Our Forgiveness Blog

Might Forgiving Others Be Dangerous to Our Health?

In his thought-provoking book, The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain, Dr. John Sarno says that a condition he calls “goodism” can lead to even greater anger and rage and to more back pain than a person had prior to engaging in “goodism.” Goodism is the striving to be good to such an extent that one cannot possibly live up to the self-imposed expectation. It leads to stress which can, if repressed, hurt a person physically.

So, then, how does this relate to practicing forgiveness? Forgiveness is concerned with being good. In fact, to forgive is to exercise a moral virtue of love and mercy, both signs of goodness. Thus, might the practice of forgiveness actually lead to more anger, to more rage, to more unpleasant physical symptoms than to the reverse of this, especially when we are unable to live up to these requirements to love someone who has not loved us?

Yes…..if we go about forgiving in the wrong way.

If we are forced to forgive (I must do so to be good) and if we strive for perfection in forgiving (I must be perfectly loving), then we are not going about forgiveness correctly. We need to choose to forgive, be drawn to it, and go about it with gentleness and patience.  We need to take small steps: do no harm before I feel compassion; see the other as more than the offense before feeling love; striving for civility at first rather than love. We need to exercise humility, not grandstanding “goodism,” as we start on the path to forgiveness.

If people are forgiving and develop more back pain or more anger or more anxiety, then these forgivers (or the clinician who is helping) should examine whether they are doing this out of grim obligation or to show people how perfect they are. The forgivers should adjust how they are approaching forgiveness and go about the process with more gentleness and patience, one small step at a time.

Genuine forgiveness is not “goodism.” Forgiveness, genuinely understood and practiced, is not dangerous to our health.

Robert Enright and Jacqueline Song

Couples’ Time for Forgiveness

Busy….busy….busy. No time to just sit and abide in each other’s presence. With all of our labor saving devices it is hard to believe that we have so little time for each other on a deep, meaningful level.

This can be corrected by willing a change.

We at the International Forgiveness Institute suggest a 10 minute (or more if the conversation develops) couples forgiveness retreat once a week. Set the day and time and will to stick with it. In that time, discuss your hurts from the past week. Who hurt you and how were you hurt? What did you do about it? Is forgiveness on your radar now or are you perhaps planning to put it on your radar for discussion and work toward forgiving? Support your partner in his or her struggle to forgive. Be a forgiveness motivator and even a forgiveness inspiration.

It takes a strong will to do this. The rewards may themselves strengthen your will to pursue this little weekly retreat on a regular basis.

Robert

A Reflection on “Do No Harm”

In the process of forgiveness that we have outlined in two different books (Forgiveness Is a Choice and The Forgiving Life) there is one part of the process in which we ask the forgiver to “Do no harm” to the one who has been unjust. This idea of “Do no harm” is actually transitional to the even more difficult challenge to love the one who has hurt you. Yet, “Do no harm,” even though an earlier and supposedly easier part of the process, is anything but easy.

To “Do no harm” means three things: 1) Do not do obvious harm to the one who hurt you (being rude, for example); 2) Do not do subtle harm (a sneer, ignoring at a gathering, being neutral to this fellow human being); and 3) Do not do harm to others. In other words, when you are angry with Person X, it is easier than you think to displace that anger onto Persons Y and Z. If others have to ask, “What is wrong with her (him) today?” perhaps that is a cue that you are displacing anger from one incident into your current interactions.

It is at these times that it is good to take stock of your anger and to ask, “Whom do I need to forgive today? Am I ‘doing no harm’ as I practice forgiveness? Am I being vigilant not to harm innocent others because of what I am suffering?”

My challenge to you today: Do no harm to anyone throughout this entire day…..and repeat tomorrow…..and the day after that.

Robert

On Doing Forgiveness “Push-Ups”

I go to the local gym frequently because I must stay as fit as I can for world travel centered on forgiveness education presentations. This is a very popular gym that frequently has 100 people working out at any one time. So, you get to see varying levels of fitness by the patrons of the gym.

One thing I have noticed over the past two years is this: there is a particular group of people, in a younger generation (I do not want to specify which generation this is), who can do, at most, about 6 push-ups at any one time. I am talking about the group as a whole; I am not just singling out one or two people…..and I am not doing this to criticize them.

I bring this up for the following reason: Somehow, in this particular generation (because it is common to every one of the gym patrons I have seen over a two-year period) the people (as students growing up) were never challenged in their education to do push-ups. My generation, in contrast, had what they used to call the Marine Corp Physical Fitness challenge during gym class. The challenge consisted of doing 60 push-ups at any one time. It is painfully obvious to me, as I walk through this gym, that the idea of doing 60 push-ups in a row was absent during their educational years…….and the consequence is that they cannot. Their upper bodies are not strong and this seems to hold across the board for all whom I see in this generation.

And this brings me to the point of this blog. If we do not challenge children to learn about forgiveness, to practice it, to stay at it, then when they are adults and are hurt by injustices, they will be weak in their response. They will not know how to forgive, they may not stay at it. Not being able to do push-ups is hardly an inconvenience in modern First-World societies. Not being able to forgive could be deadly.

What we do in schools matters for adulthood. Do educators really know the consequences of not encouraging students to do their forgiveness “push-ups”?

We need forgiveness education…………now.

Robert

Why We Need Forgiveness Education…….NOW

“I was too busy trying to survive.  I did not have room to bring forgiveness into my world.”

These two sentences, spoken by someone who lived with an abusive partner for decades, is one of the strongest rationales I have ever read for forgiveness education, starting with 4-year-olds or 5-year-olds.
Do you see that the person, as an adult, did not have the energy and focus to add something new to her arsenal of survival?

What if forgiveness was a natural part of her survival arsenal starting at an early age?

We do this for learning how to speak and write coherent sentences.

We do this for learning how to add so that a budget can be maintained.

We do this for learning how to be just or fair as corrections and punishments are swift to come once one enters the school door and then misbehaves in the school setting.

I think it is tragic that educational institutions and societies fail to make forgiveness a natural part of life through early education. Isn’t a central point about education to help people make their way in society?  And isn’t a central point of making one’s way in society having the capacity to confront grave injustices and not be defeated by them?  And isn’t a central point of confronting grave injustices the knowledge of how to forgive?  And isn’t a central point of knowing how to forgive the thinking about forgiveness and the practice of it in safety, before the storm of evil hits?

And isn’t a central point of knowing forgiveness and practicing forgiveness to aid in the  survival of people who could be crushed by others’ cruelty?

Why do we spend time helping children learn to speak and write, learn essential mathematic skills, and be just…….but completely neglect teaching them how to overcome grave injustices?

Education in its essence will be fundamentally incomplete until educators fold into it the basic strategies for overcoming grave injustice and cruelty so that students, once they are adults, never have to say, “I was too busy trying to survive. I did not have room to bring forgiveness into my world.”

And the tragedy of this incompleteness is this: We now know scientifically-supported pathways to forgive. We have scientifically-tested forgiveness curricula for children and adolescents.

It is time to make “room to bring forgiveness into my world.”

Robert