Forgiveness: what it does to your brain?
Sous-titres
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When we start to think about forgiveness
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there are a variety of
different areas of our brain
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that are part of that process.
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So for example part of what has to happen initially is that
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you have to have some kind of injury right.
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Somebody has to hurt your feelings
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or hurt you either
psychologically or physically
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and you have to be
able to recognize that injury.
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You have to have
a memory of that injury
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and you have to understand how that
injury is related to another person
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that they did this that
they're responsible for that.
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Those are three very
important cognitive processes
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if somebody for example
has Alzheimer's disease
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and you go in and you insult them
and then you walk out of the room
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and come back a few minutes later
and they don't remember.
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That's not forgiveness
that's just that they forgot.
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So part of it is being
able to remember the injury
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to be able to use our emotional
centers to feel the injury.
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And that's very important.
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And then ultimately how we
try to process through it
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that is a very essential
aspect of forgiveness as well.
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And there are different
ways of doing that.
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For some people it can be a recognition
that well we're all human beings.
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We're all imperfect.
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And so I'm not perfect.
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The other person is not perfect,
I'll forgive them.
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Sometimes as you mentioned with
some of the more religious individuals
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sometimes it is a religious process.
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It is the notion that we must
follow what God tells us to do,
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or we are all God's children.
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And even though this person has
done something very bad to me,
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they are still a creation of God
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and I will forgive them
as part of that process
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and let God deal with them separately.
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That's not for me to make that kind of determination.
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So there can
be many others as well.
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And ultimately what happens
is that forgiveness process
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eventually leads to very
positive emotions for both
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the individual because you feel like
you have now done something beneficial
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and you have forgiven them.
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And also sometimes
engender's positive feelings
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and others or certainly in people
in the rest of the world
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or the rest of the community
who recognize
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that instead of trying to exact
revenge which is the other alternative
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you decided to do something that
was more loving and compassionate
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and they realized that your
beliefs and your ideas about
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how people should be dealt
with may be much more powerful
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and more important than those
people who espouse hatred.