept that you have done something wrong.

Once you own up to your actions, apologize to anyone you may have hurt. Take the time to do whatever you can to repair the situation and heal the relationship.

Much like when we forgive others, when we forgive ourselves it is important to look for the lesson. If we don’t learn from our mistakes we will continue to make them.

The final step to forgiving ourselves is to move on. Punishing ourselves is not going to change what happened. All we can do is move forward with the knowledge we have gained.

A Letter of Forgiveness

Writing letters is a very popular exercises for finding forgiveness and is extremely effective. It can be used as a tool to forgive others and ourselves.

To write a letter for forgiveness, address the letter to the person you have to forgive. Then write out everything you are feeling about the situation without censoring yourself. Basically, write down everything you need to get off your chest.

Start with:

Anger — write about your anger and frustration

Sadness — move on to why you are sad and disappointed. What made you sad then and now?

Fear — What are you afraid of or worried about?

Regret — What are you sorry about? Is there anything you regret about the situation.

Close the letter with “I forgive you for…” and “I am grateful for..”

At this point add anything else you feel is important.

Sign the letter and put it in an envelope. You can give it to the other person or you can burn it. Either way is just as effective. If you decide you want to give it to someone, I recommend waiting a day or two before sending it to them. Sometimes we make those decisions while we are caught up in our emotions and regret it when we have calmed down.

How To Forgive With Affirmations?

Once you have examined your feelings, you may want to use some affirmations to come to a place of forgiveness. Remember, affirmations are positive statements that are in the present tense.

You can use affirmations as often as you like, but they are more effective if you repeat them daily. If you find you are slipping back into feelings of resentment, you can repeat your affirmations in the moments you feel most bitter, to help you move to a more positive feeling.

Here are a couple affirmations for forgiveness to get you started:

• I recognize my mistakes and forgive myself completely
• I’m letting go of the past to find forgiveness right now
• I release all self judgement and doubt
• When I make mistakes, I learn from them and forgive myself completely
• I choose to forgive myself
• I’m letting go of all grudges and resentments and I am at peace
• I forgive all those who have wronged me and choose peace instead
• I choose to forgive others