This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanthan.

Over the course of our lives, we all accrue a ledger of the wrongs done to us.

For some of us, that ledger is long and detailed.

We find ourselves pouring over the pages again and again, accounting for each betrayal,

tallying every injustice, adding up the petty cruelties.

We sit with these wrongs done to us and as time slides by, our anger festers instead of fading away.

This week on Hidden Brain, we begin a series on forgiveness and apologies.

We'll consider why holding a grudge can feel bad and good at the same time.

And we look at why the process of forgiveness can sometimes be a long struggle between head and heart.

This journey has its own twists and turns and there can be surprises.

There can be times of incredible, effortful intentionality that feel almost fruitless.

But there are other times where that persistence can all of a sudden be met with like an aha revelation, a gift.

Granting forgiveness for the wrongs done to us is one of the hardest things human beings can do.

At Hope College in Michigan, psychologists Charlotte Whitfleet studies the psychological barriers and effects of forgiveness.

She and others have examined why forgiveness is hard and the transformative effects of forgiveness on both victims and transgressors.

Charlotte Whitfleet, welcome to Hidden Brain.

Thank you, Shankar. It's a joy to be with you.

Charlotte, you're a researcher, but you also spend a lot of time in clinical settings working with patients.

What kind of hurts and traumas do people tell you that they are carrying around?

It's so rare that someone has come into a clinical setting and not had some sort of deep interpersonal pain that felt unfair or unjust to them.

There are all sorts of betrayals. There are betrayals from childhood,

betrayals in friendship, in families, in romantic relationships, infidelities, having your reputation maligned.

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