Author Archive: directorifi
Once I forgive myself, is there anything else I need to do so that this process is all wrapped up?
Yes, there is another step that may be important for you. If the actions that led you to self-forgive have offended others, consider going to them and asking for their forgiveness. Please keep in mind that their forgiving you is their choice, and so be ready to be patient. The process of forgiving can take time.
Can you give me one suggestion for introducing the concept of forgiveness to my family? I have learned to forgive, and I now see this as vitally important.
You can start slowly by finding the right moment to share what you have learned about forgiveness and its positive influence on you. If your family members, even eventually, respond positively, further steps might include trying to deepen family members’ understanding of what forgiveness is and is not, and trying to establish forgiveness as a positive norm in the family without pressure. Here is an essay from the Psychology Today website focusing on forgiveness and family issues: Is Your Family a Forgiving Community?, November 29, 2017
In the Process Model of Forgiveness, you begin the Work Phase by asking the forgiver to better understand the one who was unjust. I am a little worried about doing that. If I focus on that person and see all of his inner wounds, might this engender in me such sympathy for him that I conclude this: “Well, he is so hurt that maybe he really didn’t mean to hurt me.” Wouldn’t that be an open door to excuse what he did to me?
Understanding the one who offended is very different from excusing the person’s behavior. We can accept a person as having unconditional worth and then hold fast to the truth that the behavior was wrong, is wrong, and always will be wrong, despite my understanding the person as a person. In other words, it is important to separate the person from the unjust actions. We try to welcome the person back into the human community as we forgive; we do not then accept the behavior.
Might highly angry parents inadvertently be setting up their children to bully others in school and, once they are adults, to be difficult partners in marriage?
This depends on what the child has learned from observations of the parents. If the developing child does not reflect on the potentially destructive pattern, then, yes, the child may begin to show bullying behaviors in school and repeat the pattern of a conflictual relationship with a partner in adulthood. Yet it is possible that the son or daughter might gain wisdom from the parents’ fighting and realize that such a pattern is unhealthy. Thus, the person may deliberately commit to not following the parents’ behavior. In other words, insight along with a commitment to not imitate the conflictual behavior might spare the person from repeating the parents’ behavioral pattern now and in adulthood. Such insights to occur in childhood likely will need a sensitive and supportive adult to aid in the child’s learning about anger and its displacement. This requires wisdom on the adult-as-teacher’s part to avoid the error of excessive criticism toward the child’s parents.
I am aware of a weakness of mine. I am a bit too quick to go back to a relationship that was hurtful. In other words, I don’t think I have a great grasp of reconciliation. Can you provide me with some cautions as I reflect on this vital concept of reconciliation?
Here are three cautions for you:
- If you reconcile too quickly without the other showing any remorse, repentance, or recompense, then this could be a false reconciliation in which you may be hurt again in the same way.
- Please do not think of forgiving and reconciling as the same. You can forgive from the heart, but then not reconcile if the other continues to be a danger to you. If you equate the two, then as you forgive, you may feel a false obligation to reconcile.
- If you are still angry and unforgiving, you might, without realizing it, use reconciliation as a weapon: you come together in a superficial way, then keep reminding the other how bad he/she has been and how good you have been. This is why forgiveness must precede deep reconciliation.
