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.” Keep your arms, legs, and body still.
- Identify a time in the past when another person hurt or offended you.
- For the next two minutes, 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. Be consciously aware of the thoughts, feelings, and physical responses you have as you cultivate compassion, kindness, and mercy for this person.
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.
Participants 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 the offense. Compared with the rumination group, the compassionate reappraisal group also shower less eye muscle tension (which is associated with intense emotion) and lower heart rate.
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.
Quick Description
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.
Comments
and Reviews
Ashrafunissa Janmohammad
Yesterday I was planning good and practiced good things but all the time, I was under the influence of bad behavior and words that it may not be needed, what I am doing but........... what I planned and prepared worked for every one. I did not do one think which was important and I wanted them to feel that they miss that thing, which was required but I did not do as it was not asked or they all were using bad gestures and wrong words for me. My prepared things were required, used by all and they all missed one thing which I did not do and they wished I would have done it; but I said, I wish you would have asked for it! I could have done it. They were thinking, I already had too much to do; REALLY
Elizabeth First
I don’t dwell on the person or the created situation. It just ceases to exist in my life. I put it away. I forgive the individual who broke the trust but then I move on with my life.
Elizabeth First
Simple for me with this one. I might not handle this one correctly but if someone betrayed my trust, hurt me real bad, I don’t let them back into my life. I forgive them but I will never trust them again and therefore I don’t want to be around them. They slammed the door in my face by damaging the relationship. I wish them no harm but they no longer exist to me. The “crime “ has to be pretty bad for this to happen, but happen it has.
Sherrilu
I will continue to practice Letting Go of Anger Through Compassion. While I was meditating some of the feelings that came up were "annoyance", "this still pisses me off", then as I stayed within the meditation with thoughts of "peace", "love", and "compassion" for both myself and the person I was angry at I slowly felt peace coming over me. I stayed awhile longer in the meditation with this sense of peace. Presently, I am still in the space of peace, love, and joy. Thank you for this practice.
Michelle Gonzalez
I did not have to think about the questions. I have worked on forgiveness A lot in my life
Willa Walker
I am going to try this. I need help with my anger. I went through a four year extremely damaging situation with a family member whose decisions, behaviour and actions became life threatening for me. Along with compassion for them (they suffered too) I am going to give compassion and empathy for myself, my trauma and suffering, and my despair and anger too. We all deserve compassion.
Yasmin Shenoy
I focused not on the unpleasant behavior of the person, but on the person behind the behavior, who is pure! That helped the compassion feeling to arise and be sustained.
Jefre Lynne Danner
I am a compassionate person but it’s hard to feel compassion for someone who continually offends you whether they can help it or not due to depression or mental health issues.
Cynthia Smith
I can do this but it doesn’t help me understand where they were coming from to truly have compassion for them.
Jill Hileman
I find this and many similar body-mind quieting forgiveness or let go techniques often short circuit the most important piece-- self-compassion. If you are still wounded, there is a reason! Telling ourselves to feel better about the offender before we have healed ourselves only does more damage. It also means we are not trusting our own inner pacing and internal perimeters, that we should be practicing our way to getting over it. This feels like a fad diet for your emotions.
Shaunna Bossler
This is something I really struggle with and will use these practices to help me learn forgiveness.
Adam Henley
I found this to be very refreshing.
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.