Thought-provoking piece called “Letting Go” by Harriet Brown in the May issue of O The Oprah Magazine. It’s about forgiveness and Brown chronicles her experience with Fred Luskin, who holds a PhD in counseling and health psychology from Stanford University.
I’ve had such problems with forgiveness in the past and have worked hard to become more forgiving, so I found the article absorbing. Some takeaway passages:
~ “[Forgiveness] can lower blood pressure and heart rate and reduce levels of depression, anxiety and anger. People who forgive generally have more and better relationships with others, feel happier and more hopeful, and score higher on just about every measure of psychological well-being.”
~ “Not moving on — hanging on to resentment and rage — is tantamount to having an existential tantrum, according to Luskin. ‘We think the world owes us,’ he says. ‘But it doesn’t. Babies die when they’re born. Women are raped. Whole ethnic groups are wiped out. There’s no such thing as fair. The guy who loses a parking space to a more aggressive driver thinks, I want that parking space. A mother whose child has been murdered thinks, I want my child to be alive. Either way, that’s sometimes just not how it works.'”
