Two Helpful Forgiveness Hints

When you forgive, be gentle with yourself as your anger subsides and as compassion increases. We usually change our thought first about someone who has been unjust to us. Thoughts are more under our control than are our emotions. Just because you have some anger does not mean that you are unforgiving. If your thoughts include “do no harm” and “I wish the other person well” then you are on the forgiveness path. A softened heart in the form of compassion can be a long road and so please be patient with yourself.

When you forgive, be sure to exercise other moral virtues along with it. Aristotle counseled us never to practice any of the virtues in isolation. I recommend that you bring the moral virtue of courage on your forgiveness journey. Courage will provide the strength to continue on the journey when you get weary. Courage will provide another kind of strength to stand up to those who are treating you unjustly. The softened heart that is forgiveness will temper the courage so that you are not a roaring lion toward your offender.

Robert

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Categories: Helpful Forgiveness Hint, Our Forgiveness Blog

4 comments

  1. Jamie says:

    Being gentle with yourself is a good reminder. I tend to want to rush to the end so that the pain is gone but in doing that I can create more pain for myself. Slow down, that is my new perspective.

  2. Chris says:

    Humility is another virtue that we need when forgiving. It is so easy to have righteous indignation when hurt by others. Humility brings us back to the reality that we are all capable of being unfair, even myself, which makes forgiveness easier.

  3. Samantha says:

    And wisdom so that you know when to rest and when to press on. Wisdom lets you know when you have completed the forgiveness. It also helps you know whom to forgive first.

  4. Tesch says:

    Thank you for the perspective that some anger is not an indication of no forgiveness. I sometimes worry about that. I suppose that it depends on the intensity of the anger. Deep anger probably does say that I am not so forgiving right now but a little anger means that I am human.

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