At some point in time, someone will wrong you. It might be big or it might be small. Whenever it happens, and I can almost guarantee that it will, you will have a choice to make. Will you choose to forgive them and move on with your life or will you hold that grudge and those ugly emotions?
Whether it is someone cutting you off in traffic, someone cheating on you, or someone getting your promotion. You always have a choice to make. Here are five reasons why you should choose to forgive the person who wrongs you.
Helps Your Health
When you forgive someone, you are helping out your own health. If you decide to not forgive someone, you end up harboring emotions like anger, frustration, disappointment, and more. They become constant stress on your heart and body but especially when you think about that person or interact with them. This is not healthy for you.
It is reasonable to hold this resentment for them for a little bit, but at some point, the best thing you can do is to let it go and move on with your life. It’s better for you to forgive.
Take the High Road
Forgiving is the high road. It is the more morally correct path. The action that proverbs speak on and people aspire to. By forgiving, you are being a better person and showing others in your life, and yourself, that you can take that route and be successful.
You don’t want to become the person who holds every slight against them close to their heart and never forgives. That is a toxic attitude and one that will not be good for anyone involved. Take the higher road and be the better person, forgive them.
Everyone Makes Mistakes
They made a mistake. It might have been a giant one, but they still messed up. Something that everyone does. You mess up and I mess up. We all have failed and let people down in one way or another at some point in our lives.
Forgiving someone who makes a mistake does not mean that you are forgetting about the mistake or that you are willing to let them do it again. It just means that you won’t carry it on your heart. You will let it go and allow yourself to move on from it peacefully.
Helps You Move On
It is hard to move on from something if you don’t forgive. Forgiving is moving on. If you never stop blaming Jerry for eating your meatloaf, then you will never be able to move on from it. If you don’t forgive him, every time you see Jerry you will probably become angry because he ate your food.
Maybe every time you see meatloaf you will be reminded of that time. You cannot move on from something if you don’t first forgive. Forgiveness allows for peace. Forgiveness helps take you from the past to enjoy your present. It is a calm to the chaos so that you can move on.
Inner Peace and Healing
Forgiving someone who has wronged you is worth it. It is worth it for you and for them. Everyone involved benefits in one way or another. You might feel like you benefit the least because you were the person harmed initially. This might be true, but you will not benefit at all by not forgiving.
Forgiving allows for healing. Perhaps healing for both parties, but most importantly it helps you find peace. At its root forgiveness is not about the other person especially when the transgression is egregious. What they did might have been awful, but when you forgive you do it for you.
Forgiving Others Helps You Forgive Yourself
When you forgive others, it becomes easier to forgive yourself. Grace is contagious. Often when we identify and realize how resentment, anger and grudges affect us when they are about other people, we can also see how those affect us when they are about things, we find difficult to forgive ourselves for. When you forgive them, it becomes much easier to forgive yourself.
Would you like to learn more about Forgiveness?
Check out my Forgiveness Mini-course with Workbook and Journal!
