You know when people stepped on my toes or wronged me in the slightest, it used to upset me for a long time. Years. And I'll tell you, the surface area of where I could get hurt was disproportionate to my actual size: if people voted a certain way or believed a certain thing, it hurt me. If people sent their kid to a school with a particular name, it hurt me. Personally.

And if I'm honest, I wanted that hurt. I wanted to be in a constant state of outrage because it made me feel powerful. Important. Bigger than. It took me too long to realize that grudges will kill me. That sense of power I get, not just over being right, over being wronged. I used to cling to that because it made me feel powerful, and like other people were just hugely immoral compared to me.

Here's the thing about outrage -- it destroys us at the cellular level. Recent research shows that it leads to mitochondrial level. It starts screwing with our hormones, and that can spill into our blood stream and cause actual disease including hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Not to mention stress coping mechanisms like drug and alcohol abuse and all the problems that spill into that.

It's taken me a long time to learn that outrage is a drug and an emotion that I can not afford to hold on to for very long. It's taken me even longer to realize that the only way through it is forgiveness. Forgiveness is a wellness gift I can give myself Just like exercise or a healthy meal, I have to practice forgiveness -- even if the other person never knows they're forgiven. It's required for my survival to forgive.