Real Men Forgive: A Life and Health-Improving Mantra | | By Andy Snyder, Founder | | | | | | | | | Rooster's Crow | | | It's winter and it's cold. You know we love our wool. Here's a not-so-known, but simple, way to use it to keep your feet warm. Add wool insoles to your shoes. Start with some wool felt, which you can get at most fabric stores. If you can easily remove the insole from your shoe or boot, do it. Trace the outline onto the felt. If you can't get an easy pattern, just trace the outline of your shoe and subtract an inch or so from the edge. Cut out the wool with a pair of good scissors and slip the new insole into your shoe. Nice... and toasty. | | | |
 Rooster's Crow It's winter and it's cold. You know we love our wool. Here's a not-so-known, but simple, way to use it to keep your feet warm. Add wool insoles to your shoes. Start with some wool felt, which you can get at most fabric stores. If you can easily remove the insole from your shoe or boot, do it. Trace the outline onto the felt. If you can't get an easy pattern, just trace the outline of your shoe and subtract an inch or so from the edge. Cut out the wool with a pair of good scissors and slip the new insole into your shoe. Nice... and toasty. John Templeton is our kind of guy. The man made his money the honest way and used it to fund scientific research that will benefit us all.
You'll find what he learned about our brains equal parts fascinating and useful. But no essay on the man is complete without diving into his remarkable career as an investor.
We'll start there.
Templeton's story is one of timing. He borrowed some cash at the start of World War II and put it into the cheapest stocks he could find. He bought a stake in 104 companies with share prices under a buck.
A full third of them were in bankruptcy.
It was a bold move... that we wouldn't recommend you mimic.
But, again, his timing was grand. All but four stocks paid off handsomely. He turned $10,000 into $40,000 in just four years.
Soon after counting his new pile of money, Templeton went into the mutual fund business, where he found great success. He would eventually be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and, perhaps just as noble, Money magazine argued he was the greatest stock picker of his time.
But the billionaire wasn't all about money.
He had a deep spiritual side that helped nourish his great philanthropic endeavors.
With the motto "How little we know, how eager to learn," our hero started the Templeton Foundation. Its mission was simply to grant money to folks eagerly studying new ideas.
In 1997, the effort spawned the Campaign for Forgiveness Research, an exhaustive study that aimed at taking a scientific - versus religious - approach to the idea of forgiveness.
What Templeton and his researchers found is a lesson for every man.
Forgiveness is one of the best medicines for our body and mind.
Forgive and ForGet
In experiment after experiment, the results are the same. When researchers asked participants to think about somebody they hold a grudge against - i.e., a person they have not forgiven - the folks doing the thinking underwent great physiological stress.
Their hearts beat faster. Their blood pressures surged. Their muscles tensed. And sweat dotted their brows.
No matter how long ago the unforgiven event happened, the body reacted quite negatively just to the thought of it.
Now imagine how many unforgiven things you carry with you right now.
Name them and feel your body fight back.
Failing to forgive puts tremendous stress on your body... stress that will shorten your life.
"When you don't forgive, you release all the chemicals of the stress response," says Stanford University's Dr. Frederic Luskin. "Each time you react, adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine enter the body. When it's a chronic grudge, you could think about it 20 times a day, and those chemicals limit creativity, they limit problem-solving. Cortisol and norepinephrine cause your brain to enter what we call 'the no-thinking zone,' and over time, they lead you to feel helpless and like a victim."
But there's a cure for this ailment.
In her book, Triumph of the Heart: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World, author Megan Feldman Bettencourt reveals the research that proves all we must do is forgive, and the stress and the sludge of chemicals that come with it are gone.
So how do you do it? What's the trick?
After all, if forgiveness were so easy, religions wouldn't center on the idea and it wouldn't take dozens of multimillion-dollar research efforts to show us the dangerous nature of not letting go.
Step by Step
Thanks to a surge in research, brain docs have proven multiple ways to forgive others and release our minds from the shackles of angst.
Although they range from just one or two simple steps all the way to comprehensive 20-step programs, most proven forgiveness techniques contain the same basic four ideas.
First, we have to understand what we're holding on to. What is it and who is it that we have not forgiven? In this foundational stage, we must reflect on failed attempts at forgiveness and why we failed.
From there, step two is making the conscious decision to forgive. It's not as easy as it sounds. It must be authentic and we must be fully committed.
It's a step that trips a lot of wannabe forgivers.
Step three is quite emotional. It's where we confront the pain and work to understand it from other perspectives.
This is where, perhaps, we begin to see the other side of the story. It's where we contemplate the action from the perpetrator's point of view. Maybe the crook was trying to feed his starving family. Maybe he got hooked on drugs after hurting his back. Maybe he really is just a bad person.
Whatever the case, to fully forgive, we must fully understand. There are remarkable stories of forgiveness - and friendship - that have been bred from this critical process.
Finally, the last step is to simply reflect. It's where we examine the many ways the pain has affected our life. Many folks find solace in learning how similar instances affected others. Others simply ramble off a list of grievances.
No matter. This is where we take whatever happened, admit that it changed our life, know that we're not the only who's ever been wronged, crumple it all up and walk away.
We forgive.
Practice Helps
Finally, our age helps. Research shows that the older we are, the easier it is to forgive and the more health benefits there are to forgiving.
A study by Loren Toussaint of Iowa's Luther College proved a significant relationship between good health and forgiveness. But it was the folks over the age of 45 who appeared to gain the most. They reported far fewer feelings of sadness, anxiety and restlessness.
The concept is not hard to believe. Forgiveness takes practice.
But with age comes greater baggage. By failing to forgive, we harbor a lifetime of ill will. It builds up and affects our health.
Simply learn how to forgive, strive to do it every chance you get... and watch how your life and health improve.
Be well,
Andy | | | | | |
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