Author Archive: directorifi

How would you define forgivable offenses? To be particular, can someone forgive another’s failure or deficiency in character (even if there was no wrongful act committed by the person)? For instance, someone might be indifferent to me without meaning to hurt me, but I might still feel offended while knowing he or she didn’t do anything wrong to me. Thank you.

Deficiency of character will come out as behavior, either as a bad act (an act of commission) or as a failure to act when one should (an act of omission). When a person treats you with indifference, this is an act of omission because you are a person of worth and others should not treat you as if you were invisible. This, of course, does not mean that we have to pour ourselves out for everyone we meet. Your example centers on actual interactions which make you feel ignored. We should not treat others as if they do not count or have no worth (an act of omission).  When this occurs, those so ignored can, if they choose, forgive the other.

You talk about forgiveness being not only giving up resentment but also developing compassion and even moral love toward the one who has hurt you. What does it mean to love a stranger who had no relationship with you prior to his offense? There is no trust or relationship to restore to start with, but even in that case, do you think it is possible to love that offender? If you do, would you please give some examples?

Yes, we can love strangers when we realize that all people have inherent (built-in) worth. Therefore, we can serve those we do not know. We can come to the aid of strangers.  When we give money to a suffering person who has her back to a wall as you pass by, you are showing that she has inherent worth. When you refuse to retaliate toward a stranger who is not good to you, you are showing that the person has inherent worth. As you show such worth to others, you are loving those people as you serve them.

Extreme Examples Do Not Invalidate Forgiving

For the past week, I have been in a world conflict zone doing workshops on forgiveness education for teachers. In each of the workshops, which now number eight, in this region I invariably get this kind of question:

“We are in a high conflict, oppressive situation. One of my students saw his brother get killed. You tell me how I will have him forgive the murderer.”

The basic point is that the hurt is too large for the student, or anyone else, to consider forgiving in such a context.

A further point is a false assumption: If forgiveness cannot be successfully applied to the enormous injustices of the world, then forgiveness is weak and useless.

I must disagree and do so with an analogy. Suppose a person wants to start to become physically fit after a decade of decadence with no exercise whatsoever. Suppose now that a trainer gives the person one and only one directive: You must start by running a marathon. It just would not work. Does this invalidate the quest for physical fitness, rendering the goal weak and useless?

You see, the questioners start with the marathon of forgiveness and do not see that we should not start there. We need to build the forgiveness fitness one small step at a time.  Just because a student cannot forgive the murderer of his brother today does not invalidate his trying to forgive his friend who failed to show up for gathering yesterday.

Small steps first are necessary and they help us build toward bigger forgiveness later.  This is why forgiveness education is so important. It helps students explore what forgiveness is and is not in the quiet of a classroom…….before tragedy strikes and the unjustly-treated person now must stumble to ask: What is forgiveness? Should I forgive or not forgive? Am I excusing the one who acted badly? How do I go about forgiving? How long might it take?

We need forgiveness education…………..now.

Robert

New Study: Forgiveness Makes Kids Happier

It might be worth our while to move beyond “I’m sorry” as the be-all and end-all goal of conflict resolution for children. To raise happier children, we should take steps that lead to a lot more “I forgive you’s.”

That’s one of the dramatic take-aways of a just-completed study by three researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. In a sample of 275 nine- to 13-year-olds who completed self-reported and behavioral measures of forgiveness and various indicators of psychological well-being, the study found that forgiveness can help children maintain strong relationships and improve psychological well-being.

According to the authors, it’s long been known that peer and friendship relations in late childhood play an essential role in children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. The research shows that friendships are associated with a greater sense of well-being, better self-esteem, and fewer social problems, both concurrently and later in life.

In contrast, children and adolescents who lack close friendships are more likely to manifest behavioral and emotional problems during childhood and even adulthood. Children who are less forgiving have lower self-esteem, are more socially anxious, and are more likely to engage in deviant behaviors.

The study also emphasized the need for early childhood forgiveness education, particularly during stages in which friendships are most important, such as in early childhood when children start to untie their parental bonds and increasingly focus on relationships with peers. In late adolescence, when the emphasis shifts from friendships to partner relationships, or during adulthood, when individuals spend less time with their friends, the association between forgiving friends and well-being may be weaker.

Read more:
Does Forgiveness Make Kids Happier?
⇒ An article in Greater Good, the Science of a Meaningful Life
 
Interpersonal Forgiveness and Psychological Well-being in Late Childhood  ⇒ Access to the complete study

Why We Need Forgiveness Education. . .NOW
⇒ A blog post by Dr. Robert Enr

What Is Self-Forgiveness?

When you self-forgive you are struggling to love yourself when you are not feeling lovable because of your actions. You are offering to yourself what you offer to others who have hurt you: a sense that you have inherent worth, despite your actions, that you are more than your actions, that you can and should honor yourself as a person even if you are imperfect, and that you did wrong and need to correct that wrong done to other people.

In self-forgiveness you never (as far as I have ever seen) offend yourself alone. You also offend others and so part of self-forgiveness is to deliberately engage in seeking forgiveness from those others and righting the wrongs (as best you can under the circumstances) that you did toward others. Thus, we have two differences between forgiving others and forgiving the self. In the latter, you seek forgiveness from those hurt by your actions and you strive for justice toward them.

Robert

  Editor’s Note: Learn more about self-forgiveness in either of Dr. Enright’s books             8 Keys to Forgiveness or Forgiveness Is a Choice.