This practice is part of the
Time Required
5 minutes. You can repeat this exercise each time you find yourself ruminating on an experience when someone hurt you.
How to Do It
- Find a quiet place to sit. Relax for two minutes, breathing in and out naturally. During each exhale, focus on the word “one.” Try to keep your arms, legs, and body still if that is calming.
- Think of a time in the past when another person hurt or offended you.
- For the next two minutes, aim to think of the offender as a human being who behaved badly. Even if the relationship cannot be restored, try to genuinely wish that this person experiences something positive or healing. Even though it may be hard, focus your thoughts and feelings on giving a gift of mercy or compassion. Try to be aware of the thoughts, feelings, and physical responses you have as you cultivate compassion, kindness, and mercy for this person.
If this practice does not seem like a good fit, you can also try Eight Essentials When Forgiving or Nine Steps to Forgiveness.
Why You Should Try It
When we are hurt or betrayed by someone, it’s understandable to feel angry and view the person in a negative light. However, persistently dwelling on these painful feelings can keep us stuck in a grudge, which is highly stressful and wreaks havoc on our physical and mental health.
One way to loosen the grip of anger and hostility is to change the way we think about the person who hurt us. Research suggests that when people view offenders as fallible human beings who behaved badly but have the potential to change, they experience emotional and physiological benefits, such as increased positive emotions and a more stress-resilient cardiovascular system.
Why It Works
Instead of just trying to reduce the negative emotions associated with a hurtful event, Letting Go of Anger through Compassion helps us replace them with feelings of compassion and forgiveness. It allows us to develop genuine empathy and concern for an offender, while still acknowledging the hurtfulness of the offense and the offender’s need for growth or healing. Rather than relying on emotional suppression, which tends to be taxing, compassion can produce a deeper and more lasting shift in perspective. In some cases, this new perspective may help us better support the offender in making positive changes, or—if reconciliation is not possible or desired—help us find the strength to move on with our lives.
Evidence That It Works
vanOyen Witvliet, C., DeYoung, N. J., Hofelich, A. J., & DeYoung, P. A. (2011). Compassionate reappraisal and emotion suppression as alternatives to offense-focused rumination: Implications for forgiveness and psychophysiological well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(4), 286-299.
English college students (mostly white) instructed to think about a past offense in a compassionate way—to engage in what the researchers call “compassionate reappraisal”—reported greater empathy, forgiveness, positive emotions, and feelings of control, compared with participants instructed to ruminate on or suppress negative emotions about an offense. Compared with the rumination group, the compassionate reappraisal group also showed lower heart rate and less eye muscle tension (which is associated with intense emotion).
More research is needed to explore whether, and how, the impact of this practice extends to other groups and cultures.
Sources
Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet, Ph.D., Hope College
For More
vanOyen Witvliet, C., Knoll, R. W., Hinman, N. G., & DeYoung, P. A. (2010). Compassion-focused reappraisal, benefit-focused reappraisal, and rumination after an interpersonal offense: Emotion-regulation implications for subjective emotion, linguistic responses, and physiology. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(3), 226-242.
vanOyen Witvliet, C., Hofelich Mohr, A. J., Hinman, N. G., & Knoll, R. W. (2015). Transforming or restraining rumination: The impact of compassionate reappraisal versus emotion suppression on empathy, forgiveness, and affective psychophysiology. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(3), 248-261.
Practicing Letting Go of Anger through Compassion may help us become more forgiving toward people who hurt us. Are you able to move on from past offenses, or do you get stuck in resentment? Take our Forgiveness quiz to find out.
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heather alexander
Breathing anything out (and in) always helps. A good idea to incorporates it here in a non-daunting 'only 3 steps' way! Useful. I resonate with MC's comment, though The Pain she discusses, I think is far more than 'a hurt or an offence'. However, taking continual baby-steps like this to rid oneself of The Pain helps chip away at it don't you think? And of course GGIA has made it clear that any offenders do not have to be invited back into your life. I have naturally practiced this for years now, born with putting my feet in other people's shoes, but the anger/hurt returns so easily, especially if the situation is treding eggs and often on repeat. I guess this 'course' is always going to be Life work, perpetual chipping away.
Cory Hunt
Stacy Lynn Sager
Michele Craig
It is a practice I have employed for a long time, and I always try to think of people with compassion. Practicing it this time, though, I was struck by my feeling that the more monstrous the offense (sexual assault, child molestation, alcoholic verbal abuse) the more questions I had about how this practice connects to the practice of justice and people being held accountable for the suffering they have caused others. I may be wrong, but doesn't this practice of compassion lead to pedophile priests and teachers who behave sexually inappropriately with their students to just be transferred to different places? Is this form of compassion practice rooted in the maintenance of patriarchal power structures. By encouraging people to forgive and move on, aren't we allowing the suffering to continue? I realized the only thing I can do is strive not to cause suffering for other people, but really, friends, sometimes the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo wants some in the shadows frontier justice for those who have committed heinous crimes.Thia practice reminded me of the movie, The Life of Brian, when they sing "Always look on the Bright Side of Life" during the crucification. Maybe I didn't get the real point, but it seems the greater the suffering, the more this practice looks like a band aid on a gaping chest wound.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.