The healthy, healing benefits of forgiving

The well-received feature on Greg Anderson’s inspiring story of how faith, forgiveness, and prayers allowed him to outlive a 30-day-to-live prediction 30 years ago when he was battling lung cancer was indeed a good prelude to how I enjoyed the big screen version of Les Miserables.

Here is a great story written 150 years ago about the French Revolution — 30 years before that — and the misery, evil, darkness, suffering and hopelessness that engulfed many. How many really recognized the emancipated Hugh Jackman as prisoner 24601 (Jean Valjean) whose petty crime was stealing bread for a dying niece? He was said to have refrained from drinking water for three days as well as undergone an extreme diet to lose so much weight for the initial scenes.

He even admitted in his acceptance speech that he almost gave up on the role and the movie. It was his wife who admonished him to persevere. His hard work earned him his very first Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy.  

Of the movie’s many themes, the most poignant is that of forgiveness and transformation. While under parole, Jean Valjean crossed paths with a generous bishop who fed him and allowed him to stay for the night. Hardened perhaps by his life in prison, Valjean tried to ran away with the bishop’s silver. The police apprehended him and brought him to the bishop with the loot.

Valjean told the police that the bishop gave him the silver. The bishop confirmed that he indeed gave the silver, and added that Valjean left a few more pieces. Valjean was confused

by the bishop’s goodness. When the police left, the bishop claimed that with the silver, he had purchased the convict’s soul. The bishop said he had given it to God, and from that day, Valjean must be a good man.

This forgiveness transformed Valjean into a compassionate person who put others before himself. He showed forgiveness to his nemesis, police officer Javert, who in his relentless pursuit of Valjean, was captured by revolutionaries. As a reward for saving the lives of a few of these revolutionaries, Valjean asked permission to take Javert outside to kill him. Outside, Valjean released Javert.

Victor Hugo surely used Les Miserables to make people aware of the need for social reform, but it certainly speaks of virtues that remain timeless to this day. Central to the story was how Jean Valjean had a change of heart and evolved from a hardened ex-convict to a Christ-like benefactor when he allowed Jesus into his life. Reformed, Valjean tried to lessen the misery of others by putting their needs before his own.

The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) quoted Frederic Luskin, a Stanford researcher who studied the effects of forgiveness: “… the moment-to-moment experience of peace and understanding that occurs when an injured party’s suffering is reduced by the process of transforming a grievance they have held against an offending party.”

AMSA said that a 2001 study revealed a correlation between reviewing hurtful memories and measures of the stress response (EMG, heart rate, blood pressure). “When subjects were encouraged to think forgiving thoughts, the stress response was diminished. Similar findings were seen in an October 2003 study of 108 college students,” they added.

They claimed that several small studies have shown a number of potential health benefits conferred by forgiveness such as decreased anger and negative thoughts, decreased anxiety, reduced depression and grief, and decreased vulnerability to substance use.

Greg Anderson, the Cancer Conqueror, gives these healing prescriptions to one desperate patient:

Step 1:  Ask in prayer.  Declare what it is you want.  â€œI desire perfect health.”  Or, “I want to be pain-free.”  

Step 2:  Believe. Believe that what you seek is already yours.  Possess it by what Anderson calls the faith factor. Know that what you seek is on its way to you the moment you ask.   

When you first ask and then follow that with the deep belief that you now possess health and healing, joy and peace — or whatever it is that you seek — the entire Universe shifts to bring it into reality.  This is the Life Force in action.

Step 3:  Receive. Next, believe you have received.  Then feel happy and grateful. Live in those emotions. When you stir up those emotions, you are on the frequency of receiving.

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Post me a note at mylene@goldsgym.com.ph or mylenedayrit@gmail.com.