Ask Dr. Forgiveness
What does love have to do with it? Do you really think that to forgive, we have to love the one who was brutal to us?
We have to make a very important distinction between what Aristotle calls the Essence of any construct and its Existence. The Essence defines its purest form. Existence is how we actually deal with this construct in the real world. The highest or purest form of forgiving is to love those who do not love you. This is its Essence, for which we have a possible goal. In reality, in Existence, this is not always possible for us. The legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers football team, Vince Lombardi, once said, “…..if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” So, we should be aware of the Essence of forgiveness so that, even if unattainable in some cases, we can reach a higher sense of forgiveness, an excellence of forgiving such as genuine respect toward the other, that might not have been possible otherwise.
What is the name of your blog site at Psychology Today? How often do you post there?
My column is called The Forgiving Life. I tend to post about one essay a month there. You can access my 100+ essays on the Psychology Today website at The Forgiving Life.
What is one major difference between forgiving other people and forgiving yourself?
When we forgive ourselves, we have broken our own standards. When this happens, it usually does not occur in isolation. In other words, we so often hurt other people when we break our own standards. Therefore, as we self-forgive, in contrast to forgiving others, we often need to go to those offended by what we did and seek forgiveness from them.
I am ambivalent about “giving a gift” to the one who offended me. I do not think he will accept it. This likely will make me angry all over again. What do you suggest?
A complete sense of forgiving, or the essence of what forgiving is, includes this giving of a gift to the one who hurt you. Yet, you do not have to reach the deepest sense of forgiving to be practicing this moral virtue. If you are not ready to give a gift and if you have reduced your resentment and commit to do no harm to the one who hurt you, then you are forgiving at this point.
My friend thinks that by my forgiving her then all is supposedly well as if the injuries never even happened. How do I explain that my forgiving does not automatically alter the relationship to something great (when at this point, it is not)?
Your friend is confusing your forgiving with reconciliation. To reconcile means that both of you come together again in mutual trust. It seems that you are not quite ready to fully trust her at this point. Yes, forgiving is an important step toward reconciliation, but she now will have to do her part to avoid injuring you as she has done in the past.
