Forgiveness & Letting Go
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.” - Colossians 3:13
Forgiveness can be a difficult concept to understand, and letting go can be an equally difficult action to take... especially if our approach is to hold someone or something else responsible for how we feel.
The truth is, we are all living our lives through our own individual lenses: our unique stories, experiences, patterns, and understandings. When does the topic of forgiveness even come up? When an external event (intentional or unintentional) clashes with our internal expectations, agreements, values, or perceptions (conscious or unconscious), creating an uncomfortable mismatch.
Congratulations - you got to have a human experience. The issue is when we continue to live in this experience. Sometimes the external circumstances end externally while continuing internally. And we just can’t let it go.
What exactly can’t we let go of? The mismatch can leave us feeling hurt, disrespected, or disregarded, driving us to interrogate what happened. Sometimes the impact is so deeply felt that we consciously or unconsciously develop new psychological and physiological adaptations to protect ourselves moving forward. Commonly referred to as being "emotionally unavailable" in relationship context, this protective distance can actually show up in all areas of life.
It can feel as though forgiveness or letting go requires us to excuse what happened, minimize its impact on us, forget it entirely, reconcile with the person, or accept that their actions were okay, leaving us afraid that we'll experience that same painful mismatch all over again. And the ego doesn’t like that. It puts us in a state of fear, of fight or flight.
(For further reading, check out: Life is our Teacher)
Om Mani Padme Hum – A Perspective on Forgiveness & Letting Go
Several autumns ago, I needed a mental reset so I decided to take my motorcycle out and stop by the Buddhist monastery up the road for an outdoor meditation. If you're thinking a sleek, sporty, lightweight bike, you're wrong. I have a beefy, heavy, loud, old-man cruiser. As soon as I rode down the gravel road leading up to the monastery, it hit me how loud I was coming in, and I felt terrible for being so disruptive. To my surprise, not one of the three meditating monks even flinched.
I made my way over to sit and began to reflect: if I had been sitting there and someone rode in on a loud motorcycle, I probably would've lost my concentration, glanced in disapproval, or maybe even said something, at least in my head.
It brought to mind a beautiful Buddhist mantra: Om Mani Padme Hum; often translated as "the jewel in the lotus." The visual I was taught years prior when I heard of this mantra was: The lotus plant grows out of murky mud; it needs that mud to thrive and bloom. Yet despite where it grows, the inside of the flower (jewel = Mani) itself remains untainted, holding its radiant, inner essence clean.
I realized that if I was in the position of the monk, I would have been focused entirely on the mud - the noise and distraction. The monks kept their focus on the jewel.
Forgiveness isn’t about becoming a doormat, enduring harm, or accepting disrespect. You have a birthright to feel safe and healthy, and to advocate for yourself and those in need. Instead, it’s learning to recognize the mud for what it is- a part of life’s landscape, without letting it touch your inner peace. Everyone’s got mud, but what’s supportive of one doesn’t have to be supportive of you. After all, if you walked in their exact shoes (I know you have someone in mind), you might have done the same thing(s).
It is choosing to free ourselves from carrying the weight of what happened so we can live from a clear, grounded mind. So that the decisions we make next come from a healthy place and support our highest good. The point of forgiveness and letting go is to remove the burden from yourself and return to the inner jewel, which was never damaged in the first place.
Oh, and then I had to turn my motorcycle back on to leave the monastery.
Forgiveness and Mental Health
Too "woo-woo" for you? Let’s make it scientific.
When we talk about letting go, it isn't just a soft philosophical idea—it is a measurable shift in brain structure and nervous system function. Neuroimaging studies show that unforgiveness acts as a chronic stress response, locking the brain into rumination and threat detection. Granting forgiveness actively rewires how your brain processes emotional pain [3].
The Neuroanatomy of Forgiveness
Using fMRI technology to look directly inside the brain, researchers mapped out the exact neural networks responsible for forgiveness [3]:
· Activating the Brain’s Control Center: Deciding to forgive engages the prefrontal cortex—specifically the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)—which regulate impulse control, override reactive emotional outbursts, and manage negative affect [3].
· Engaging Empathy Networks: Forgiveness lights up the precuneus and the temporoparietal junction, the areas of the brain responsible for "theory of mind"—our cognitive ability to understand another person's perspective and contextualize their behavior [3].
· Calming the Threat Response: Granting forgiveness dampens hyperactivity in the limbic system, taking your amygdala off high alert and switching off the body's chronic fight-or-flight stress signal [3].
Releasing Anger and Rebuilding Hope
This neurological reset directly translates into psychological well-being through two parallel pathways [1]:
· Dismantling Rumination: Unforgiveness keeps the mind locked in repetitive loops about the past event [1]. Forgiveness serves as a structured release valve for that resentment, lowering clinical scores for anger, anxiety, and depressive symptoms [1].
· Restoring Future Hope: Releasing past resentments frees up cognitive bandwidth, allowing you to rebuild self-esteem, agency, and future optimism rather than remaining stuck in past hurts [1].
A Shield Against Everyday Stress
Looking at how we navigate interpersonal conflict, higher levels of forgiveness act as a protective buffer for daily life [2]:
· Lowering Clinical Stress Markers: Forgiveness directly correlates with lower scores for depression, daily anxiety, and overall psychological distress caused by interpersonal friction [2].
· Building Emotional Resilience: Instead of internalizing conflict or shutting down emotionally, practicing forgiveness strengthens self-worth, emotional regulation, and resilience when facing future disagreements [2].
Ready to Forgive and Let Go?
Here are a few key things to understand:
Zooming In: Self-Awareness
Sometimes there are situations when letting go starts with forgiving ourselves. And before we can do that, we need self-awareness, self-introspection. Are there stories, patterns, and fears we are holding onto that contribute to our external mismatches? Is a mismatch partly the result of our own expectations, personalities, or behaviors? Can we recognize this, accept it as our own, and forgive ourselves or let go of what no longer serves us?
Zooming Out: The Bigger Picture
Sometimes there are situations where letting go requires zooming our awareness out. The driver in front of you is driving too slow, it rains on a day you planned to be outside, or someone didn’t hold the door for you. There are countless variables that had to happen for you to experience that exact moment, and most of them have nothing to do with you personally. This is often the easiest place to start practicing because we don't have to allow these minor disruptions to reach the deeper layers of our nervous system and create micro impressions throughout the day. So maybe the person who didn’t hold the door for you didn’t realize or was running late. Zooming out helps take these situations less personally and not linger within.
Navigating Deep Hurts
What about the person who intentionally or unintentionally hurt, disrespected, or lied to you? Once again, forgiveness and letting go doesn’t mean tolerating harm. It is for removing the burden from your nervous system. But it's not always easy, I know.
You might say, "I forgive you," or "I let it go," or, the most telling one, "I don't care," but the rumination continues. Why? Because the shift in awareness hasn't fully happened yet, which is fine… it takes practice and understanding. Forgiveness and letting go is a shift in awareness, not a game of superiority or inferiority. As mentioned earlier, if you had walked in their exact shoes, you might have done the same thing. In some situations, can we use that realization to transform what we feel into compassion for the other person? And in turn, can we extend that same compassion toward ourselves and what we are carrying?
In some situations, what we’re carrying provides an opportunity to learn or understand ourselves in a way we had not. Is there something that you can appreciate, change, or align with differently because of the situation?
And anytime rumination comes up, I often encourage my clients to ride it out without getting involved in it. Let the disturbances of the nervous system rise to the surface, and witness what they are expressing as the experiencer rather than becoming consumed by the experience.
People pay money to ride roller coasters for a little fight-or-flight activation… think of this as your own internal amusement park.
Then, when you find a moment to catch yourself, you can begin to take your power back from the external situation. Rather than continuing to follow every thought or feeling, see what happens when you shift your awareness: zoom in, zoom out, or simply look at the experience from a different perspective.
Training the Nervous System
In my opinion, it is a beautiful thing to be a person who feels deeply rather than too little. There is nothing wrong with feeling the impact of life's mismatches, that just means you're getting the full human experience. It becomes unhealthy when we get stuck in that experience. When you choose to move with forgiveness and drop the stories that no longer serve you, you level up to a new opportunity that the lens of being stuck wouldn't have allowed you to see.
But it takes practice. It takes self-reflection. Start with low-hanging fruit first (like the person driving slow in front of you). Just like working out, we have to train the nervous system in steps and consistently; to move in the way of self-awareness and zooming in and out of ourselves. That is the true beauty of it all: the growth that comes from each shift, transition, and attempt.
Personal Note
I completely understand how painful these situations can be, and I truly empathize with that. I am not saying we should "just get over it." But eventually, when you are ready, this is the only healthy way to move forward: not by continuing to ruminate and act on it, not by suppressing it, and not by masking it with other things, but by allowing yourself to feel, reflect and practice that shift in awareness.
I also don't want to make this sound like it needs to be such a painstaking process. I've had clients where, in talking to them over just one or two sessions, everything that needs to be said is said, and what needs to be felt is felt. They have a moment of shift in awareness about it all, and it creates almost like a vacuum, which we fill with healing, and they feel like they’ve shed such a heavy burden.
Written by: Vivek Patel, MSN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC
Medical Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for individualized medical advice.
References
[1] Kim JJ, Payne ES, Tracy EL. Indirect Effects of Forgiveness on Psychological Health Through Anger and Hope: A Parallel Mediation Analysis. J Relig Health. 2022 Oct;61(5):3729-3746. doi: 10.1007/s10943-022-01518-4. PMID: 35190955; PMCID: PMC10120569.
[2] Bonete S, Molinero C, Sendra S, González De Abreu AM. A path to better mental health among emerging adults: forgiveness as a solution to interpersonal conflicts. Front Psychol. 2025 Oct 23;16:1477283. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1477283. PMID: 41209801; PMCID: PMC12588850.
[3] Ricciardi E, Rota G, Sani L, Gentili C, Gaglianese A, Guazzelli M, Pietrini P. How the brain heals emotional wounds: the functional neuroanatomy of forgiveness. Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Dec 9;7:839. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00839. PMID: 24367315; PMCID: PMC3856773.
