How do you feel about forgiveness? Be honest.

It can be annoying, right? It’s not always easy to forgive someone who’s hurt us.

But. We’re spiritual people. So we’re supposed to be super good at forgiveness.

Riiiiiiight.

Here’s a recent story I heard that blew my mind.

Dr. Mario Martinez is the founder of The Biocognitive Science Institute and author of The Mindbody Code. He points out that Tibetan monks have high rates of Type 2 diabetes that cannot be explained by their diet or lifestyle. Even though some monks are overweight and eat carbs, for the most part they have a healthy diet. So what’s going on?

Welllllll, Tibetan culture has been deeply impacted by China. In not a good way. Basically, the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950. Years of conflict followed, finally culminating in an overthrow of the Tibetan Government and the exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans. Since then, over a million Tibetans have been killed.

Not good.

And yet, Tibetan monks are taught to bypass their anger and send love to their enemies. Tibetans also don’t have a word for “emotion.” For them, thoughts and emotions are the same thing. And the monks are trained to take all attention off the body and focus on spiritual matters instead.

This love-sending, emotion-and-body-ignoring concoction leads to the following phenomenon in the bodies of the Tibetan monks:

The intention to send only loving thoughts signals their bodies to produce endorphins. Endorphins numb pain, including difficult feelings like anger.

What’s wrong with that?, you say. Numbing pain sounds good to me!

Yeah, except that chronically high endorphin levels adversely affect glucose metabolism. Leading to Type 2 diabetes.

Crazy, right?

Except not so crazy, because suppressing emotions can lead to all kinds of difficulties. For me, it’s created back pain, chronic fatigue, and compulsive overeating.

And I’m not the only one who’s had this kind of experience. We spiritual types aren’t always a fan of feelings. They’re messy. They hurt. They make us look and feel “less spiritual.”

Which brings me back to forgiveness.

Trying to jump to forgiveness before feeling angry – including and especially righteous anger – doesn’t work.

It keeps us stuck in trying to forgive but not being able to. Or, worse, it causes us to shellac over our anger with a hard coat of “love and light”. A “love and light” that keeps us stuck. And sick.

As much as I’m not happy that Tibetan monks suffer from high rates of Type 2 diabetes, I am happy to hear of a concrete example of the danger of repressing righteous anger.

The coolest thing about all this is that feeling our feelings is usually not a long, drawn-out process. Feelings are fast. Amazingly so. Once given permission to move through us, they do so surprisingly quickly.

How can you move your anger?

Shout and scream. Shake your body. Beat some pillows. Go for a run. There are all kinds of ways to release anger that don’t involve hurting anyone.

Indeed, they prevent hurting anyone.

You.

You are precious. Your life is precious. And allowing yourself to feel angry at those who have hurt you is a key element in treating your precious self with love and compassion.

A love and compassion you can then extend to others in the form of forgiveness.

Think of it this way: Anger is the ticket that gets you into the forgiveness arena.

And the forgiveness arena is a really cool place!

What’s your experience with forgiveness? Share your comments below!

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