Particpant 1: You were so cold to my friends and so incredibly rude.
P2: I do have value, dammit. P3: I need to forgive so then that I'm not
bitter towards the next guy that comes around.
Julian: Forgiveness, what does that even mean?
Does it mean admitting you're wrong? Is it a sign of weakness? If you're asking for something
do you lose the upper hand. How many times have you decided not to forgive someone. 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, lower 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 would 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 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.
P1: Okay. Julian: You got that person in mind?
P1: Mhm. P3: Mhm.
P2: Mhm. Julian: 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 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.
P4: A bit. Yeah. P5: Well, it's my sister.
P3: We dated. P4: It's kind of been in my head a lot so
getting it down on paper kind of gave me an image of what I felt pretty much.
P2: Well this particular person was my stage partner in a magic act that me and this person
did together. Julian: Go on!
P5: And we never got to hang out as often as I wished.
Julian: Since you already have it written out do you think you would be willing to share
it with us? P4: Yeah sure!
P1: Yeah, it was a colleague at work. Julian: There's one more bit to this, would
you be willing to do it into a mirror? P2: A mirror?
Julian: Yes! P1: Sure.
I feel like we are work colleagues and we should have a more of a common respect for
each other. P2: So, we started trying to develop a different
show together and as that started happening everything started breaking down and we would
just get into worse and worse fights. P4: This person was a girlfriend I had a while
back. Things escalated quick with us and we enjoyed each others company but what I found
out about her I couldn't bring myself to forgive. P1: 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.
P3: 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.
P4: I found out that most of the stories she told me about her life were all lies.
P2: He just decided to up and essentially leave for four months and completely ruin
any chances I had of starting another act. P4: 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.
P1: 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 the door slammed in my face again.
P2: I am valid as a performer, I do have ideas
and I can create things and I have created things.
P1: 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.
P5: However, not that I am 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 struggles.
P3: You never know who to trust but you can't, 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. P2: We were doing this act for four years
and I got really like. Even 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. P1: And I know sometimes that I am a difficult
person. P3: Sometimes we want to change people.
P1: I feel like we would be better if we could forgive each other and just kind of start
anew, people make mistakes. P5: I want you to know I do care about you
and I'm always thinking about you. If there's ever anything that you need from me, I'll
be there for you. P1: If you could just treat me just like you
do your best friend at work, I think we would be completely cool!
P2: I've had to keep a lot of stuff in but it feels good!
P4: Having a grudge is not fun and it's sometimes, forgiveness just comes from within.
Learn to forgive and learn to move on. Julian: 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
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.
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