Is forgiveness the key to your survival?

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Jackie Young, former state representative and now director of marketing for the American Cancer Society in Hawai'i, has found inner peace by learning to forgive the man who raped her almost half a century ago. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

The latest research indicates forgiveness can ease tension, reduce blood pressure and slow the heart rate.

Not only can forgiveness have spiritual and emotional benefits, it's also good for your physical health, said Amanda S. Armstrong, a Honolulu clinical psychologist who often helps people let go of bitterness that may be at the root of anxiety or depression.

But what if it's more than a petty grievance? Could you forgive something bigger, like a rape or a murder? And could you measure the medical benefits of releasing that hostility?

The idea of forgiveness has fascinated Everett Worthington since the 1980s, when he was a marriage therapist beginning scientific research on the topic.

Worthington, chairman of the psychology department at Virginia Commonwealth University, had just delivered a manuscript for a book, "To Forgive is Human," (InterVarsity Press, 1997, $13.99) to his publisher when personal tragedy challenged his theories about forgiveness. On New Year's Eve in 1995, intruders broke into his mother's Tennessee home and beat her to death with a crowbar.

"It probably was the hardest issue I ever had to deal with," Worthington said of his struggle to forgive. "I knew a lot about it academically. I'd counseled many people. But doing it myself, something that personal, was a definite challenge."

He knew holding onto anger might make him feel powerful, but it would come at a cost: filling himself with negative emotions instead of positive ones. He chose another path — not one that would condone what had been done, but one that could help release the pain.

"Forgive and forget is total nonsense," he said. "You've got to remember in order to forgive."

Even a rapist ...

Jackie Young harbored the burden of her deepest betrayal for almost half a century.

Her third marriage was breaking up as she underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer.

She lost her hair. She began radiation, and she became reflective. In a guided imagery therapy session, she visualized the thing that would bring her peace. She imagined herself in a beautiful garden with her grandchildren. But she also visualized something darker. "I sort of blurted it out," she said. "I said I think the only way I could heal myself was to forgive the person who raped me when I was 18."

She imagined meeting the man who raped her 46 years earlier, when she was a student at the University of Hawai'i. She imagined what she would wear and what she would say. She imagined her father appearing behind the rapist and saying: "It doesn't matter what he says. Just tell him how he hurt you."

So she did.

"That day," the 68-year-old Kailua woman said, "I felt as if a plug came out of my heart."

Even a killer ...

How can someone forgive something so horrible?

Aba Gayle, formerly known as Gayle Blount, can relate to Young's ordeal. Gayle forgave her daughter's killer.

Catherine Blount was stabbed to death in 1980 on a pear farm near Sacramento, Calif. She was 19. Her killer, Douglas Mickey, ended up on death row. After eight years of longing for revenge, Gayle began taking her mother to church and going to meditation classes. One day, she heard an inner voice telling her she must forgive the man she had thought of as a monster and that she must let him know. At 4 a.m., she typed him a letter.

"Dear Mr. Mickey," she began, "Twelve years ago, I had a beautiful daughter named Catherine."

She went on to describe her daughter's talents, her wavy hair, her love of animals and the great void left by her death. "I was saddened beyond belief and felt that I would never be completely happy again," she wrote. "And indeed my loss of Catherine became the point of reference for my entire family. All family history was prefaced as happening either before or after Catherine's death."

She described her anger and her prayers, and then she wrote this: "In the midst of a class studying 'A Course in Miracles' I was surprised to find that I could forgive you. This does not mean that I think you are innocent or that you are blameless for what happened. What I learned is this: You are a divine child of God. You carry the Christ consciousness within you. You are surrounded by God's love even as you sit in your cell."

A minister invited Gayle to be a guest speaker at church on what would have been Catherine's birthday. Once Gayle told her story, people came up to her to relate their own experiences of anger and forgiveness.

"I'm a very ordinary person," said Gayle, who now lives in Silverton, Ore., and travels the country speaking about the power of forgiveness. "You don't have to be a saint to do what I did. Everyone has something to forgive."

Even a small thing ...

While forgiveness is a religious concept for many people, for others, it's a practical way of clearing clutter from their lives.

Worthington saw the subject creep up repeatedly over the years with couples who sought his help through counseling.

Some of his latest research includes a study of the hormonal content of the saliva of people involved in romantic relationships. Those who said they were unforgiving and in unhappy marriages tended to produce a stress hormone called cortisol, he said, while those in the happier and more forgiving group did not.

Additional research released last year by the University of Michigan found a relationship between older adults getting sick if they held onto grudges for years.

And a 2001 study conducted by psychologist Carl Thoresen and a team at Stanford University emphasized that forgiving doesn't even have to mean condoning an action or even reconciling with offenders. The study indicated people were more likely to feel better about being wronged if they could move away from blame and accept the idea that no adult can control someone else's behavior.

Worthington's newest book, "Five Steps to Forgiveness," (Crown Publishing, 2001, $24) is written for people reeling from a crime, divorce, layoff or other hurt. It encourages people to break the cycle of anger with something Worthington calls the REACH plan: Recall the hurt, Empathize with the one who hurt you, Altruistically decide to forgive, Commit publicly to forgiveness, and Hold on to the forgiveness.

While none of the research indicates forgiveness can cure cancer, Jackie Young is sure that at least it can't hurt. She is a breast cancer survivor.

Young, director of marketing for the American Cancer Society, has a long list of achievements in addition to being a survivor. She served as a Hawai'i state representative from 1990 to 1994, was the first female vice speaker of the Hawai'i House of Representatives and at the time was the highest Korean American elected official in the nation. She also is getting back on the campaign trail as she prepares to run as a Democrat in next year's Senate race.

Though her forgiveness brought her a sense of peace, it also sparked her drive to be an activist in life instead of a spectator. But to get to that point, her forgiveness didn't end with her rapist.

She also sent a letter to her first husband and met with her two other exes. She told them she was sorry she wasn't as present in the relationships as she might have been if she hadn't carried around the feeling that she didn't deserve to be loved in a relationship.

"It was brought on by my knowing I had to heal myself," she said. "It's given me an uplift in my life."

Before her cancer diagnosis, she was commissioned to write a Korean book of her memoirs.

She thought she had a finished version.

But it was just a rough draft.

Reach Tanya Bricking at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com.