The Power to Release What No Longer Owns You
The research is clear.
The Stanford Forgiveness Project in the United States found that releasing resentment lowers stress hormones and restores mental clarity. In the United Kingdom, Professor Paul Gilbert’s work shows that women who stop attacking themselves make wiser choices under pressure.
At the University of the West Indies, Professor Claudette Crawford-Brown has demonstrated that emotional release strengthens resilience in Caribbean communities navigating long-term adversity.
Forgiveness is not about erasing the past. It is about reclaiming the woman you are becoming.
Change does not begin with doing more. It begins with meaning.
Forgiveness is one of those quiet inner shifts, not a moral performance, but a neurological and spiritual reset that frees your energy from what is already over.
Here are seven soul-strengthening steps for the Sista who refuses to shrink:
1. Name the Impact, Not Just the Event
Unprocessed experiences do not disappear, they reappear in how we lead. They simply find new rooms to enter. Research from Harvard shows that leaders who acknowledge emotional injury without suppressing it demonstrate stronger emotional regulation and lower burnout and increase emotional regulation.
Naming what happened is not weakness. Recognition is the first act of power. Unprocessed experiences do not disappear. Harvard research shows that leaders who acknowledge emotional injury reduce burnout It is the first act of power.
2. Separate Identity from Experience
The University of Manchester’s trauma studies reveal that when leaders internalise mistakes as self-judgment, personal defects, confidence collapses.
Separating who you are from what happened prevents your leadership voice from shrinking.
You are not the moment that broke you.
You are the woman who survived it.
The past becomes information, not identity.
3. Release the Illusion of Control
According to Dr Everett Worthington’s work in the United States, it shows that the nervous system remains in a defensive state when leaders stay attached to rewriting what cannot be changed. Letting go is not surrender, it is the point where your energy returns to the present, where leadership actually happens. It is the moment your energy returns to the present, where leadership actually lives.
4. Regulate Before You Respond
Caribbean resilience research led by Dr Aldrie Henry-Lee highlights that communities thrive when emotional processing precedes decision -making. Rest. Breathe. Slow down.Leaders who pause to rest, breathe and regulate avoid reaction and choose response, a hallmark of psychological maturity. A regulated woman chooses response over reaction, and that is psychological maturity in motion.
5. Choose Meaning Over Memory
Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is reframing. Studies at Oxford University show that leaders who reinterpret setbacks as data develop higher adaptability and innovation. The story you tell yourself becomes the environment you lead.
6. Repair Where Possible, Rebuild Where Necessary
Making amends, when safe and appropriate, reduces guilt and increases accountability. If repair is not possible, rebuilding boundaries is. Growth begins when responsibility replaces rumination and action replaces regret.
7. Recommit to Who You Are Becoming
Forgiveness is forward-facing. The University of the West Indies notes that hope-based leadership predicts stronger team cohesion than charisma alone. Closing the emotional ledger allows you to lead from vision instead of vigilance.
Forgiveness is not softness.
It is strategy.
It frees cognitive capacity, strengthens authority and stops old wounds from speaking before you door running the meeting before you enter the room.
If this speaks to your spirit, share your reflections below, invite another woman into the conversation and share with someone who is ready to lead without carrying yesterday into tomorrow.
