shown that holding a grudge keeps your body in a state of stress. When you practice forgiveness, your blood pressure and heart rate decrease.
• Choosing to forgive increases your tolerance to pain. In a 2005 study of patients with chronic low back pain, anger increased psychological distress and decreased a person’s tolerance to pain. A willingness to forgive was associated with increased pain tolerance.
• Unconditional forgiveness can help you to live longer. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine discovered that when people were only willing to forgive others under certain conditions—like the other person apologized or promised to never repeat the same behavior—their risk of dying early actually increased. You don’t have any control over whether someone will apologize. Waiting to forgive people until they say they’re sorry gives them control over not just your life, but perhaps even your death.
Troubleshooting and Common Traps
Monitor your personal power and look for ways in which you are voluntarily giving it away. It takes hard work, but increasing your mental strength requires you to retain every ounce of personal power for yourself.
What’s Helpful
Using language that acknowledges your choice such as, “I’m choosing to . . .”
Setting healthy emotional and physical boundaries with people
Behaving proactively by making conscious choices about how you’ll respond to others
Taking full responsibility for how you choose to spend your time and energy
Choosing to forgive individuals regardless of whether they seek to make amends
Willingness to examine feedback and criticism without jumping to conclusions
What’s Not Helpful
Using language that implies you’re a victim, such as “I have to do this,” or “My boss makes me so mad”
Feeling anger and resentment toward people you allow to infringe on your rights
Reacting to others and then blaming them for the way you handled yourself
Doing things you don’t want to do and then blaming others for “making” you do it
Choosing to hold a grudge and harbor anger and resentment
Allowing feedback and criticism to control how you feel about yourself
They Don’t Shy away from Change
It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t . . . It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not. —JAMES GORDON
Richard entered my therapy office because he wasn’t making much progress in managing his physical health. At the age of forty-four, he was seventy-five pounds overweight and had recently been diagnosed with diabetes.
Shortly after his diagnosis, he’d met with a nutritionist and learned about the diet changes he’d need to make to lose weight and manage his blood sugar. Initially, he tried eliminating all the junk food he had always eaten so regularly. He’d gone so far as to throw away all the ice cream, cookies, and sugary soft drinks he had in his home. But within two days, he found himself buying more sweets and resorting to his old habits.
He was also aware that he’d need to increase his activity level if he wanted to get healthier. After all, he was no stranger to exercise. Back in high school, he’d been a star athlete on the football field and the basketball court. But these days, he spent the majority of his time sitting behind a computer. He worked long hours and wasn’t sure how he’d find the time to exercise. He’d purchased a gym membership, but he’d only gone to the gym twice. He usually came home from work exhausted, and he already felt like he wasn’t spending enough time with his wife and children.
Richard told me that he really wanted to get healthier. But he felt frustrated. Despite understanding the risks of being overweight and the dangers of not managing his diabetes, he just couldn’t motivate himself to change his unhealthy habits.
It was clear that he was trying to change too much too fast, which is a recipe for failure. I recommended he choose one thing to change at a time and for the first week, he said he’d give up the cookies he usually ate at his desk during the afternoon. It was important to find something to replace that habit with—and he decided he would try snacking on carrot sticks instead.
I also recommended he gain support to help him become healthier. He agreed to attend a diabetes support group. And over the next few weeks we discussed strategies to help get his family involved. His wife attended a few therapy sessions with him, and she began to understand steps she could take to help Richard improve his health. She agreed not to buy as much junk food when she went grocery shopping, and she began working with Richard on finding healthier recipes for their meals.
We also discussed a realistic exercise schedule. Richard said that almost every day he left the house planning to go to the gym after work, but he always talked himself out of it and went straight home. We decided he’d start by going to the gym three days a week and he scheduled those three days ahead of time. He also kept a list of all the reasons why going to the gym was a good idea in the car. On the days when he began thinking that he should just go home instead of going to the gym, he read over his list as a reminder about why going to the gym was the best choice, even if he didn’t feel like it.
Over the next two months, Richard began losing weight. But his blood sugar was still fairly high. He admitted that he was still eating a lot of junk food in the evenings while he watched TV. I encouraged him to find ways to make it less convenient for him to reach for sugary snacks, so he decided that he’d keep the sweet treats downstairs in the basement. Then, when he wandered into the kitchen in the evenings, he’d be more likely to reach for a healthy snack. If he still wanted cookies, he’d have to think about whether he wanted to go down to the basement to get them and most of the time, he found that he was more motivated to reach for a healthier snack. As soon as he started making progress, he found it easier to make more changes. Eventually, he was able to feel more inspired to lose weight and manage his blood sugar.
To Change or Not to Change
Although it’s often easy to say you want to change, successfully making a change is hard. Our thoughts and emotions often prevent us from creating behavioral change, even when it will improve our lives.
Many people shy away from making changes that can drastically improve their lives. See if any of the following apply to you:
