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By Fola Ladipo

There is a saying, “don’t allow anyone rent a space in your head” but interestingly, you may even offer them your whole mind when you don’t learn to get control of some emotions especially the negative ones.

When you refuse to forgive when people hurt you, you lose your peace and become unnecessarily burdened and weighed down by the burden of unforgiveness.

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What is Unforgiveness; this is an unwillingness or inability to forgive someone for hurting you, for betrayal, breaking your trust or causing you intense emotional pain.

When you refuse to forgive, you bring anger and bitterness into every relationship and new experiences, you get wrapped up in the wrong so much that you can’t enjoy the present. You become depressed or anxious, feeling like life lacks meaning or purpose.

You suffer low self-esteem, lack of self-love from not forgiving your self or self-acceptance. There is also the issue of suppressed anger; these ones often get angry for any reason

Unforgiveness could cause health issues. It is said that 61% of cancer patients have forgiveness issues.

When you don’t forgive, you become bitter and bitterness increases the risk of depression. Also constant worrying, this increases the risk of sleep deprivation and anxiety which may cause high blood pressure and even heart disease.

When people hurt you and you refuse to forgive and let go of the hurt, the bitter truth is that you are actually causing yourself more pain by holding onto anger. And the one you refused to forgive has the subconscious power to control you; you can only break free of the control when you forgive.

Unforgiveness puts you in a fight or flight mode and this results in numerous changes in your heart rate and blood pressure. You engage in thoughts of anger, vengeance, hate and resentment. All these are counterproductive and dangerous to health.

When someone does something to upset us, it can be hard to let that go and move on. But harbouring frustration or ill will towards someone else is actually just punishment for us.  Forgive, because God forgives us no matter our transgressions

Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is not guilty of whatever they did to upset us. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. Rather, forgiveness means letting go of the pain the incident is causing us. We forgive to give ourselves peace of mind and hope that one day someone will return the favour if we ever offend them.

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