©dswalkerauthor

I agree with Don Henley’s song, “The Heart of the Matter.”

The Mayo Clinic even agrees although in different words. You will find a total of 154 references to forgiveness, if you go to search their site. It is even part of a stress management and resilience program called SMART. Forgiveness is part of this structured program to develop a calm disposition. You can see two articles from the Mayo Clinic about forgiveness at the links below.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/forgiveness/MY01290

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/forgiveness/MH00131

Harvard Medical School has an article about the health benefits of forgiveness.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/power_of_forgiveness

You don’t have to look very far to see that most religions also talk about forgiveness. I’m not going to go into that here. You can look these up if you choose.

You may remember I mentioned Immaculee Ilibagiza, in my Lessons of Forgiveness blog on September 21, 2010. My point here is simply to point out that we are not the only ones who believe in the power of forgiveness.

I choose to continue to work to forgive, because I know holding onto anger causes me more harm than it causes those who hurt me in some way. Yet, as I said before, it is not easy, especially when people hurt my children in some way like the bullies hurt one of my children, and other children have tried to bully the other one. Don’t expect me to be a passive individual if you say or do something to harm my child, because remember that is when I am a lioness or grizzly bear.

Still, I continue to try to practice forgiveness in all aspects of my life, so I will forgive you just not right away. Hopefully, one day it will get easier to forgive the more I practice. Better still, maybe one day the world will be a place without bullies and where children on the autism spectrum, or with another type of difference are accepted, not mistreated.