This one is all about forgiveness…

Who to forgive, why and how?

Forgive those who do you harm.

Why?

For the simple reason that, unless you move on, you are wrapping your brain up in untold misery, carrying a shedload of extra baggage, and boosting every inflammatory marker your body possesses. That only leads to bad news further down the line - for YOU.

How do you do this?

A sincere apology is a wonderful thing to have. I don’t know about your life, but mine doesn’t always work out perfectly, so that sincere apology might just not happen.

Does that mean you don’t forgive?

Absolutely not. (For purely selfish reasons, that seems very counterintuitive…)

It just means that you proceed with Plan B and get on with forgiving, despite everything.

Allow yourself the time to wallow in whatever it is that’s gone pear-shaped. You need that time of self-indulgence – it’s permission to grieve the loss of whatever it was you’ve lost – a relationship, your self-esteem, whatever. Be a complete misery for as long as you need.

(Be warned: if you take longer than a year, people might get a tad weary of you…)

The infinitely compassionate but taker of absolutely NO BS expert in this field is Dr Fred Luskin, whose book Forgive for Good is my next read, and who advocates for this, so I’m happy to accept his advice – he’s worked with victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, so I think he knows what he’s talking about. Here's the link, if you're interested.

And when you've done that, crack on with the rest of your life.

Holocaust survivors have many tales of horror and suffering; they also tell of redemptive acts of forgiveness of their persecutors. Equally, Dr Luskin tells of a woman who refused point-blank, ever, to forgive the man who’d trespassed on her garden boundary with his fence by a matter of 3” or so.

Nobody is saying this is easy. But it’s definitely the best thing for your health in every sense.

Because nobody's perfect, right? Chances are, if you'd been the person who'd done the crappy thing, in that place, at that time, with that person's knowledge and understanding of themself and of life, you'd have done exactly the same thing.

Who is the most difficult person to forgive?

Yourself, in my experience.

Regret is important – it’s your brain telling you that you need to do something differently in future. Don't disrespect it; but don't wallow in it, either.

What is past is past and there is no chance of a do-over. Rumination sucks and gets you nowhere fast.

All you can do is better next time. Learn. Grow.

Here's a beautiful lyric by a master storyteller that says it all perfectly for me.

Don Henley, Heart of the Matter ??

See you next time.