Education

……….But…..Forgiveness Adds an Extra Burden to the Abused Person

“Forgiveness is fundamentally unfair.  Here we have a deeply abused person and now we ask her, in her woundedness, to reach out to one who hurt her.  She now has two burdens, the original abuse and having to forgive.  Please, let us first help her with the wounds from the abuse and put forgiveness on the shelf for her sake!”

So goes the most pervasive criticism of what forgiveness is and what it supposedly does in 2016.  This criticism is likely to change over time and a new one emerge because, well, that is the way it is with forgiveness.  There always seems to be one major criticism that is in season and acts as a barrier to forgiveness.

Thirty years ago, that in-season criticism was the equating of forgiving and reconciling.  Once the logic was worked out that forgiving cannot be the same as reconciling, that one faded.  After all, forgiveness is a virtue (as is justice and kindness and patience); reconciliation is not a virtue, but instead is a negotiation strategy of two or more people coming together once again in mutual trust.  One can forgive and not reconcile.  Thus, they differ.

Let us now turn to the current in-season criticism of forgiveness.  Yes, forgiveness is a burden if:

………we pressure someone into forgiving;

………we tell the person that the only motivation for forgiving is to be good—-very good—-to the person who was not good to the one who might forgive;

………we critically judge the would-be forgiver for not forgiving.

Yet, we can unburden the forgiver, as well as forgiveness itself, when we realize that:

………forgiveness is the forgiver’s choice.  It is not our place to pressure someone to forgive (or not to forgive).  Give the person freedom to make the decision;

………there are many motivations to forgive.  One healthy motivation that often exists early in the process is the desire to be free from emotional pain.  The forgiver is motivated to become emotionally whole.  The forgiver, at this stage of the process, is not so interested in doing wonderful things for the one who was not wonderful.  These are very different motivations and need to be distinguished, especially early in the process;

………it is wrong to condemn a struggling person who is ambivalent about forgiveness.  Maybe the person needs more time; maybe the person needs more information about what forgiveness is (and not the colloquial misunderstandings that cloud the understanding).  Again, it is the choice of the one who was abused.

When we unburden the abused person by clarifying these issues, then it is clear that we are not placing a new burden on the person by discussing forgiveness.  Notice that I did not say “suggesting forgiveness.”  Let us discuss and then let the person decide.

So, what will be the new criticism of forgiveness that could block, without justification, a person from exploring forgiveness?

Robert

Leaving a Legacy of Love in the World

Think about this: Long after you are gone, your love could be alive and well and living on this earth in the minds, hearts, and beings of others. You can begin to leave a legacy of love by how you live this very day. In all likelihood, you will meet others today. If your heart is filled with love rather than with bitterness, it will be much easier to pass that love to others. Do you see why it is so important to forgive? You are given the joyous opportunity to shed bitterness and put love in its place for the one who hurt you and then more widely to many, many others, as you are freed to love more deeply and more widely. The meaning and purpose of your life are intimately tied to this decision to leave a legacy of love.

Enright, Robert (2015-09-28). 8 Keys to Forgiveness (8 Keys to Mental Health) (p. 225). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

One Reason Why We Need Forgiveness Education: People Misunderstand What Forgiveness Is

Too often in society the word forgiveness is used casually: “Please forgive me for being 10 minutes late.” Forgiveness is used in place of many other words, such as excusing, distorting the intended meaning. People so often try to forgive with misperceptions; each may have a different meaning of forgiveness, unaware of any error in his or her thinking.

Freedman and Chang (2010, in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling, volume 32, pages 5-34) interviewed 49 university students on their ideas of the meaning of forgiveness and found that the most frequent understanding (by 53% of the respondents) was to “let go” of the offense.  This seems to be similar to either condoning or excusing.  Of course, one can let go of the offense and still be fuming with the offender.  The second most common understanding of forgiveness (20%) was that it is a “moving on” from the offense.  Third most common was to equate forgiveness with not blaming the offender, which could be justifying, condoning, or excusing, followed by forgetting about what happened.  Only 8% of the respondents understood forgiveness as seeing the humanity in the other, not because of what was done but in spite of it.

If we start forgiveness education early, when students are 5 or 6 years old, they will have a much firmer grasp of what forgiveness is…..and therefore likely will be successful in their forgiveness efforts, especially if these students are schooled not only in what forgiveness is but also in how to go about forgiving.

Robert

And So He Is No Longer on This Earth

13-years old. Bullied in school. He hanged himself in the attic of his home. He left a note. Despair. Fury. The bullies tortured. The teachers did not understand.

And so we have yet another tragedy.

There is a solution to all of this, you know. I suppose I should be getting weary of saying this, but when I think of this dear boy, somehow the weariness does not materialize and so I will say it again:

When we help our children to forgive, we are providing a protection against fury, the kind of fury that attacks unrelentingly and then seeks its next victim. Forgiveness is a cure for fury. Forgiveness is a protection against a false despair that nothing can be done–an illusion that there is no way out. Forgiveness does not allow the illusion its day. 

To be sure that I am not misunderstood: I am not blaming the innocent for this death. I am not blaming parents or the child himself or the teachers or even those who bullied.  The intent of those who bullied (don’t you think?) was not to have a classmate no more on the earth.

We need forgiveness education as a way to help children navigate through others’ pain that gets all over the innocent. Forgiveness is an inoculation against this kind of pain that jumps from host to host seeking to create misery. We know pain exists, we know forgiveness is a protection on the innocent from the others’ pain, and we have ways of teaching forgiveness to others.

So, then, what is holding back the “yes” from educators to bring forgiveness into the classroom and into the hearts of students?

Robert

New Manual for School Counselors — An Introduction to Forgiveness for Adolescents

A new forgiveness intervention manual for at-risk middle school and high school students is now available from the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI)—at no cost.

Forgiveness Over Revenge: Grief, Insight and Virtue through Education (F.O.R.G.I.V.E.) is a training manual intended to serve as an introduction to the topic of forgiveness, both for school counselors and adolescents. The manual is not meant to serve as a diagnostic or therapeutic tool. Instead, it may be used to introduce the topic of forgiveness and to provide hands-on experience practicing forgiveness-related thought processes and exercises.

Counselors who opt to use the F.O.R.G.I.V.E. manual are provided with ten lessons, each approximately one hour in length. In the first five, students learn the basics of forgiveness, both what it is and what it is not. The remaining five lessons focus on applying the process of forgiveness through targeted activities in a group setting. Instructors may use their observations over the course of the ten sessions to better understand youths’ relationship to forgiveness and to make possible referrals for more directed forgiveness therapy when
appropriate.

The new manual was developed, designed and written by Dayana Kupisk, a current graduate student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, who spent a semester studying forgiveness under the direction of Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the IFI. She additionally has experience facilitating life skills and employment training to groups of at-risk youth, which greatly informed her approach for translating research-based information on forgiveness into creative activities that may be done with groups of youth.

“This manual is intended for professional counselors with training to do group counseling with middle school and high school students,” according to Kupisk. “Since it contains therapeutic content, in which students focus on forgiving people who have hurt them, it is not for general classroom use, either by teachers or by counselors. Instead, this manual is intended for short-term group counseling with students who have been referred for treatment within the school setting.” 

Kupisk said she wants the F.O.R.G.I.V.E. manual distributed to as many potential users as possible. To accomplish that, she decided to allow the IFI to add the manual to its growing compilation of forgiveness intervention manuals and curriculum guides and to offer it at no cost. The manual can be ordered through the IFI website Store.

The International Forgiveness Institute, based in Madison, WI, is the only worldwide organization that focuses exclusively on forgiveness education for students from pre-kindergarten through high school. The Institute’s school forgiveness programs are operating in the U.S. and 30 other countries.