Our Forgiveness Blog

1)  Stand with courage in the truth: “I was wronged.”  If none of this is your fault, say that to yourself: “This is not my doing.  I did not bring this on myself.”

2)  Stand further in the truth: “Even though this person may have a bad view of me, I refuse to share that view of myself with this person.”  Resist the lie.

3)  As you stand in the truth, be aware of your strength in doing so: “I am enduring what I did not deserve.  I am stronger than I thought.”

4)  Commit to doing no harm to the one who harmed you.  As you do that, reflect on who you are: “I am someone who can endure pain and not return pain to the other.”

5)  Finally, conclude in the truth: “I will not be defined by the injustices against me.  I am more than this. I am someone who endures pain and is a conduit for good to others.”

Who are you now?

Posted in Psychology Today May 09, 2017

The first ground-rule for these exercises is this: You are not doing this to change your partner.  Your task is to change yourself and to do your part to improve the relationship.  The second ground-rule is this:  Your task is not to pressure your partner into these exercises.  It is better if both of you are drawn to them, not cajoled into them.

With these ground-rules in place, let us go to the first exercise.  Together, talk out what it means to forgive another person.  You might be surprised to learn that you are not in agreement as to what forgiveness actually is because such a discussion of its meaning is rare.  Common misconceptions are these: To forgive is just to move on from difficult situations; to forgive is to forget what happened; to forgive is to excuse what happened; to forgive is to stop asking something of the other by no longer seeking fairness.  Yet, to forgive is none of these.  To forgive is to offer goodness to those who have not been good to you.  To forgive is to be strong enough to offer such goodness through your emotional pain for the other’s good.  Take some time to discuss each other’s views and please do so with respect.  Learning what forgiveness actually is takes time and effort primarily because we have not been schooled enough in this important concept.

The second exercise is to talk out the hurts that you received in your family of origin, where you grew up. Let the other know of your emotional wounds. This exercise is not meant to cast blame on anyone in your family of origin. Instead, the exercise is meant for each of you to deepen your insight into who your partner is. Knowing the other’s wounds is one more dimension of knowing your partner as a person.  As you each identify the wounds from your past, try to see what you, personally, are bringing from that past into the relationship. Try to see what your partner is bringing from the past to your relationship.  Who, now, is your partner as you see those wounds, perhaps for the first time?

For the third exercise, together, and only if you choose this, work on forgiving those from your family of origin who have wounded you. Support one another in the striving to grow in the process of forgiveness. The goal is to wipe the resentment-slate clean so that you are not bringing those particular wounds to the breakfast table (and lunch table and dinner table) every day.  You can find direction in the forgiving process in my  book, The Forgiving Life (American Psychological Association, 2012).  Walking this path of forgiveness takes time and should not be rushed.  Assist one another in this path.  Be the support person for the other.  Each one’s personal forgiveness journey is made easier when it is a team effort.

Finally, the fifth exercise: persevere in your forgiveness discussions.  As an analogy, you do not become physically fit by four weeks or even four months of effort that then is abandoned.  You have to keep at it.  To become forgivingly fit, you need to set aside even a little time, perhaps 15 minutes a week, to discuss the injustices impinging on either or both of you, from inside the relationship, inside the family, or outside of it……..and then forgive and help the other to do so.  You do not have to let the injustices of the past and the current inner miseries dominate you or your relationship.  Forgiveness offers a cure for the misery and, at the same time, hope for a renewed and strengthened relationship.
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Posted in Psychology Today March 11, 2017

It took us a while, but eventually we saw that to forgive is not the same as to reconcile.  Forgiveness, as with justice and patience and kindness, is a virtue, originating inside people as an insight (I can be good to those who are not good to me) and as a feeling of  empathy and compassion for the offending other, not because of the offense but in spite of it.  Forgiving behaviors flow from the insight and compassion.

Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation.  This insight opened the door for social scientific work on forgiveness for us because to forgive is not to create unsafe situations for the forgiver.

We now turn to two, what I call, Modern Misconceptions, the latest critiques of forgiveness, particularly Forgiveness Therapy, a new form of psychotherapy which emerged from the research journey begun three decades ago (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015).  These Modern Misconceptions are quite different from the early misconception because they target forgiveness itself—not fear—and are highly critical of this potentially life-changing virtue, even if practiced well and with patience.

Modern Misconception 1 goes something like this:  You who advocate for Forgiveness Therapy or Forgiveness Education with students (Enright, Rhody, Litts, & Klatt, 2014) ask way too much of forgivers.  You ask them to bear the burden of their own healing and that is not fair.  They already have been hurt so why ask them now to struggle after forgiveness?

Two burdens are theirs: the original offense and now Forgiveness Therapy.  Yet, as with the equating of forgiveness with reconciliation, this Modern Misconception has an error embedded within it.  It is not at all an added and unnecessary burden to help a person, whose heart is broken, to forgive.

Take a physical analogy to make the point clear.  Suppose James pushes Jeremy to the ground, dislocating his shoulder.  Is it unwise now to ask Jeremy to enter into a rehabilitation process to repair the shoulder?  Is it an added burden we should never ask because he is hurting?  It would seem that the unfairness lies, not in the encouraging of medical treatment, but the reverse—discouraging it because it will be rigorous and painful.

Is it not the same with Forgiveness Therapy for those who choose it?  The heart is broken, yes, because of the original unfairness.  If the person chooses rehab of the heart—Forgiveness Therapy—isn’t this repair good even though rigorous and painful?  The Modern Misconception might keep people from rehab of the heart and so it needs to be challenged.

My response is to give a multiple choice question to the skeptic.  Which of these two would you rather have:

1. You live for the rest of your life without getting your land back and you also live with a deep anger that disrupts your inner life and the life of those around you; or,
2. You live for the rest of your life without getting your land back and you are free of the deep anger that disrupts you, your loved ones, and your community?

Which do you choose?  In every case across the 13 lectures, the skeptic ends up choosing answer (B), living without the debilitating  resentment.  It is at that point that the person is willing to explore the subtleties of forgiveness without dismissing it.  Such exploration could, in the long run, save lives from psychological devastation.  The error in Modern Misconception 2 occurs when the person focuses exclusively on the original problem (land dispute) without even realizing that a second, just as serious, problem has emerged because of the land dispute—resentment entrenched in the heart.  Forgiveness can cure this second problem while not being able to solve the original problem.  Without seeing this, the person rejects forgiveness as weak.

Misconceptions…..they can drive a person away from forgiveness or become a stimulus for more thoroughly exploring what forgiveness has to offer.  Left unexplored, the Modern Misconceptions could leave some people without a path of healing that could have been theirs……if only they had explored more deeply.

Posted in Psychology Today February 18, 2017

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Here are six suggestions that may be helpful to you as you consider forgiving:

First, you need not have forgiveness wrapped up in a day or a week.  Forgiveness is a process that takes time.  Be gentle with yourself as you begin to consider forgiving.

Second, to experience some emotional relief in forgiving, you do not have to be a perfect forgiver.  Even if you have some anger left over, as long as the anger is not dominating your life, you can experience considerable emotional relief.  For example, in a study of incest survivors, all of the participants started the forgiveness therapy with very low scores on forgiving.  After about 14 months of working on  forgiveness, as the study ended, most of the participants were only at the mid-point of the forgiveness scale.  In other words, they began to forgive, accomplished it to some degree, but certainly had not completely forgiven.  Yet, their depression left and their self-esteem rose.  Forgiving to a degree, but not perfectly, made all the difference in their emotional health (see Freedman and Enright, 1996).

Third, as you forgive, try to see the humanity in your boyfriend.  Is he more than the cheating behavior?  If so, in what ways?  Does he possess what we call “inherent worth,” or unconditional value as a person, not because of what he did, but in spite of this?  Do you share a common humanity with him in that both of you are special, unique, and irreplaceable because you are human?  This is not done to excuse his behavior.  Instead, it is a thought-exercise to see both his humanity and yours.

Fourth, are you willing to bear the pain of the cheating so that you do not pass it on to your brother or sister, to your classmates or co-workers, or even to your boyfriend himself?  Bearing the pain shows you that you are strong, in fact, stronger than the cheating and its effects on you.

Fifth, as you forgive, bring justice alongside the forgiving.  In other words, ask something of him.  What is his view of fidelity?  Does he need some counseling help to deal with a weakness of commitment?  Does he show remorse and a willingness to change?  If so, what is your evidence for this?  You need not unconditionally trust him right away.  Trust can be earned a little at a time, but be sure not to use this issue of “earned trust” as a weapon or punishment against him. Allow him to redeem himself as he shows you he can be trusted.

Sixth, and finally, know that there is a difference between forgiving and reconciling.  If he does not deeply value you as a person, if his actions show self-centeredness, and if this seems like a pattern that he is not willing to change, then you can forgive and not reconcile.  Forgiving in this case may not give you this relationship that you had desired, but it will free you of deep resentment and allow you to be ready for a more genuine relationship in which you are open to the true affection and care of another.