Anger and Forgiveness

Lately, I've been thinking about the correlation between anger and forgiveness, and I understand how anger is such a strong, negative emotion that can define you if you let it. But is it really negative in all cases? Naturally your stress level increases when you’re angry and other health concerns can follow such as high blood pressure, depression, heart concerns, etc. Sure does sound negative, doesn’t it? But sometimes anger can push you to achieve things you might not have done otherwise. When you get angry at yourself for not doing something you fear, that anger can often be the motivator you need to help you overcome that fear. Sometimes, however, anger is an emotion we hide behind to avoid feeling deeper, painful emotions we don’t actually want to acknowledge.

But in some cases, we are already dealing with these painful emotions and our anger is justified if someone caused a trauma in our lives or hurt us deeply. Betrayal is one justifiable example. And not to be maudlin, but murder or negligence causing the death of a loved one would be other justifiable reasons in my opinion.

So when I hear stories of people forgiving the drunk driver who killed their child, or the husband who beat someone’s daughter until she died, I simply cannot fathom how they do this. Of course, there could be an underlying reason such as the husband was abused as a child and watched his father physically abuse his mother, but does that qualify as a reason to forgive this person when your loved and cherished daughter is now deceased?

I believe in some cases time automatically lessens our anger because we simply cannot function on a daily basis if we are consumed with rage. And depending on the circumstances and the person affected, the amount of time it takes to ease up a bit is different for everyone.

But forgiveness is a whole different story. You can say the words, but can you really feel it in your heart? Can you really convince your conscious and subconscious minds that you have forgiven the very person(s) who has traumatically changed your life forever?

I’m curious to hear how others feel about forgiveness and look forward to seeing your comments.