When we are badly hurt, it can not only feel impossible to forgive, but it can also feel comforting to hold onto your grudge. And if it’s bringing you comfort in a time of hurt, why let go? Well, as Buddha is known to have wisely said, “Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.”

The following is the true story of a young woman who, in finding the path to forgiveness, was freed from a world of pain. Names and some small details have been changed:

At twenty-five years old, Elizabeth found herself going through her first breakup. She met Kyle when she was eighteen, and he’d been the love of her life ever since. But there she was, after an eight-year-long relationship, realizing that the two were no longer romantically compatible, and that Kyle wanted to break up. They agreed to stay friends, as neither could imagine life without the other one in it. 

However, no more than a week later, Elizabeth learned that Kyle had a new girlfriend, Rosie. Immediately, Elizabeth fostered an all-consuming hatred towards Rosie for two reasons:

1. She was extraordinarily beautiful
2. She had ordered Kyle to stop talking to Elizabeth. And he had agreed. Elizabeth was livid. She hated Kyle for cutting her out of his life so suddenly and hated Rosie for, as Elizabeth saw it, stealing him from her. Her days were filled with bitter rage and cavernous sadness. She fantasized about revenge, and even caught herself wishing both of them would die. She drank alcohol to numb the pain. She was always in pain, so she was always drinking alcohol. Soon, she couldn’t recognize the person she’d become. 

One day, a book happened to come into Elizabeth’s path. Among many other exciting new spiritual practices, this book discussed the power of compassion and forgiveness. From this book, Elizabeth took away two major points:

• Praying for your enemies and wishing them well will transform your hatred into compassion
• Sending them energies of love and positivity on a regular basis, the wound inflicted by whatever they did will heal
• Through these practices you will eventually come to forgive

Elizabeth didn’t see how this could work. She tried hard to not think about them, as they caused her so much pain, and she couldn’t see how bringing them into her thoughts purposefully like this could help anything. But she was desperate to feel okay again and move on with her life, so she decided to try it out. 

She began by saying a quick prayer before bed: Dear universe, please send love and health and wellness to Kyle and Rosie. 

Yeah right, she’d think as she fell asleep, I hope they burn in hell. 

But to her total surprise, after a month, when she said her nightly prayer, she started to kind of mean it. Then, two months later, she really meant it! Four months later, the practice of sending them love would actually warm her heart, even make her smile. By pretending that she wanted good things for Kyle and Rosie, she began to actually want good things for them. The hatred was gone.Feeling a million tons lighter, Elizabeth ventured back out into the world of the living. She stopped thinking of Kyle or Rosie for the most part, but when she did, it was only to wish them the best. 

One day, Elizabeth received the most unexpected Facebook message of her life. It was from Rosie. As it turned out, Rosie and Kyle had broken up six months ago, and now Rosie wanted to apologize to Elizabeth for telling Kyle he had to stop talking to her. “I feel horrible about how I behaved back then,” she wrote, “And I hope you’ll forgive me.” 

Picking her jaw up off the floor, Elizabeth wrote, “Of course I forgive you!”
As she clicked send she suddenly realized, Rosie did nothing wrong, it was his decision to stop talking to me. 

After a few emails, the two young women saw that they had one or two things in common, and decided to meet up for coffee. During coffee, they found that it wasn’t just two or three things, but a whole set of similarities and experiences over which to bond (only some of them involving Kyle). As it turned out, both girls were struggling to give up drinking. Rosie heard about a program where people get sober, and Elizabeth went with her to meetings. 

A year later they were both sober and had only the most supportive things to say about each other. Elizabeth came to genuinely love Rosie out of sheer gratitude for her, and knew  that none of this would have been possible without forgiveness. Moreover, the forgiveness wouldn’t have been possible without cultivating compassion through her nightly prayers and rituals. 

When Elizabeth looks back on the feelings in her heart that she had towards Rosie and compares them to her feelings now, she says there’s no explanation other than the absolute miracle of compassion. In Elizabeth’s words, compassion is alchemy: though it may not turn metal to gold, it turns hate to love, and in the strangest way it ended up saving her life. 

Today, in 2017, how does Elizabeth feel about Kyle? 
Well, what do you think?