Our Forgiveness Blog
Anger Begets More Anger
…….and then on it goes….in the person’s own life….and then passed to the children…..who pass this to their children…….
I have been thinking lately about the destructive consequences of intense, abiding anger. Here is a new thought for me: When people are very angry, that anger becomes a barrier to even considering forgiving…..even to a little degree. In other words, upon hearing the word “forgiveness,” the person’s anger kicks in so that any exploration of what forgiveness is or whether it is worth a try is shut down.
The anger, in other words, acts as a barrier to healing the anger itself. As an analogy, it is as if a person has a bacterial infection and every time the person holds an antibiotic in his or her hand, the bacteria themselves reach up and snatch the medicine out of the hand, preventing healing.
I think there are many barriers that anger presents. First, as mentioned above, it prevents thinking about forgiving. Then I think the
anger leads to anger against the messenger, the one who brought up forgiveness in the first place.
Finally, I think the anger stimulates thinking such as this: There…I showed that person! He cannot get away with
discussing forgiveness in my presence!
The anger justifies keeping forgiveness away and the messenger away.
Perhaps a way out of this is calm reflection on this question: Am I now so angry that the anger is working against my own healing and against my interactions with those who can aid that healing?
Robert
What Is Your Goal When You Forgive?
Here is your multiple choice exam for the question above:
Please check all that apply to you.
I forgive:
- to feel better
- to repair a relationship
- to grow in character because forgiveness makes me a better person
- to be of help to the one who hurt me
- to show my children, or others who are important to me, that forgiveness is important
- to help even in a little way to make a better world, which forgiving others does by reducing conflict and trying to create more peace
- to exercise goodness as an end in and of itself because forgiveness is good
- to honor my religious tradition which highly values forgiving
- to love because to forgive on its deepest level is to love another who is not loving me, at least in terms of the actions of unfairness
How many did you choose and why?
If you had to choose only one which typically characterizes you, which one is that?
If you had to choose only one which you think is the morally highest reason for forgiving, which one would you choose?
On which of the nine choices do you need to train your mind and heart more strongly so that you can consistently see, appreciate, and practice this one?
Robert
On the Strong Will
To forgive another who has hurt you, you need to do certain things like seeing the other as truly human and not defining that person only by the unjust acts. Yet, there is more than doing; there is persevering internally, within yourself. It takes a certain degree of tenacity to stay with the process of forgiving another because forgiveness can be hard work, especially if the injustice against you is severe.
Once you have forgiven another, it takes more perseverance and tenacity to forgive another person and then another. To stay at forgiving rather than sinking into bitterness or pessimism takes the strong will. “But, I already tried forgiveness…..and I keep getting hurt.” No matter how many times you have been hurt, you can reduce that hurt by forgiving. Think about it for a moment: To what in your life do you keep going back to regardless of difficulty and struggle? Where in your life do you not quit no matter what? Your answer will show you that you have a strong will in some areas of your life.
Why not, then, apply that strong will to forgiving? Why let pessimism have even a minute of your time? Your strong will can keep pessimism away.
The strong will needs to be understood, nurtured, and practiced in the context of forgiving. Long live the strong will.
Robert
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
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.
