{"id":42,"date":"2010-10-01T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html"},"modified":"2010-10-01T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T01:00:00","slug":"the-gift-of-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html","title":{"rendered":"The Gift Of Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\"><\/font><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">One of my favorite places to volunteer is Gilda&#8217;s Club, which is a world wide, non-residential cancer support community for those living with cancer, as well as for their family and friends. Created by Gene Wilder, Joanna Bull and Michael Radner (the husband, counselor\/friend and brother, respectively of Saturday Night Live launched comedian extraordinaire Gilda Radner who died of ovarian cancer in 1989), Gilda&#8217;s Club&#8217;s red door has welcomed through it, amazing speakers, teachers and musicians to educate and entertain its members. One such wonder is Jon Michaels; a singer-songwriter from Nashville. He was invited to perform by Philadelphia based culinary Goddess Christina Pirello whose natural foods cooking show <i><b>Christina Cooks<\/b><\/i> is now on 150 PBS affiliates and on Comcast. Jon is now a sweet addition to her show and accompanies Christina as she whips up yummy and healthy treats.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">One of my favorite songs of Jon&#8217;s (and there are so many:), is called <i><b>The Gift Of Forgiveness<\/b><\/i><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XmYvcvI6uo4\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XmYvcvI6uo4<\/a> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">So often, we self righteously cling to anger and resentment, thinking that it somehow protects us from future pain, or makes us feel like we bear no responsibility for our choices. It also renders us victims of other people&#8217;s actions&#8230;or so we think. Forgiving doesn&#8217;t excuse or justify inappropriate or deliberately hurtful behavior, but it does free us from the chains that drag us down.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">So, what are the benefit of forgiveness?<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">According to About.com:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">Forgiveness is good for your heart &#8212; literally. One study from the <i>Journal of Behavioral Medicine<\/i> found forgiveness to be associated with lower heart rate and blood pressure as well as stress relief. This can bring long-term health benefits for your heart and overall health. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<li>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">A later study found forgiveness to be positively associated with five measures of health: physical symptoms, medications used, sleep quality, fatigue, and somatic complaints. It seems that the reduction in negative affect (depressive symptoms), strengthened spirituality, conflict management and stress relief one finds through forgiveness all have a significant impact on overall health. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<li>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">A third study, published in the <i>Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin<\/i>, found that forgiveness not only restores positive thoughts, feelings and behaviors toward the offending party (in other words, forgiveness restores the relationship to its previous positive state), but the benefits of forgiveness spill over to positive behaviors toward others outside of the relationship. Forgiveness is associated with more volunteerism, donating to charity, and other altruistic behaviors. (And the converse is true of non-forgiveness.)<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">When people offer forgiveness to others and to themselves, they have happier relationships, reduced feelings of stress, feel lighter in general.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">One exercise that may help you to engage in the forgiveness process (and for many, it is indeed a process), is to visualize the person you wish to forgive, as a young, innocent child. See them as being a bundle of love that they were at birth. Allow feelings of love to flow through you, splashing over onto them. When you experience warmth toward someone else, it comes through you first, so you reap the benefit as well. Even if you never tell the other person what you are doing, you may be surprised at the outcome.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">Grudges get heavier the longer we carry them. Are you willing to lighten your load today?<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">Christina Pirello <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christinacooks.com\/\">www.christinacooks.com<\/a> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Andalus\"><font size=\"4\">Jon Michaels <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jonmichaelsmusic.com\">www.jonmichaelsmusic.com<\/a> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"4\" face=\"Andalus\">Gilda&#8217;s Club <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gildasclub.org\">www.gildasclub.org<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"4\" face=\"Andalus\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; One of my favorite places to volunteer is Gilda&#8217;s Club, which is a world wide, non-residential cancer support community for those living with cancer, as well as for their family and friends. Created by Gene Wilder, Joanna Bull and Michael Radner (the husband, counselor\/friend and brother, respectively of Saturday Night Live launched comedian extraordinaire&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":233,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,19,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bliss-kiss-for-your-weekend","category-communication","category-empowerment","category-forgiveness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Gift Of Forgiveness - The Bliss Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Gift Of Forgiveness - The Bliss Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; One of my favorite places to volunteer is Gilda&#8217;s Club, which is a world wide, non-residential cancer support community for those living with cancer, as well as for their family and friends. Created by Gene Wilder, Joanna Bull and Michael Radner (the husband, counselor\/friend and brother, respectively of Saturday Night Live launched comedian extraordinaire&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bliss Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/snuggleyoga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-01T01:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@EdieWeinstein1\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Gift Of Forgiveness - The Bliss Blog","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Gift Of Forgiveness - The Bliss Blog","og_description":"&nbsp; One of my favorite places to volunteer is Gilda&#8217;s Club, which is a world wide, non-residential cancer support community for those living with cancer, as well as for their family and friends. Created by Gene Wilder, Joanna Bull and Michael Radner (the husband, counselor\/friend and brother, respectively of Saturday Night Live launched comedian extraordinaire&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html","og_site_name":"The Bliss Blog","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/snuggleyoga","article_published_time":"2010-10-01T01:00:00+00:00","author":"Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@EdieWeinstein1","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html","name":"The Gift Of Forgiveness - The Bliss Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-01T01:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-01T01:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/#\/schema\/person\/edcd643a643a9ca91adb1e8f9e177386"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/2010\/10\/the-gift-of-forgiveness.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Gift Of Forgiveness"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/","name":"The Bliss Blog","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Edie Weinstein","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/#\/schema\/person\/edcd643a643a9ca91adb1e8f9e177386","name":"Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0d6\/0d6cd7619da51a9a40cc705280e88f9cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/blissblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0d6\/0d6cd7619da51a9a40cc705280e88f9cx96.jpg","caption":"Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW"},"description":"Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW is a colorfully creative journalist, inspiring transformational speaker, licensed social worker, interfaith minister, editor, radio host, BLISS coach, event producer, Cosmic Concierge, the author of The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming The Ordinary Into The Extraordinary and co-author of Embraced By the Divine: The Emerging Woman\u2019s Gateway to Power, Passion and Purpose. She has also contributed to several anthologies and personal growth books. Edie has interviewed such notables as Ram Dass, Wayne Dyer, Debbie Ford, don Miguel Ruiz, don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. Marianne Williamson, Grover Washington, Jr. Noah Levine, Shirley MacLaine, Dennis Weaver, Ben and Jerry and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She calls herself an Opti-mystic who sees the world through the eyes of possibility. 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