Ask Dr. Forgiveness

You emphasize anger in your forgiveness model.  Yet, I am not feeling anger. I am feeling pain.  Might you have missed this in your model?

I agree with you that pain occurs after being treated unjustly.  I think the sequence is as follows: 1) Someone is unfair to you; 2) Next comes shock or even denial; 3) Then comes pain, as you describe; 4) If the pain does not lessen or if you have no effective way of reducing and eliminating the pain, then you may become angry.

That anger can be at the person for acting unfairly, or at the situation, or even at the pain itself that resulted from the unfair treatment.  It is the anger, if it abides and deepens, that can lead to health problems (fatigue, anxiety, and so forth).  So, I emphasize anger within Forgiveness Therapy because it, in the form of excessive anger or resentment, can be dangerous to health, relationships, and communities.

I need to forgive four different people.  Where do I start??

I recommend that you ask yourself what is your current level of anger—on a 1 to 10 scale—for each person.  Order the people from the least anger you have to the greatest anger you have.  Start with the one person with whom you have the least anger.  This will allow you to get a sense of the forgiveness process and to practice that process before you get to the person who hurt you the most.

You emphasize love, compassion, and benevolence as part of forgiveness, but not part of the decision to forgive.  Why do you not see these as part of the decision phase of forgiving?

The decision to forgive usually is a cognitive act rather than an expression of the heart, of one’s emotions.  One usually makes a decision to forgive without necessarily feeling love and compassion because we are not yet ready to offer these when we make the cognitive decision to forgive.

I am back with my boyfriend after several months of being apart.  I am apprehensive, not trusting much, because of his past hurts.  Have I reconciled, I mean truly reconciled, if I cannot trust yet?

Being together does not necessarily mean that you are reconciled.  Reconciliation includes trust, but trust is earned back inch-by-inch. Does your boyfriend show you signs that he has remorse (sadness for what he did)?  Does he show repentance (saying he is sorry)?  Does he engage in recompense (behaviorally trying to make up for what he did and behaviorally showing he is trustworthy)?  Keep these three issues in mind (remorse, repentance, and recompense) as a way to build your trust so that you can achieve a true reconciliation.

My anger is not completely gone.  Does this mean I have not forgiven the person?

Forgiveness does not proceed perfectly and often the outcome is not perfect.  If you have done the work of forgiving and if your anger no longer controls you, then I would say that you have forgiven even if you have some anger left over.