First, unforgiveness is nothing more than a poison that will induce more pain within. In this case, holding unforgiveness is a recipe for more and more pain that will make things a lot worse.
What you basically do through unforgiveness is to keep on ruminating or meditating on what happened to you by holding on grudges, deep resentment, and thoughts of revenge against the person who harmed you.
You are feeding these memories with your own mental energy.
Through unforgiveness, you are nurturing a spirit of vengeance against the aggressor by wishing for something bad to befall such person, so that this individual can come to the obvious realization that such person is paying the price for what he/she has done to you.
In some cases, you feel that you would be better off if the perpetrator were to become non-existent.
You find yourself in a constant meditative state in which you allow your mind to dwell on hurtful memories that will bring more pain.
Chances are that evil person who did it all to you might well be getting on with his/her life if that person is still alive or if jail time wasn’t administered.
The Battle You’ll Never Be Able to Win
One thing that’s quite evident during your struggles is that you have been constantly into some form of mental war against that person involved, thus sending yourself into a defensive mode by which the brain gets to release more and more chemicals that will wear your body and mind down even further.
You might even feel that your mind is about to be exploded as a result of these avalanche of thoughts overflowing it.
But this battle that you’ve been fighting against the perpetrator within the battlefield of your own mind is a battle that you’ll never be able to win.
I don’t mean to be insensitive to any of you at all.
But the downside of nurturing an unforgiving spirit is that you are already in a vulnerable and fragile position in that battle.
Mainly because the aggressor has already inflicted you by injecting a number of ruthless experiences in one of the most sensitive parts of your being.
It becomes quite challenging to fight that battle since the aggressor is fighting you unknowingly through the realm of your own way of thinking by means of these memories.
The battle is being waged in your subconsciousness within the context of these memories.
Have you ever noticed that so many times you’ve been getting pounded, beaten, or attacked repeatedly from within by your aggressor even when trying to focus on something worthwhile in life?
Within the battlefield of your mind, this person is fighting you in a realm you don’t even have conscious access to.
That’s why you often find yourself being beaten down by these memories while being unable to stop them at will.
Since the offense is deeply engraved in you, you are giving your offender more power to attack you within the battlefield of your mind by unforgiveness.
Unforgiveness Strengthens Trauma Memories
The mind is like a huge network system in which there’s a great deal of interconnection that enables signals to flow.
Thoughts flow freely through the mind by means of neural pathways which are nothing more than mental channels.
You’ll strengthen the very neural pathways through which painful flashbacks and intrusive thoughts are flowing by holding grudges.
You are sharpening these painful memories even further by adding another layer of destructive, painful, or acidic type of energy to them that will eat you up on the inside instead of setting yourself on a course where they can be faded away.
Consequently, this problem gets to deliver a much greater, acute, acidic, or painful punch against you whenever it is in manifestation.
Unforgiveness is the fuel that will keep this issue burning perpetually by keeping it closer to your consciousness daily, thus making it become your second nature.
You’ll always feel this thing running constantly in the background of your mind.
By intentionally meditating on the past trauma memories constantly through unforgiveness, you are creating that highly fortified connection between these memories and external realities that will continue to trigger them.
You are strengthening the mental, emotional, and sensational link at the core of the problem.
You are empowering the very component that unleashes the excruciating internal pain you’ve been experiencing all along.
Unforgiveness Causes the Pain to Become Structural
At some point, the pain gets to become structural, which means that it becomes registered in the fabric of your body.
So it finds an area in the body where it sits itself solidly. The pain is mostly felt in that region.
This area becomes very responsive to your surroundings just as if it has a mind of its own, thus it can be triggered by the reality of the 5 senses you are being exposed to regularly, particularly noises.
To put it into perspective, this issue creates a huge external hole that leads to the core of your inner self in which the pain is lodged.
As a result, external realities, such as certain types of noises or words will trigger these memories to unleash that pain being stored in.
Whenever the memories show up in your mind, the pain goes right to that part to manifest itself by unleashing its massive waves of negative energy.
This is the most annoying aspect of it.
Most likely, it’s the very area of your heart if you’ve been holding unforgiveness.
Since your heart is slightly positioned on the left side of your chest, you’ll feel the intense pain, tension, or pressure in that area.
You’ll feel some type of burning and crushing sensation either on the left side or in the middle of your chest area.
The very rib cage on that side all the way to the back will be greatly affected.
It’s as though there’s a huge amount of weight on top of your heart crushing it downward.
You are being imploded.
Then there’s also the feeling of something tearing you apart from within.
Sometimes, things get so bad to the extent that how you feel starts interfering with your breathing pattern.
When trying to take a deep breath, you might feel that left side of your chest is holding back.
When laying on your bed, you might find yourself having a difficult time laying comfortably on that side since it becomes very tense and compressed.
You might also feel that the pain has punctured a hole in your back when laying on that position.
When sitting down at an upright position, you might feel your chest is being collapsed due to the enormous pressure of the pain.
That’s where you’ll feel it when the memories are being played over and over in your mind.
Forgiveness Is About Opening Up Your Heart
Your system has been operating in a state of locking up something painful within your heart by which you can nurture a spirit of vengeance to validate your own feeling of being a victim.
Now you have to open the gateway of your heart to let go of what being held within.
It’s something you have to do regularly because your system will always try to revert to that very unforgiving condition it has been for so long.
These memories will still come across your mind, thus generating the desire to hold unto them.
Forgiving is a conscious, deliberate, and continuing act in which you choose not to continue to hold unto trauma memories in the sense of ceasing to feed them with more mental energy.
You stop embracing their validity to vindicate yourself. You stop contemplating something bad to befall that person.
You release that person who was locked up in the confinement of your heart.
You can pray a prayer like this to forgive your transgressor. You are free to pray according to your heart.
Heavenly Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I’ve chosen to open my heart to You by releasing the deep pains and hurts that have been sealed within me due to bitterness, resentment, and grudges that I’ve been holding on for so long.
I’ve chosen to forgive my transgressor by letting go of what that individual had done to me. I’ve chosen to release (say that person name) from the prison of my heart and mind.
Jesus being the Word of God states in (Matthew 11:28), “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Therefore, I choose to unload the burden of my bitterness weighing down my heart upon Jesus so that I can find true and lasting rest in Him.
Since Your Word states in (Isaiah 53:5) that by His stripes we are healed, may His stripes heal me of the internal wounds along with the infection this issue has caused.
I pray that you touch the heart of the perpetrator so that he/she may surrender his/her life to Christ Jesus.
I pray that You impart the power of Christ Jesus’ forgiveness in me to empower me to truly forgive so that I may move on the path of true and lasting healing through Christ.
In Jesus’ name I pray.
Amen.