Changing your frame of mind makes all the difference
The act of forgiveness then delivers tangible, structural changes in the brain and body as neural networks that control stress, pain and awareness of threat – all, processes that increase stress hormones in the body and negatively impact physical and mental health are dialed down.
When you forgive, the brain changes physically. This means that you’re literally becoming a different person. Someone who learned from past experiences, grew and now is capable of doing things that before were, maybe just a dream. Don’t underestimate the power of the mind. By freeing it of “negative energy”, you allow it to focus on better and more productive things to do.
"It would give us some comfort if we could only forget a past that we cannot change. If we could only choose to forget the cruelest moments, we could, as time goes on, free ourselves from their pain. But the wrong sticks like a nettle in our memory. The only way to remove the nettle is with a surgical procedure called forgiveness." Lewis Smedes
Unfortunately, for now, we can’t forget specific things that affected us in the past. That’s the beauty of it though, reframing things in your mind, changing the way you think about a certain person/situation makes you grow and improve as a person. You forgive for yourself, so that you can move on.
If there was a pill that you could take to forget all the bad things, what would you know now? You would be a weaker person, that’s for sure. You need to face things head on to learn something useful. The easy way out is never a long-term solution. Furthermore, life can be pretty hard, what are you going to do, take the “memory pill” every time? What if you become addicted, what if you want to forget more and you end up by not remembering who you are? It’s definitely a slippery slope. You don’t want to go down that route.
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