Unforgiveness Is Making You Sick: How to Release It
May 04, 2026
Unforgiveness doesn’t just live in your thoughts. It lives in your body.
The resentment you carry, the stories you replay, the pain you hold onto over time impact your nervous system, your chemistry, and your overall health.
This isn’t just emotional. It’s biological.
What you hold onto doesn’t just affect how you feel. It affects how your body responds.
In this episode of the Be a Blaze Podcast, Polly explores how unforgiveness affects the body, why it keeps you stuck in cycles of stress and pain, and how to release it in a way that is freeing, not forced.
🎧 Listen to podcast Episode 42: Unforgiveness is Making You Sick (Here's How to Release It)
Your Body Responds to What You're Holding Onto
Think about someone who has hurt you. Now think about what happens when you revisit that moment. Your body responds.
Tension builds.
Your chest tightens.
Your thoughts speed up.
You feel it physically.
That reaction isn’t random. It’s your nervous system activating. Every time you replay the story, your body responds as if it’s happening again. Over time, that repeated stress response can take a toll, not just emotionally, but physically.
What Forgiveness Actually Means
Forgiveness is often misunderstood.
It is not:
- Saying what happened was okay
- Allowing someone to continue harming you
- Ignoring or minimizing your pain
- Reconciliation
Forgiveness is:
- Releasing someone from control over your body and thoughts
- Choosing not to carry their pain anymore
- Taking back your power
When you hold onto unforgiveness, the person who hurt you still has access to your thoughts, your emotions, and your nervous system. Forgiveness is how you take that access back.
Why It’s So Hard to Let Go
Many people resist forgiveness because it feels like letting someone off the hook. But what’s actually happening is this:
You keep the story alive.
You keep the pain active.
You keep your body in a loop.
Over and over again.
When you say, “They don’t deserve forgiveness,” what you’re really saying is, “They still get to affect me.”
Forgiveness doesn’t remove consequences for them. It removes their power over you.
Forgiveness and Boundaries Go Together
Forgiveness does not mean continued access. You can forgive someone and:
- Limit your relationship
- Change the level of connection
- Walk away completely
A simple reframe:
I love you enough to stop allowing you to harm me.
And I love myself enough to stop carrying your pain.
This is where forgiveness becomes powerful, not passive.
How to Actually Forgive
Forgiveness isn’t something you force. It’s something you process.
Here is a simple framework from this episode:
1. Pause and connect to yourself
Slow down. Get present in your body.
2. Identify the person and the harm
What happened? What did it feel like?
3. Write it out
Use the format:
“When you did this, I felt…”
Let it all come out.
4. Notice where it lives in your body
Jaw. Chest. Gut. Head.
Your body has been holding this.
5. Release it
Imagine the person in front of you.
Hand it back. Emotion, tension, all of it.
6. Choose forgiveness
“Today, I choose to forgive you.”
“I release you.”
7. Surrender them
To God, to the universe, whatever aligns for you.
They are no longer yours to carry.
8. Forgive yourself
For holding onto it.
For carrying it.
For staying in it.
9. Sit in the shift
Pause. Breathe. Let your body feel what it is like without the weight.
Where to Start
You don’t have to begin with the hardest situation. Start with someone where there is tension, but not the deepest pain. Experience what forgiveness feels like first. Then go deeper.
You Don’t Have to Carry This
You don’t have to keep replaying the same story.
You don’t have to keep feeling the same pain.
You don’t have to let someone else’s actions continue affecting your body and your life.
Forgiveness is not about them. It is about your freedom.
And when you release it, you create space for something different.