Kristin Koval: Forgiveness as a Radical Form of Wellness

Forgiveness can be complicated and messy, and because everyone arrives at forgiveness in their own way and on their own timetable, it’s difficult to give (or get) advice on how, exactly, to get there. Wearables won’t help: there’s no app to track it (a Whoop can’t tell when you’ve forgiven someone) and no streak to maintain (an Apple Watch won’t chastise you if you slip up and spend a day angry at that person again). And yet, I’ve discovered forgiveness is one of the most powerful ways to care of myself.

There’s a saying that holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It rings true, because while anger has a natural place in the human emotional range, it holds an outsized power over our minds and bodies. It hyper-focuses our minds on how we were wronged, winds up and replays what we could have done or said differently or what to do to “fix” the wrong (hello, retaliation!). It affects us physically, resulting in lost sleep and tight jaws or shoulders, almost like we’re bracing ourselves against the wrong. And since it’s often easier to be angry than to be anything else, anger often roots deep inside, becoming a way of being. But holding onto anger doesn’t hurt that other person—it hurts us.

My experience with this phenomenon inspired me to write my debut novel, Penitence, so I could explore forgiveness and all its complexities. Years ago, there was a person in my life I struggled to forgive. Then one day, driving alone in my car, my mind wandered to them, but instead of my mind spiraling into its usual anger, I experienced a profound sense of peace. I knew I’d finally forgiven them and suddenly realized I’d been thinking about forgiveness backwards: forgiveness wasn’t a gift given to the person who wronged me, it was a gift given to me. That one moment changed the way I felt about anger and forgiveness and made me a happier and healthier person.

In Penitence, all the characters have hurt others and been hurt. They’re burdened by their anger for these hurts, and their failure to forgive others (and themselves) results in frayed relationships and unhappy lives. Angie, the mother of two young teens, one dead, the second the cause of a terrible family tragedy, struggles to forgive the second, and it’s only when she loosens her grip on anger that she recognizes what might be on the other side of her hurt.

Exploring Penitence’s flawed characters helped me understand forgiveness in a way I didn’t when I was initially given the gift of forgiving another person all those years ago. While writing, I walked in each character’s shoes, and it helped me appreciate the role of empathy and mercy in forgiveness. I also realized forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting or excusing a wrong. Instead, it’s letting go of the burden of carrying anger.

I still feel anger—I’m human—but it doesn’t root inside me and grow the way it does inside one of the characters in Penitence, Livia, who can’t let go of anger at her daughter, Angie, for something that happened twenty years ago. When I’m wronged now, I’m more likely to search for empathy and mercy, to try for forgiveness, to let go of an anger that will hurt me more than it will the person who wronged me. This works for smaller slights, too. Encounters with rude people or drivers cutting me off in traffic no longer ruin my day. I consider whether the person had a flat tire that morning or perhaps spent the night caring for a sick child, pick myself up, and move on.

Many Penitence readers have commented that they struggle with self-forgiveness more than forgiving others. We’re probably all hard on ourselves, but we should apply the same empathy and mercy to forgive ourselves that we would for others. Ironically, self-forgiveness may be the most radical wellness practice of all, because when we grant ourselves mercy, we’re not excusing our mistakes, we’re creating room to evolve and become better people.

The modern world is saturated with outrage and rapid-fire judgment, and forgiveness is the one thing that can interrupt the cycle of reactive anger. Forgiving another person—in whatever way and on whatever timeline makes sense for you—won’t earn a measurable health metric on a Whoop or Apple Watch, but it is ultimately something you do for yourself. Letting go of anger will calm your mind, unclench your jaw and loosen your shoulders, an unburdening that is an unexpected but welcome act of wellness.

Penitence is published by Simon & Schuster on 15 January 2026