Forgiveness, not revenge, is the answer

"It's not what you're eating. It's what's eating you!"

This old saying describes what happens when you suffer from prolonged stress. Chronic stress eats away inside of you. It causes your sympathetic nervous system to become continually aroused. It releases various chemicals in your body that become toxic after a while; pours sugar into your system; blocks your vessels; and weakens your immune system.

Many people attempt to deal with stress by taking some action, particularly when the cause of stress is anger at a person or situation. If somebody hurts you, you want to hurt them back. Revenge appears to be human nature. We see the motif of revenge again and again in the popular media, and often it is glorified. A man's family is horrifically murdered, and he becomes a one-man vigilante, going on a mission to eradicate all evil people from the world.

In the movies, he is made to be a hero. But such themes leave out the aftermath of revengeful behavior. Revenge has consequences. If you kill somebody in real life, even if you think it is justified, the action brings legal as well as emotional consequences. It may also bring counter-revenge. As it says in the Bible, “Violence begets violence.”

When people cannot assuage their anger through revenge, they often dwell on those who have hurt them. Day after day, night after night, they obsess about them, fantasize about ways of getting back at them, imagine ways such people might bring about their own ruin. They are also continually regretting things and putting themselves down. This constant brooding does absolutely no good but instead causes a great deal of harm.

Revenge appeals to people because it is a quick and simple solution, and it places the responsibility for one's disturbance on others. Hence, the solution is external, not internal.

But revenge is not the real answer to stress related to anger. The real answer is internal: forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not a simple thing. It is a long and complicated process. You can't just decide to forgive somebody who has hurt you. You have to look at things in a different way, and that takes time.

First of all, you have to work through the anger. That means not only talking to somebody about your anger, venting it, and letting it go, but also understanding it on the deepest level. Understanding it on this level means understanding why this incident happened and how similar incidents have happened in the past. Finally, it means understanding your contribution to the incident and forgiving yourself for that contribution.

Finally you are at a place where you may be able to forgive the person or persons who hurt you. Again, you will have to go through a process. First of all, you will ask yourself, “Why should I forgive someone who has been so mean to me?” The forgiveness is not for their sakes. It is for your sake. You do not have to love them. You do not have to see them again. But you do have to stop dwelling on them, and you can stop that by forgiving them.

A final part of the forgiveness process is to understand that you have also hurt people. We all do. If you think back on all the people you've hurt, it is easier to forgive those who hurt you.

Revenge leads to unrest; forgiveness to serenity.