The Power of Forgiveness - The Science of Happiness.

You are so cold to my friends and so incredibly rude. I do have, I do have value. I need to forgive so then that I'm not bitter towards the next guy that comes around. Forgiveness. What does that even mean? Does it mean admitting you're wrong? Is it a sign of weakness? If you ask for it from somebody, do you lose the upper hand? How many times have you decided not to forgive somebody and maybe they didn't deserve it? What's the point? Why even bother, right? Hey, it's fine. It's none of my business. We don't have to get into them. Let's get selfish for a minute. What's in it for you? What would you say if I told you that psychologists have found a substantial correlation between reduced stress, better heart health, lowered anxiety, lower pain perception, and most importantly, higher overall happiness, all attributed to your ability to be a forgiving person? Well, today we thought we'd dive in, check it out for ourselves. As usual, we brought in a selection of subjects, gave them all a test that gave us a fairly good idea of their current level of happiness. And as usual, they had no idea what we were doing. We started by asking them to close their eyes and picture somebody that they were currently holding a grudge against or had some sort of unresolved conflict with. Okay. You got that person in mind? Then we asked them to write out who this person was, what the event was that caused this tension between them, how they felt about it. And then most importantly, we asked them to, in their own words and in their own way, try and forgive that person. You had a bit to say, didn't you? A bit, yeah. Well, it's my sister. We dated. It's kind of been in my head a lot, so getting it done on paper kind of gave me an image of what I felt pretty much. This particular person was my stage partner in a magic act that me and this person did together. Go on. We never got to hang out as often as I wished. Since you already have it all written out, do you think you'd be willing to share it with us? Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. It was a colleague at work. Oh, there's one more bit to this. Would you be willing to do it into a mirror? A mirror, yes. Sure. I feel like we're work colleagues, and we should have more of a common respect for each other. So we started trying to develop a different show together, and as that started happening, everything started breaking down, and we just would get into worse and worse fights. This person was a girlfriend I had a while back. Things escalated quick with us, and we enjoyed each other's company, but what I found out about her, I couldn't bring myself to forgive. I would love to be valued at work. Appreciation. Just a small, at the end of the day, thank you. You did a good job. This is a case of just knowing someone for a very long time and being just the one person that he always went to when things would go wrong. I found out that most of the stories she told me about her life were all lies. He just decided to up and essentially leave for four months and completely ruin any chances I had of starting another act. I'm not sure if she was just trying to seem like an interesting person or just wanted some attention, but she already had mine. And I've tried to forgive you. I've tried to forgive you many times for acting this way, and it seems like when I do, I open myself up to getting just the door slammed in my face again. I am valid as a performer. I do have ideas, and I can create things, and I have created things. In order for me to completely forgive you, I feel like I need to feel the respect that you give to everybody else on me as well. I don't feel that. However, now that I'm out in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away from home, I'm afraid I'll never have as great of a chance to help you through life's struggles. You never know who to trust, but I can't put everything on him. But you know, when it did end, I was a little relieved because I didn't do it on my own for this whole seven years. We were doing this act for four years, and I got really, like, even though you know, like, you can logically understand that you do have value in the world, if you want that from one particular person, it's just going to take a little while to let go of everything. And I know at times that I am a difficult person. Sometimes we try to, we want to change people. I feel like it would be better if we could forgive each other and just kind of start anew even when people make mistakes. I want you to know that I do care about you, that I'm always thinking about you. If there's ever anything that you need from me, I'll be there for you. If you could just treat me just like you do, you know, you're best friend at work. I think we'd be completely cool. I've had to keep a lot of stuff in, but it feels good. Having a grudge is, yeah, it's not fun. And it's sometimes forgiveness just comes from within. You just learn to forgive and learn to move on. Well, the results are in, and we found in our subjects an average increase in happiness of 8%, but the highest increase was 28%. Now, what does this mean about forgiveness? Most people think forgiveness is something that takes two people, a forgiver and a forgivee. But what we found today is reaping the benefits of forgiveness doesn't require anyone except you. Now, it doesn't mean you have to reconcile with them or even say a word to them because forgiveness doesn't mean excusing or forgetting what happened. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself to lower your psychological distress by getting rid of those negative emotions. So, is there anybody from your past that you're holding a grudge against? I've shown you the door. Now it's up to you to walk through it. I'm Julian, and this has been the Science of Happiness. SoulPancake, subscribe!