Jennifer Aniston on Forgiving Her Mother and Letting Go of ‘Toxic’ Anger

Jennifer Aniston opened up about the importance of letting go of “toxic” anger and finding forgiveness.

The “Morning Show” star, 53, reflected on how she has moved on from some painful challenges from her past, including a difficult relationship with her late mother, in a new cover interview with “Allure.”

“I forgave my mom,” said Aniston, who was estranged from her mother for several years. “I forgave my father. I’ve forgiven my family.

“It’s important,” Aniston added. “It’s toxic to have that resentment, that anger. I learned that by watching my mom never let go of it. I remember saying, ‘Thank you for showing me what never to be.’

"So that’s what I mean about taking the darker things that happen in our lives, the not-so-happy moments, and trying to find places to honor them because of what they have given to us," she continued.

Aniston’s parents, actors Nancy Dow and John Aniston, divorced when she was a child, and Aniston recalled the toll the split took on her mother.

“I think my mom’s divorce really screwed her up,” she said. “Back in that generation it wasn’t like, ‘Go to therapy, talk to somebody. Why don’t you start microdosing?’ You’re going through life and picking up your child with tears on your face and you don’t have any help.”

She also shared that her unhappiness at home pushed her to seek out other experiences.

“My house was not a fun house to live in,” she said. “I was thrilled to get out.”

The “Friends” star has opened up about her difficult childhood in the past, telling Interview in 2020 that her household felt “destabilized” and “unsafe.”

As Aniston told Allure, she had to work through some feelings from those tough early years in order to move forward.

“I feel like I’m coming through a period that was challenging and coming back into the light,” she said. “I have had to do personal work that was long overdue, parts of me that hadn’t healed from the time I was a little kid.”

Aniston got vulnerable in her Allure interview, also opening up about her journey with IVF and dealing with tabloid pregnancy rumors over the years.

Looking back on how she has worked to overcome various struggles over the years, Aniston has realized she is a “constant work in progress.”

“Thank God,” she said. “How uninteresting would life be if we all achieved enlightenment and that was it?”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com