Tagged: “resentment”

Letting go of Grudges & Improving Your Health

Dr. Robert Enright

On April 10, 2026, Dr. Enright interviewed with the reporter, Ariana Cha, on the topic of forgiveness.  The article appeared in the Washington Post newspaper with the title,

How to Let Go of Grudges: And Why It Could Be Good for Your Overall Health.

This information was published here on April 28, 2026, but the link involved a paywall. The article now can be accessed free of charge here:

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/national-post-latest-edition/20260522/282029038877975

The Forgiving Heart: Cultivating Compassion

Tina Simakova, Pexels.com

At times, scholars who study forgiveness use a term called “decisional forgiveness.”  It refers more to the mind than the heart as the person thinks about forgiveness and commits to reducing anger and increasing mercy toward those who have been unfair.  While thinking about forgiveness is important, it is reductionistic to define forgiveness, which is a moral virtue (Song, Enright, & Kim, 2025), primarily as a cognitive activity. This is the case because any moral virtue is much broader than that, including thinking, behaving, and feeling toward the one who acted unjustly.

The purpose of this essay is to focus on forgiveness from the heart, from one’s feelings as a vital part of the forgiveness process.  As you cultivate a more holistic view and practice of forgiveness that goes beyond decision-making, you may find a deeper and more satisfying way to respond to those who have hurt you.  Consider seven exercises to strengthen the forgiving heart.

1. What Exactly Is Compassion?

In this first exercise, we will be somewhat philosophical. The point is to understand compassion deeply enough so that you can define what it is. Compassion includes the emotion of caring for others who are in need, for example, due to unfortunate decisions or unexpected life circumstances that engender suffering. Compassion is a softening of the heart toward others, including a willingness to suffer with the other. When we forgive with compassion, we move from a wounded heart to a softened heart. It is distinguished from reconciliation, which includes mutual trust and a behavioral coming together. Aristotle connected compassion to the moral virtue of kindness toward others. Compassion can stir the heart to action, or helping those in need.

2. Don’t Start with Forgiveness, but Start with a Little Compassion 

In this exercise, the point is not to apply a sense of compassion toward those who have been cruel to you.  Instead, let us step back from all this hurt and turn to a time when one person unconditionally showed you compassion.  Maybe this happened when you were a child, fell and hurt yourself, and your mother embraced you, comforting and protecting you.  This is compassion toward you.  Take some time to think of one such incident and reflect upon it, letting it abide in your heart.  Stay with this image until you can truly say, “Yes, this experience convinces me that I have been the recipient of others’ compassion.”

3. When Have You Been a Giver of Compassion? 

The point of exercise 3 again is not to apply this directly toward those who offended you.  Now, please think of a time in which you (not someone else) exercised compassion toward someone who needed your help.  Maybe it was spending much time with a friend who was grieving. Maybe it was helping a neighbor or co-worker under pressure and needed someone to rely on, who was you.  When did you serve another person by exercising this compassion? Let this abide in your heart.  Stay with this image  until you can truly say, “Yes, this experience convinces me that I can be compassionate in this way.”

4. Without Turning Yet to Compassion, Now Bring the One Who Hurt You into Your Awareness.  

We start not with the heart, but with the mind.  Can you think of any time in which the one who hurt you was so wounded that those wounds were passed to you?  I do not ask so that you can excuse what the other person did.  Instead, the point is to understand the person better, as this someone who has gone through pain.  Who is this person?  Is this someone who has been carrying wounds from others, even for years?  What might it be like for this person, deep inside, with such a wounded heart?  As you engage in this exercise, can you sense that your heart is moving, even if slowly, from an entrenched anger or a deep resentment to, perhaps, a different form of feeling?  Might you be shifting from resentment to mourning about what happened to you?  Might your heart be shifting from anger toward sadness toward the other for what was endured by this person?

5. Take Some Time to Put All of This Together. 

Take some time to understand that: a) You understand compassion; b) you have experienced compassion from another or others; c) you see clearly that you have offered compassion to others; and d) you see the one who hurt you as hurting.  Who are you as a person?  Who are you, given that you have experienced the giving and receiving of compassion in your life?  You are more than your wounds.  Take some time to reflect on this.

6. Take the Compassion Test Before Applying It to the Offending Person. 

I will give you six questions here. Please answer yes or no and defend your answers.  Question 1: Is it reasonable to try to feel another’s pain and serve this person even if it is difficult for you to do so? Why or why not? Question 2: Can compassion build you up in your own humanity? Why or why not? Question 3: Can compassion refresh you, the one who was cruel to you, and others with whom you frequently interact? Why or why not? Question 4: Can compassion, practiced over time, help to heal a wounded heart? Why or why not? Question 5: Do you want to live a life with more compassion? Why or why not?

7. Now, Put the Pieces of Compassion Together, a Little at a Time, Toward the One Who Hurt You.   

When you are ready, first cultivate that sense of receiving compassion and being compassionate toward others into your heart from Exercises 1 and 2 above.  With that softness now in your heart, ask yourself this: Can I extend this compassion, even a little bit, toward the one who was cruel to me? How might this aid the person in growing in humanity? How might it help me and our potential renewed relationship? Take your time here. Be aware of small but important transformations in your heart. Be aware of the positive change in yourself when you ask: Who am I, truly, as a person, and what do I want to leave behind as my legacy when I leave this world?

Conclusion

In the end, you have a choice. You can forgive with a sense of being respectful toward the other and not bring compassion into the process if you are not ready.  Be aware of your readiness to extend your compassion toward those who are not good to you.  As you decide to include compassion in your forgiveness process, you are exercising forgiveness more deeply, perhaps than ever before. The outcome might be a surprising joy that you receive as you practice forgiveness from the heart.

Reference: Song, J., Enright, R.D., & Kim, J. (2025). Definitional drift within the science of forgiveness: The dangers of avoiding philosophical analyses. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 45(1), 3-24.

Is There Ever an Obligation to Forgive?

Mikhail Nilov , Pexels.com

So often people exhort others not to force others to forgive.  The current advice so often seen in print is this: Forgiveness is the choice of the forgiver, not the demand of the one who acted unjustly.  Yet an article published in Acta Analytica on February 10, 2026, by Sam Ridge, entitled “The Right to Forgiveness,” challenges the current norms.  He makes the interesting claim that if a person promises to forgive, then this becomes an expectation.  As an analogy, if Harold promises to mow a neighbor’s lawn by Saturday and then does not follow through, there remains an expectation that the lawn will be mowed by Harold.  It is similar with forgiveness.  For example, if a father asks his daughter, “Why were you out so late last night?  It is ok to tell me.  If I do not like your answer, I will forgive you.”  The promise creates the expectation that it will be kept.  The challenge, then, is this: Forgiveness is not solely in the hands of the forgiver; it can become an obligation to the other person if a promise is attached to the forgiving.

The article can be read here:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12136-026-00676-4

Is Forgiveness Good for Your Health?

cottonbro studio, Pexels.com

A new article on forgiveness (How to let go of grudges — and why it could be good for your health) was published online by the Washington Post on Thursday, April 23, 2026.  The article is behind a paywall ($2 for a one-time purchase of this one article) and can be found at this link! 

What Is the Difference Between Forgiving and Walking Away?

Rahime Gül, Pexels.com

I recently received a thoughtful letter from someone who has suffered gravely and extensively from others’ unjust actions.  The letter was a response to an article in the Washington Post newspaper, published on Thursday, April 23, 2026 entitled, How to let go of grudges—-and why it could be good for your health.

Because the letter writer asked such an interesting question (What is the difference between forgiving and walking away?), I wanted to share my response while protecting the privacy of the person.  Here is my reply:

I am sorry to hear of the terribly unjust actions that you have experienced in your life.  You certainly deserve none of this.

Forgiveness is a moral virtue in which you try to be good to those who have not been good to you.  Basically, it is trying to cultivate mercy toward them.  Walking away is different in that people can walk away with indifference, or even annoyance or hatred in their hearts.

I find that when people are treated very cruelly by others,  it is difficult to walk away with a healed heart.  Forgiveness is a powerful medicine for reducing, and even curing, the resentments that can literally last for the rest of a person’s life.  Some people reject the idea of forgiveness or are not ready for it.  In my experience, people who reject forgiveness actually misunderstand it, equating it with excusing what others did, with automatically reconciling (which a person does not have to do when forgiving), or with throwing justice under the bus.  A person can forgive and seek justice.

So, if you think you are ready, you could start with a person who was not exceptionally cruel to you.  Learn the forgiveness process with this one person.  If forgiveness then seems reasonable to you, try another person, again choosing someone who was not extremely cruel to you.  If you want to continue, keep choosing others who have hurt you a little more than the previous person you have forgiven.  Eventually, you will be at the top of the pyramid, forgiving those who were exceptionally cruel to you.

If you accomplish all of this forgiving, you will stand triumphant, with a reduced resentment that might surprise you.  Those who treated you cruelly then will have no emotional power over you in that the resentments remaining in your closet will be substantially reduced or eliminated.

If you go on this journey, I wish you the very best.  Please let me know if you have any other questions about forgiveness.