Forgiveness is one of the simplest and most effective natural healing remedies.

Many of us understand from a spiritual perspective why forgiveness is so important.

Forgiveness is such an important aspect of our spiritual well-being that it is even part of the Lord’s prayer:

The act of letting go of old grudges, past judgments, bitterness and resentment is considered so important that we are encouraged to repeat this prayer on a daily basis.

But what does forgiveness have to do with your mental or physical health?

When we hold on to these old grudges, compounded judgments, years of bitterness and encrusted resentments, these four things happen:

1. We adversely affect our brain chemistry.
2. We set up energetic patterns that shut down our internal organs.
3. We develop chronic fatigue.
4. We stay in the sympathetic part of our nervous system.

1. Your brain chemistry. Every thought you think affects your brain chemistry. When we think positive, uplifting thoughts, we produce feel-good neurotransmitters such as serotoinin, dopamine, GABA and acetylcholine. When we think negative, angry and resentful thoughts, we lower our serotonin, dopamine, GABA and acetylcholine. Serotonin makes you feel full and happy. Dopamine gives you drive and endurance. GABA keeps you calm. Acetylcholine helps you remember what you need to know. So when we are running our lives on negativity, we literally enjoy less of the brain chemicals that make us happy, give us drive, keep us calm and help us function in high performance.

2. Your organs. Every internal organ you have – your heart, your stomach, spleen, lungs, large intestine, kidneys, bladder, gall bladder, liver and small intestine – is related to a specific acupuncture meridian. Scientific research shows that when you think negative thoughts, you fire a certain region of your brain which in turn affects a specific organ. Those of us who have spent our lives studying the body and the relationship between emotions and health can spout off to you a long list of the positive and negative emotions for each organ:

• Heart – love and joy/hate
• Stomach – contentment/discontent
• Spleen – peace/worry
• Lungs – self worth/grief
• Large intestine – release/depression
• Kidneys – gentle spirit/fear
• Bladder – control/feeling controlled
• Gallbladder – choice making/rage
• Liver – happiness and creativity/anger
• Small intestine – learning/blocked on learning

Emotions can either shut down your internal organs or revive them. Take control of your mind and practice positive thinking.

3. Your energy level. When we run our lives on emergency emotions – anger, fear and the whole gamut of negativity – we are literally pumping out stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin. Overtime, as we run on cortisol and adrenalin, eventually our bodies become unable to continue pumping out stress hormones and we burn out our adrenal glands, thus causing chronic fatigue. One of the most important things you can ever do to recover from adrenal burnout is to learn how to stop running your life off anger and fear.

4. Your nervous system. There are two parts of your nervous system. The sympathetic part of your nervous system keeps you in stress. The parasympathetic side of your nervous system lets you know that it is safe to relax. Every nerve in the sympathetic nervous system is connected to 20 other nerves. Every nerve in the parasympathetic nervous system is only connected to 5 other nerves. That means you have to make a choice to relax. When we live our lives on old resentment and hold on to our judgment and bitterness, we stay in the sympathetic side of your nervous system. This ages you very fast. You feel unsafe where ever you go and never develop a feeling of happiness or internal safety. Your muscles stay tense and tight, you hold aches and pains in your joints everywhere. You develop insomnia and have trouble smiling.

Saying the Lord’s prayer every day is a great way to raise your spirituality.

Focusing on letting go of judgments, bitterness and resentment every day is a great way to keep yourself mentally, emotionally and physically healthy.

If you are interested in learning more, please call Catherine Carrigan at 678-612-8816 or email catherine@catherinecarrigan.com for a FREE 15 minute consultation.