Disconnecting from people who you do not see fairly often is easy. With a few clicks I can fully eliminate seeing an individual on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and others. Once they are out of sight, they will eventually be out of mind. However, conventionally "deleting" people from your life does not guarantee healing or understanding of the situation that has led you to hit the block button on Facebook in the first place. Writing people out of your life when you have a conflict with them that is difficult to settle not only trains your brain not to problem solve and make compromises but you cheat yourself out of forgiving the other person. Martin Luther King, Jr. had said "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love." What he says next has stuck with me since I was twelve. He said, "There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies." Growing up, I always heard the word hate tossed around so easily by not only my peers but adults as well and I realized one of the reasons is the lack of willingness to forgive. There are a couple of reasons forgiving is vital in life.
To forgive someone, you first must understand their point of view. Learning perspective and seeing through other people's eyes is an important skill to have. Once you understand another person's reasoning for their actions, it will help prevent conflicts in the future. Empathy is the capacity to understand an individual's unique experience. Utilizing empathy to forgive someone is not uncommon, so learning this skill through forgiveness can be helpful in the future.
Forgiveness leads to emotional healing within yourself. Forgiving people is a very healthy Studies show that the act of forgiveness lowers the risk of heart attack, improving sleep, reducing blood pressure, pain, anxiety and depression. For instance, the act of forgiveness can get people out of the "angry state" which affects heart rate and blood pressure. People who practice unconditional forgiveness - meaning they forgive an individual even when they do not apologize or promise not to commit the transgression that started the conflict to begin with - are more likely to live longer than those who practice conditional forgiveness.
If you have never practiced forgiveness regularly, if you're the person that is quick to block people on Facebook and have a long block list to prove it, the good news is you can learn to incorporate the act into your life. To forgive someone is a choice and, by definition, does not mean to forget or condone the transgression an individual has committed against you. To forgive you must make a conscious decision to erase the negative feelings you may have towards a person whether they deserve it or not. It may not sound easy but that is because it's not. But learning to forgive someone releases the anger you feel towards them and allows you to even feel compassion towards the person that has wronged you through empathy and understanding.
So instead of instantly deleting someone from your life, forgive them and continue to smile at their Instagram selfie with their sister or laugh at the dumb cat video they posted on Facebook.
