Forgive for Good by Fred Luskin

Forgive for Good by Fred Luskin

Results from Dr. Fred Luskin's Stanford University Forgiveness Project, one of the largest and most important studies on forgiveness ever conducted, show that learning how to forgive improves our emotional and physical well-being. Holding onto resentment or hurt disrupts our personal and professional lives, leads to bad decision-making, and releases stress chemicals that can have a negative effect on our health. Yet all too many of us clutch our grievances and give away our power by remaining victims of the people who have hurt us.

By teaching us how to forgive, this book enables us to move beyond being a victim to a life of improved health and contentment. Based on scientific research, this groundbreaking study from the frontiers of psychology and medicine offers startling new insight into the healing powers of forgiveness. Through vivid examples (including his work with victims from both sides of Northern Ireland's civil war), Dr. Fred Luskin offers a proven nine-step forgiveness method. Participants in Stanford University's Forgiveness Project experienced:

• Decrease in feelings of hurt
• Reduction in the physical symptoms of stress, including backache, muscle aches, dizziness, and upset stomach
• Increase in optimism
• Reduction in long-term experience of angera significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease

Forgive for Good distills the essential elements of Dr. Luskin's forgiveness training into an accessible guide for overcoming the negative effects of anger, bitterness, and resentment by gaining control of our feelings. Forgiveness does not mean condoning the behavior of those who have hurt us. Forgiveness is a choice that we make to release our past and heal our present.

Fred Luskin, Ph.D. is the author of Forgive for Good and one of the world's leading researchers and teachers on the subject of forgiveness. He is the director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, a series of research projects that investigate forgiveness methods. He holds an appointment at the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation as a senior fellow and is an associate professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He lives in Palo Alto, California.