Ask Dr. Forgiveness

I am wondering why people don’t just simply use the word “kindness” rather than the word “forgiveness.”  When you forgive, aren’t you just being kind to those who were obnoxious?  If so, then shouldn’t we use the word “kindness”?

“Kindness” is not an exact enough word in the context of a person treating you unfairly.  I say that because you can be kind without this issue of injustice entering into the situation.  For example, you can be kind to a three-year-old who offers you her toy.  She did nothing wrong to you.  In the case of forgiveness, yes you can be kind, but you also can be loving and it always, without exception, occurs when someone was unfair to you.  That is the specific difference between kindness and forgiveness.  The latter always is in the context of being treated unfairly whereas kindness can occur when the other has been treating you kindly.

I hear a popular expression these days that is called “ghosting.”  I am not exactly sure what that means, but I suspect it refers to someone who is just not there for you.  I have such an issue now with a partner, who is quickly acting as if he wants to be my ex-partner.  Can you help me understand this issue of “ghosting”?

Yes, as is the case with a recent question to me about the family as a forgiving community, I have written an essay at the Psychology Today website on the issue of ghosting and forgiveness here:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/node/1114772/preview

What is a good source for developing the family as a forgiving group?

I have an essay at the Psychology Today website that addresses this issue: Is Your Family a Forgiving Community? Here is a link to that essay:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/node/1109144/preview

My teenage son is angry, but he is oblivious to this. He does get in trouble in school and with peers, as he bullies them. How can I convince him that he is angry and needs to confront this for his own sake and for the sake of those whom he bullies in school?

A key to breaking the defense mechanism of suppression or repression of the anger is to have a quiet conversation with him in which you go over some of the specific consequences of his anger.  Help him to see, in the safety of his relationship with you, that he is getting in trouble in school and is bullying others, making them miserable.  Ask him, then, if there is anything inside of him, such as intense anger, that is causing these problems.  Eventually, these consequences will have him suffer enough so that he becomes aware of the source of his suffering, which is his anger. From there, you should see if his anger is caused by unjust treatment toward him, in which case his practicing forgiving (specifically toward those who hurt him) may lower that anger.

How can parents recapture a sense of love with their adult children if those parents never showed love as the children were growing up?

This may be an issue of self-forgiveness first so that the parents are seeing their own worth despite their imperfect parenting. Then the parents should consider asking the adult children for forgiveness as the parents now show love (in the parents’ own way and in their own time). This requires both courage and humility and may require much patience on the parents’ part as they wait for the adult children to adjust to the new pattern of love.