A few years ago, as a family, we had attended a healing retreat. The focus of the retreat was unforgiveness. We heard testimonies of people who had gone through immense hurts in their lives. The repeating thread line of their testimonies began in some form of hurt or abuse, followed by a life fraught with the memory of that hurt, accompanied with increasing physical & mentally debilitating pain & anguish, and finding themselves living with broken, strained relationships with parents, siblings, spouses, and friends.
Their testimonies would relate moments of healing. Whether it was in the confessional or through a retreat like the one they were in, or through prayer, each story ended the same way, a sudden, sometimes overnight, change in perspective, in just how they saw the unfolding of their lives, leading to the realization that it didn’t need to be that way.
And then there was peace, in most cases correlated with miraculous, nearly unbelievable (for me in my former days), stories of physical healing too. Who were these people? Was it just a desire for attention (surely, arising from their state of mind)? These stories of healing, by letting go of unforgiveness, didn’t seem scientifically plausible. Was it an exaggerated retelling of uncorrelated events in their life? Does unforgiveness in our hearts have such a bearing on our own physical & mental health?
Be Transformed
I had written a post a few months ago with a reference to Fr. Anthony J. Pinizzotto’s article in Homiletic & Pastoral Review, “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned—again, and again”. St. Paul in Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Fr Pinizzotto outlines the neurological pathways in the brain as they relate to repeated & entrenched behaviors. It is fascinating reading and there isn’t an easy summary. However, an analogical paraphrasing may suffice. There are many behavioral habits or tendencies, some turning eventually into addictions, which can befall us. One of the worst of these is unforgiveness.
Destructive pathways
The Grand Canyon is a majestic sight to behold. Its formation was a combination of tectonic plate uplift and eons of erosion by the Colorado River. If you step back in time to the dawn of those formations, you’ll find that the river began to take, as water usually does, the easiest pathway through the landscape. Over time, the erosion deepens the pathways making it even easier for the water to take those same routes again.
Our brain functions something like that. In precisely those moments where stress or other external factors, such memories of past hurts, loneliness or depression begin to hit, the brain tries to restore balance quickly. This is akin to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon – the brain (specifically the amygdala) takes precisely those same pathways it has taken before. Particularly, the ones that lead to actions that have given it short term, fleeting pleasure, and relief. The funny thing about this inner working on the brain is that in doing so it shuts down the analytical, reasoning centers of the brain (this is an over-simplified explanation). Thus removing any notions of long terms considerations or consequences of those very same actions. The canyons grind down deeper, the pathways become more permanent in the brain. This, in very simpler terms is the very mechanism by which certain habits eventually turn into addictions. Unforgiveness is the Grandest Canyon of them all. Life’s stresses flowing into this Canyon take the same pathways they have taken before.
Pretext to Healing
These neurological explanations in Fr Pinizzotto’s article are a pretext to his emphasis on the pathway to healing, which goes to the heart of St. Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:2. Typically, in each of us there exists that flight or fight reaction (the easy out) to the current stress. Flight into fleeting pleasures that leave us stewing in guilt or a visceral lashing out in rage or other forms of emotional outbursts. If we are honest with ourselves, both those pathways leave us with that sour taste of regret. That feeling that we could have done better, could have been the better person, the holier person. My usual reaction to long-term hurts has been anger. I cannot wait to be done with the onslaught of that river of hurt when it comes bearing down on me. This is invariably taken out on my spouse or my children. Time and again, when this happens, all I am left with is that taste of regret. I wonder why I cannot do better, why I cannot break out of this cycle.
Forgiveness Heals
The renewal of the mind that St Paul calls for is a call for another tectonic plate uplift, one that can break down these deeply formed self-destructive pathways. Yes, the answer is Prayer, Scripture, and the Sacraments. But, as Fr Pinizzotto points out, we need to bring to bear multiple components for healing – “the willingness to relinquish control, engaging the process, mindfulness, imagination, accountability, virtue and prayer.” Our usual prayer, too often, is to ask God to take away the Colorado River. But God loves us too much to take away the stress, the triggers. Those are precisely the instruments through which he wishes to bring about this second tectonic plate uplift, crumbling the walls of those canyons of deep-rooted instinctual reactions, habits, and addictions.
The Lord knew this all too well. When his disciples asked him (in the Gospel of today) to teach them to pray, he gave them the key, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” (Luke 11:1-4). Miracles and healing can happen within us; yes, even in this so-called modern age, only when we learn acceptance of the other and forgiveness from the heart. That is the beginning of the journey to healing & recovery. Amen.
