What Unforgiveness Does to your Brain...Charles Stone

"Unforgiveness not only keeps us chained to our offender but it profoundly affects our bodies and brains"
We've all been deeply hurt in some way.. a betrayal by a spouse, a behind-your-back criticism from a friend, hateful judgment from a colleague , unfair treatment by a parent or boss. And the deeper the hurt, the harder it is and the longer it takes us to forgive. But sometimes we simply don't forgive. We harbour a grudge. Resentment builds in our hearts. We nurse the offense. As a result, we remain prisoner to our pain and we harm our brain.
When someone hurts us, it's natural and normal to feel pain. God created our brains to help us survive when we feel threatened, it's called the fight-flight-freeze response generated in our emotional centers, primarily mediated by two almond shaped clusters of brain cells called amygdale. When the amygdalae are activated, a series of bio-chemical processes begin. The adrenal glands that lie on top of our kidneys release the stress hormone cortisol into our bodies and the brain releases neurotransmitters into the brain. Those in turn activate part of our nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system. When this system is activated, among other things, our attention gets highly focused on survival, our digestive system stops, our pupils dilate, our saliva glands slow, our blood pressure and heart rate increases, and our muscles are readied for action. Our body prepares itself to fight, flee or freeze.
Unforgiveness can keep our bodies and brains in this state of high alertness and leads to these unhealthy results.

• Rumination: We nurse and rehearse the hurt, which reinforces our negative emotions and burns the event and pain even deeper into our neuropathways. When we're not focused on a task, our inner self-talk will often default to rehearsing the painful solution.
• Diminished Memory: When we remain stressed for longs periods of time (i.e refuse to forgive), cortisol actually causes our brain to atrophy, especially our memory center called  the hippocampus.
• Amplified negative emotions: Prolonged stress also amplifies our amygdlae's sensitivity making us even  more susceptible to further hurt and pain
• Shadenfreude:  This concept describes the secret pleasure we feel when we see those who have hurt us experience misfortune themselves. It actually causes our brain to produce the pleasure neurotransmitter dopamine. It actually feels good to see bad things happen to those we don't forgive. It's  the opposite of praying for your enemies, which Jesus commanded us to do.

So what can we do? consider these insights to forgive those who have hurt you

1. first admit the pain:  when we name a painful emotion ( not stuffing or rehearsing it) we actually decreases that negative emotion's intensity.
2. Begin to choose to forgive the person:  Notice  that i used the word 'begin'. some offences can be quickly forgiven.  some may take a long time to fully forgive . Forgiveness is a process. The deeper the pain, the longer it takes. It's not so much forgive and forget. Rather, true forgiveness is more like remembering it less and less.
3. Draw deeply from God's grace:  At the root of the Christian faith lies grace, receiving God's grace and extending it to others who have hurt us.

The Apostle Paul reminded us in colosians 3:13 to forgive others as Jesus has forgiven us.

 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

By  Charles Stone

RESPONSE TO THE STORMS OF LIFE

As a Minister was addresing a group of young people,be took a large piece of paper and made a black dot in the center of it with a marking pen. Then he held the paper up before the group and asked them what they saw. One person quickly replied, “I see a black mark.” “Right,” the preacher replied. “What else do you see?” Complete silence prevailed. “Don’t you see anything other than the dot?” he asked. A chorus of noes came from the audience. “I’m really surprised,” the speaker commented. “You have completely overlooked the most important thing of all—the sheet of paper.” 
In life we are often distracted by small, dot-like disappointments or painful experiences, and we forget the countless blessings we receive from the hand of the Lord. But like the sheet of paper, the good things are far more important than the problems that grab our attention. 
Someone has written: “As you travel down life’s pathway, may this ever be your goal:/ Keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole!”
Someone said; “To realize the worth of the anchor we need to feel the storm.” –