Ask Dr. Forgiveness
Is anger a primary emotion that emerges when a person is treated unjustly or are there are other emotions more central such as sadness?
There are many emotions that can emerge when a person is treated unfairly: sadness, shock, and anger are three of the central ones. In our book, Forgiveness Therapy, Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons and I make the case that deep and abiding anger is the central emotion that can put a person at-risk for psychological challenges such as low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. In other words, even though there are several or even many emotions one can experience following injustice, deep anger in the form of resentment can be dangerous to one’s psychological and physical health if this continues for a long time. Forgiveness therapy can cure the resentment.
Will I be a better forgiver if I seek forgiveness from others?
If you are ready to seek forgiveness from others, and are willing to give them time to forgive on their terms without pressure to forgive, then yes, I think this will aid your forgiving others. As you ask for forgiveness, you might become more sympathetic to what an injuring person goes through. Yes, he or she was unfair, but the person may be hurting inside and truly need to be forgiven……and be very thankful to be forgiven. You are not a monster when you are unjust. After you seek forgiveness, you may realize, in now forgiving, that those who hurt you are not monsters either. They need mercy, as you need mercy when you hurt others.
In your experience, have you found that there is a particular kind of person who is hardest for most people to forgive, for example, a romantic partner or a father?
Yes, in my experience the hardest person to forgive for many people is—–the self. We tend to be harder on ourselves than on other people. So, if you have broken your own standards of right and wrong, consider self-forgiving and please be patient with yourself. Whatever you have offered to others in forgiving them, please offer to yourself, and please make amends with (ask for forgiveness from) those you may have injured in breaking your own standards.
Bearing the pain of the other person’s injustice seems so difficult to me. Have you ever encountered a person who could not bear the pain of what happened to them so that they could not forgive well?
Yes, I have met many people who do not even think of bearing the pain of what happened to them. When that pain persists, too often I see that they either take that pain out on themselves (neglecting good health habits, for example) or they displace their pain onto other people, trying to make those other people miserable. These ultimately are self-defeating ways. For those who truly want to forgive, who are patient and persevere in their forgiving, I have not seen anyone who was overcome by the pain and was unable to bear it, at least to some degree. We do not have to bear the pain perfectly or be rid of the pain entirely to find thriving and joy in this life. We can learn to live with some pain, knowing that by forgiving we have diminished that pain to a manageable level. It is here that we have triumphed over the pain.
At the end of the forgiveness process, you mention finding a purpose in life. I have forgiven my Mom for a lot of hurts when I was little and even into my adolescent years. Yet, I have not yet found my purpose in life. How do I go about finding purpose?
You might begin to find your purpose in life by asking the big questions of life: Why am I here on this earth? What is my end-point in this life? In other words, what is the greatest good to which I am striving here on earth? As you forgave, what new priorities in life have you discovered? Are these worth pursuing and how can you pursue them in the context of friendships, family, and work? And if you are a believer, have you combined all of this in prayer? You need not find your purpose alone.
