PCOS and Trauma Cntd: Release Through Forgiveness
In the last couple of weeks, we’ve focused on how childhood trauma or chronic stress can impact PCOS. We’ve also discussed common roadblocks to acknowledging trauma, and some exercises to release ourselves. To continue on this trend, it felt natural to talk about forgiveness as a way to release the past. Forgiveness is defined as the cognitive-motivational-emotional experience of deliberately choosing to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you.
Forgive for Yourself
Now, I’m no monk. Anyone who knows me will tell you that. There are people I do not want to forgive. Some do not deserve forgiveness, it’s true. However, we need to forgive, even if it’s just for selfish reasons. Harboring grudges or feelings of anger over time not only impacts both our physical and mental health, but it also blocks us from building a life that is authentic to who we are. The renowned Sigmund Freud identified the repetition compulsion inherent to the human experience. Our subconscious has a tendency to reenact whatever has gone unresolved in an effort to make it right. Thus we become trapped in existing cycles of behavior and emotion, unless we break them.
Forgive for Your Relationships
An inability to forgive or let go of the way others have treated us feeds a belief that community with others is unsafe, which can encourage us to self isolate. We may try to tell ourselves that we do not need anyone, and we can get by all on our own, but the truth is that humans are wired for connection. Our nervous system is still wired to believe that isolation from the pack equates with a lack of resources including food, water, safety and protection. Chronic isolation will keep us locked in survival mode, and our relationships will likely suffer. Research has shown that social disconnection activates the same pain pathways as does injury.
Forgive for Your Health
The late John Cacioppo, former director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, explained that loneliness is associated with compromised immune function, heart disease, and depression, just to name a few. It even increases the chances of early death by a startling 20%. Chronic or repressed anger keeps us trapped in the toxic stress response. A 2016 study of 332 adults aged 16-79 years old found that with an increase in forgiveness, there was an associated decrease in stress, lower blood pressure, reduced anxiety, better sleep and improved self-esteem. This is also key as we consider not only our own health, as stress is known to contribute to disease, but also the health and behaviors of the next generation.
Forgive for Your Child’s Health
Something from Mark Wolynn’s book, “It Didn’t Start With You”, blew my mind. When your grandmother was only 5 months pregnant with your mother, your mother contained the precursor cell of the egg you would one day develop from. Three generations together in one body. Since stress is an epigenetic factor that can change the interpretation of our DNA, that means we can inherit changes to DNA expression from our grandmothers and mothers. (Read more on how PCOS is a polygenetic disorder likely emerging from both genetic and epigenetic factors here).
And, sperm on the side of our father continues to develop throughout adulthood, which means that what our fathers experience basically until we are conceived can have an impact on our genetic expression. According to various studies, ranging from evaluation of descendants of Holocaust survivors, to children of 9/11 survivors, our children can inherit our genetic predisposition for stress. Physiologically, Bruce Lipton noted, “When stress hormones cross the placenta, they cause fetal blood vessels to be more constricted in the viscera, sending more blood to the periphery, preparing the fetus for a fight/flight behavioral response”. This means that addressing and releasing our own past is key to ensuring the next generation does not repeat the same cycles of behavior.
What Forgiveness Is Not
Before we dive into how to forgive, let’s also discuss what forgiveness is not. Forgiving someone does not mean they get a free pass. You are not saying that what they did was okay, but you are releasing the impact of what they did. You are letting go of the hold the event has over you for your own peace and for the betterment of your health. Forgiveness also does not mean that whoever hurt you should still have access to you, or that they can violate your boundaries again without consequences. Forgiveness does not always mean that you will reconcile with whoever hurt you, it is an internal and conscious effort that you undertake for yourself.
How to Forgive
To become comfortable with forgiveness, it may serve you to practice this exercise with something small before moving into something heavier. This may look like something that upset you recently, like a comment made by a friend or coworker that you found insulting. It may look like a more subtle infraction committed by your partner or other loved one that you know they would apologize for if you brought it to their attention. Either way, begin this exercise with something that upset you but didn’t necessarily shake your foundation.
The Forgiveness Exercise
Close your eyes. Call to memory the incident that upset you or concerned you. Visualize it
While visualizing the incident, feel into your body. What sensations do you notice? What emotions do you notice?
Identify what about the incident made you feel this particular set of emotions. What boundary was violated?
What did the incident contribute to the story you tell yourself about who you are? Ask yourself if this is true 100% of the time.
Feel into your body. Assign a color to the emotions this incident sparked in you. What would it feel like to visualize that color exiting your body through the surface beneath you?
Take a few deep breaths and mentally or verbally set the intention to feel better, and release the hold that incident has over you.
Come back into the room. Wiggle your hands and toes and open your eyes. Either write down or speak to someone you trust about the emotions the incident sparked in you, what about the incident made you feel this way, and what boundary was violated.
Write down “I forgive this person for judging me as [X], or for making me feel []Y. I forgive this person for violating boundary [Z].”
Write down what you are releasing, and what this represents to you.
If this person is still in your life, or deserves to still be in your life, try to have a conversation with them to ensure this boundary is not violated in the future.
If you find yourself struggling
As you reach the heavier subject areas, you may have to repeat this exercise several times before you are ready to let go. You may want to write a letter to the person who hurt you, and shred it. You may need to pair mental and emotional intentions with physical rituals. Setting an intention that you are releasing the power of a certain event over you prior to exercise, and visualizing the sweat as negativity leaving your body, may be one way to pair the cerebral intention with the physical body. Exploring empathy is another way to help yourself. Is there anything that can allow you to show compassion or empathy for what this person did? Again, remember tapping into this empathy does not mean you are excusing what they did, but you are attempting to achieve peace for your own wellbeing from a state of understanding.