Last Updated on July 29, 2021
Recently, someone I know lost his dad suddenly. The report indicated that it was ‘heart failure’ but he was very puzzled because they have no prior family history of heart attacks.
As there is a deeper relationship between heart ailments and a person’s emotional levels, I asked him if his dad was someone who constantly held grudges and have problem forgiving and forgetting mistakes or hurts done by others. To that, he wasn’t sure. Then I pose another question- was he quite bad temper by nature?
His eyes widened as I asked him that question. He said, ‘well, it could be because just the day before he passed away, my dad had a quarrel with the neighbor.’
But I told him that the quarrel was not the cause. Prior to that, the anger and negative feelings would have built up and that particular quarrel became the breaking point. He agreed because it would not be possible for just a quarrel to trigger a heart attack. But my bet is that the poor neighbor would be feeling guilty for the rest of his life.
We built up negative emotions in the form of stress, anger, sorrow, unexpressed grief, etc. Generally, men prefer to keep their feelings to themselves compared to women, which explains why men seemed to be more prone to heart attack, blocked arteries and other related heart ailments.
It’s important we need to learn to relax, let go and learn to forgive. We may not have complete control over external situations- suddenly someone may yell at us for nothing or a loved one may argue with us. But we can control how we chose to react to the situation.
Look at it this way, it’s so silly to let other people push our buttons. When we are stuck in a jam and someone cuts the way in, we are tempted to yell and even beat up the person. When people are nasty to us, we want to be double nasty back or take revenge. Living life this way is to enable external situations to dictate our moods and our inner well-being. And we know very well that we cannot really control another person or even external things like our job security and market situation. We can do our best and let the outcome be what it wanted to be.
Strive to be responsive, not reactive. Changing our mindset can be a matter of life or death.
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
My father is elderly (90) and I fear will go to the grave carrying bitterness, regrett and unforgiveness with him, much of it directed at himself. He has never learned to fogive or let go. It’s very sad.
I have tried to explain to him that forgiveness is for his benefit, NOT the person he is forgiving. He said he can’t and it’s too late for him. Unfortunately he has become a great example for me of how NOT to live my life. I choose to forgive.
Thanks for dropping by my blog.
It’s good to hear that you have chosen to forgive and you have the maturity and wisdom to understand. We cannot change others- including those who love us. Sometimes the best gift we can give them is acceptance and love them for who they are. That itself would provide them a great deal of comfort.
I’ve just recently written an article about how a 80 year old grandma had chosen to forgive- despite in her life she had been betrayed by many people…
http://life.yinteing.com/2010/04/25/when-others-betray-you/