Author Archive: directorifi

I sometimes hear that a lack of forgiveness can have physical ramifications.  What is the most common health issue that you see in people who have been treated very unjustly and yet will not forgive?

The most common health issue that I see is fatigue.  It takes a lot of energy to keep resentment in the heart and to keep fueling that resentment by replaying in the mind what happened.  Forgiving can reduce the resentment, reduce the rumination, and increase energy.

My husband is hesitant to forgive because he says he does not want to act as if the problem (with his brother) never happened.  Do you have some advice for me?

It may help if your husband realizes that forgiveness and justice exist together.  One can and should seek justice, and in my view, the quest for justice works well once a person already has forgiven.  At the same time, once people forgive, they do not want to keep bringing up what happened. There is a tendency toward moving on.  Thus, your husband, if he forgives, will not want to keep bringing up the injustice and, in all likelihood, he will want to leave it in the past.

Can the Essence of Forgiveness Ever Be Altered?

Suppose that over time, a culture began to see forgiveness as simply moving on with a sense of tolerance. Have the people in that culture then changed what forgiveness is? After all, the current thinking in psychology and philosophy is that forgiveness is a moral virtue of goodness toward those who have been unjust.

I think it is impossible to alter the essence of forgiveness, no matter what happens in a particular culture or in a particular historical moment. We could, I suppose, see forgiveness as a relative concept, flexible in its meaning depending on the consensus of a group at a certain point in time, but that would be to invite error.

Here is what I mean: To label forgiveness as “moving on with a sense of tolerance” will mean that forgiveness is now equated with other terms, such as acquiescence and, as part of this definition, tolerance. Yet, forgiveness never gives in or acquiesces to wrong doing, but instead labels the wrong as wrong. Forgiveness never tolerates injustice but instead labels the injustice as unjust.

When it appears that a given group is defining forgiveness in an odd way, ask yourself this question: What else might this definition represent other than forgiveness? If you come up with a sound answer, then I urge you to stand firm in the truth of what forgiveness is, despite protests and even ad hominem attacks on you as a person.

Forgiveness is what it has been, what it is currently, and what it will be long after each one of us reading this post is gone from this world.

Robert

I have started the forgiveness process, stopped, begun again, and stopped again.  I am feeling guilty for not just following through and finishing the job of forgiveness.  What do you think?

We have to keep in mind that the forgiveness process is not the same as taking a journey in the car from point A to point B in the next 20 minutes.  Forgiveness takes time, sometimes months.  People need to take breaks to refresh.  There is nothing wrong with taking your time and sometimes stopping.  For how long do you stop?  If you stop, say, for months at a time, then you might benefit from asking yourself if there is something getting in your way of forgiving.  Are you afraid of forgiving?  Are you simply distracted by life’s tasks?  If so, then you might consider setting aside a certain amount of time each day or every other day to do the work of forgiving.  Try to ascertain the reason for the stopping: the need for temporary refreshment, fear, discipline?

What is the most difficult unit of your 20 forgiveness units?

Research has shown that the initial decision to forgive is the hardest because it includes change and change can be a challenge.  By change I mean this:  The forgiver now has to start a journey, one that may not be familiar for the one who just made the decision to forgive.  Those who decide to forgive know that they are committing to some hard psychological work.  The decision, while difficult, involves courage.