Tagged: “Anger”
Does someone have to make reparations before he can forgive? I’ve noticed a recurring theme in some social media about forgiveness: Forgiving someone doesn’t happen unless the offender makes amends. I believe that the offender’s requirement is inappropriate. What do you think?
I agree with you for three reasons. First, the injured party is stuck in unforgiveness until the other thinks it’s time to make amends. This is unfair to the victim of the offense. In other words, the victim may have no way of reducing or eliminating the resentment without forgiving, which now is denied to this person.
Second, why is it impossible to be both forgiving and just, to support the other person in making changes, at the same time?
Third, no other moral virtue—such as kindness, patience, or justice—needs a particular reaction from another person before it can be exercised. Why should the one exceptional example of all the moral virtues be forgiveness?
Before someone may forgive, does the perpetrator need to offer apologies or reparations of some kind? That seems not to be the case.
It seems to me that to forgive is to substitute a depressed and angry mood with a joyful one. You will have forgiven the person if you are able to accomplish this. How do you feel about what I just wrote?
Although you appear to have captured some of the fundamentals of forgiveness, there is more to it than that. Anger, discouragement, and resentment are among the negative feelings that change (typically slowly) into happier, joyous, and loving ones when a person goes through the process of forgiveness. We probably shouldn’t use the word “substitute” to describe the emotional transition because it implies that we just rapidly swap out one set of feelings for another, which is counterproductive given that this is a process that can take time.
In addition to changing feelings, the forgiver also changes behaviors and thoughts from negative to more positive. In addition to all of this, when people forgive, they get more accomplished and reliable at the practice of forgiveness; in certain cases, this results in a faster time to forgiveness after 100 attempts as opposed to the first. I highlight each of these aspects so that you do not come away with the impression that forgiving is essentially an emotional process and that things usually go better quickly, which is not the case for the majority of individuals who have been severely harmed by the cruel acts of others.
Last week, there was a damaging hurricane in my region of the world. Is it ethical to urge kids to forgive such weather calamities when they get scared of such severe natural disasters? Forgiveness, in my opinion, could soothe the kids and lessen their rage when they consider these hazardous weather circumstances.
I can tell that you have good intentions when you ask this question about children. You’re looking for a method to lessen their nervousness. However, we don’t want to misinterpret forgiveness to make people feel more at ease. When someone has experienced unfair treatment from others, forgiveness takes place. Events that are weather-related cannot act unfairly for obvious reasons; they lack free will and morally good or immoral motivations. As a result, no meteorological condition or inanimate thing is capable of moral transgression and cannot be forgiven. In situations like this, I suggest working with children to accept what happened rather than asking them to forgive. Acceptance could additionally soothe their anxieties. By not introducing forgiveness to them in this situation, you are protecting forgiveness’s actual meaning for the times when a child really needs to forgive a person for unfair treatment.
Sharing the Good News of Forgiveness!
Our founding board member, Dr. Robert Enright, has been busy with media interviews on forgiveness over the past months. Here is a listing of his interviews since December, 2023, starting with the most recent:
Live interview, The Drew Mariani Show (national), Relevant Radio, on the topic of betrayal, forgiveness, and self-forgiveness, March 27, 2024.
Interview with Darcy Sterling, “We Need to Talk” podcast, March 15, 2024.
Dr. Robert Enright
Interview with Julie Cruz, Well Wisconsin Radio Broadcast, March 13, 2024.
Interview with Laura Hearn, Flip It podcast, London, United Kingdom, March 12, 2024.
Interview with Rebecca Randall for a report in the John Templeton Foundation newsletter, March 4, 2024.
Live interview with Liz Saint John, KCBS radio, San Francisco, California, on the topic of forgiveness, December 27, 2023.
Interview with Julien Manuguerra-Patten, BBC’s Sideways program, United Kingdom, on the topic of holding grudges and forgiveness, December 11, 2023.
Live interview with Andy Moore, WORT-FM radio, Madison, Wisconsin, on the topic of forgiveness, December 8, 2023.
Live interview with Kate Archer Kent, “The Morning Show,” Wisconsin Public Radio, on the topic of forgiveness, December 6, 2023.
If you do a simple Google search for ‘Bob Enright Interview’, there are hundreds of thousands of hits! There are plenty of video, podcast, audio, and written interviews with Dr. Enright easily accessible across the internet and each of them helps shed light on forgiveness and its power to bring authentic peace and healing to people, communities, and the world. Check them out!
Dr. Enright discusses ‘Forgiveness is a Choice’ on Relationship Podcast
On April 2, 2024, Dr. Enright appeared on a one-hour podcast on YouTube, We Need to Talk with Dr. Darcy Sterling. Dr. Sterling is a New York City-based relationship therapist and host of E! Network’s Famously Single, who specializes in working with high-performance women who want to prioritize love and relationships.
Sterling describes her forgiveness journey that led her to interview Dr. Enright as follows on the YouTube video description:
“Years ago, I was gutted by a falling out with one of my siblings. It quickly became clear that we were on the verge of estrangement, and that impending loss brought me to my knees — I had just recovered from PTSD and was terrified of getting sucked into the black hole of trauma that I’d just come through.
Frantic for help, I found myself Googling a solution, and up came the term Forgiveness Therapy.
To be clear: I was not feeling forgiving. But I was feeling desperate. I did not want to revisit the darkness I’d just emerged from.
A book on forgiveness had recently been published by a professor named Robert Enright. In it he posits that forgiveness isn’t about cutting the other person slack. It’s a liferaft for people who feel wronged. Enright’s theory had been peer-reviewed — the gold standard in the field of psychology — so, despite my apprehension, I committed to following his program.
Today, my journey through forgiveness comes full circle in my conversation with the theorist himself, Dr. Robert Enright.
If you struggle with anger or are someone who holds grudges and you want to explore a solution, please listen to this episode.
In it, you’ll learn:
Why it makes sense if the thought of forgiving someone who wronged you makes you cringe.
The consequences of not forgiving.
How choosing to forgive puts you in control of your feelings.
How Enright’s program helped me to personally bypass a relapse of PTSD.”
Check out the interview below!
