Forgiveness: what it does to your brain?

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When we start to think about forgiveness

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there are a variety of
different areas of our brain

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that are part of that process.

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So for example part of what has to happen initially is that

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you have to have some kind of injury right.

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Somebody has to hurt your feelings

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or hurt you either
psychologically or physically

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and you have to be
able to recognize that injury.

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You have to have
a memory of that injury

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and you have to understand how that
injury is related to another person

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that they did this that
they're responsible for that.

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Those are three very
important cognitive processes

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if somebody for example
has Alzheimer's disease

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and you go in and you insult them
and then you walk out of the room

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and come back a few minutes later
and they don't remember.

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That's not forgiveness
that's just that they forgot.

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So part of it is being
able to remember the injury

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to be able to use our emotional
centers to feel the injury.

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And that's very important.

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And then ultimately how we
try to process through it

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that is a very essential
aspect of forgiveness as well.

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And there are different
ways of doing that.

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For some people it can be a recognition
that well we're all human beings.

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We're all imperfect.

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And so I'm not perfect.

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The other person is not perfect,
I'll forgive them.

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Sometimes as you mentioned with
some of the more religious individuals

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sometimes it is a religious process.

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It is the notion that we must
follow what God tells us to do,

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or we are all God's children.

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And even though this person has
done something very bad to me,

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they are still a creation of God

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and I will forgive them
as part of that process

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and let God deal with them separately.

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That's not for me to make that kind of determination.

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So there can
be many others as well.

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And ultimately what happens
is that forgiveness process

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eventually leads to very
positive emotions for both

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the individual because you feel like
you have now done something beneficial

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and you have forgiven them.

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And also sometimes
engender's positive feelings

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and others or certainly in people
in the rest of the world

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or the rest of the community
who recognize

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that instead of trying to exact
revenge which is the other alternative

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you decided to do something that
was more loving and compassionate

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and they realized that your
beliefs and your ideas about

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how people should be dealt
with may be much more powerful

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and more important than those
people who espouse hatred.