Tagged: “break free from the past”
I wanted to ask: What is the etymology of the word forgiveness?
First, let us define etymology: etymology: [noun] the history of a linguistic form (such as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another.
The earliest word for forgiveness is salah, in the Hebrew Scriptures. Salah means that offenses are wiped away from sight (particularly focusing on God’s forgiveness of sin).
In Christian scripture, the ancient Greek word, aphiemi, is similar in meaning to salah.
As I try to forgive my father for unjust actions when I was a child, my partner tells me that I am obsessed with my father. She tells me to just forget it. After all, she says, this is in the past. It is gone. Just forget about it and stop obsessing. In your opinion, is it obsession if I keep mentioning my father when I am truly trying to forgive him? I am not finished with the forgiveness journey and so I bring this up—the issue of my working on forgiving my father—a few times a week with my partner. The conversation rarely last more than 10 minutes because I do not want to be annoying. So, do you think she is right about me being obsessive?
It seems to me that your partner is not fully grasping what forgiveness is and how people tend to go about forgiving. I say this because you say that she asks you to “just forget about it” and “it is gone.” If you try to “just forget about it” when treated deeply unfairly by others, this is not a healing approach. Therefore, I recommend that you show your partner, for example, the book, The Forgiving Life, with the description of the process of forgiving, which unfolds slowly when the forgiver is deeply hurt. In other words, it takes time to forgive. Gently let her know that the approach of “just forget about it” does not work for the vast majority of deeply hurt people. Once she understands forgiveness on a deeper level, I think she will have more patience with you as you progress on your forgiveness journey. Stay at it for the sake of your healing, which likely will help not only you but also your currently relationship with your partner.
Do you think that, even when people deny severe injustices that were perpetrated on them, the effects of the injustices continue to exist in their subconscious mind?
Yes, it seems that when people are treated very unjustly, then trauma exists within them even if they are unaware of the connection between the current psychological symptoms and what happened in the past. Sigmund Freud, well over a century ago, was aware that trauma can exist within the subconscious and the goal is to make that which is not conscious now fully conscious. In other words, once insight into the past situation is understood, this aids people in breaking the denial, the repression, or the regression. They then can deal with their reaction to what happened to them. People, for example, may have a problem with trust, or have generalized anxiety symptoms, or deep fatigue and do not know why. When they see the link between current psychological symptoms and unjust events that may have happened years ago, this can act as a motivator to forgive those who perpetrated the injustice, which then can lower the psychological symptoms of trauma. A motivator to start looking courageously at what happened to us years ago is the current unexplained pain of psychological distress. Insight shows us the cause of the distress; forgiveness shows us the way to cure of the distress.
I have a partner who way too consistently exhibits childlike behaviors when he is frustrated and offended by other people. He has temper tantrums. He pouts. He insists. It seems to me that he is using the psychological defense of regression. My question to you is this: How can I help him change this kind of behavior when he is treated unjustly?
Your partner’s exhibiting the psychological defense mechanism of regression could be caused by a number of issues as follows: a) He saw this exhibited by others in his family when he was growing up; b) his parents may have fostered a sense of entitlement in him so that he gets overly angry when things do not go his way; c) he wants to control others by his intense anger so that others acquiesce to him out of fear. Regardless of the cause, he can change this regressive behavior if you can introduce him to what forgiveness is (and what it is not) and, with your encouragement, help him to begin forgiving others who are unfair to him. As he learns to forgive, he will be fostering a sense of the inherent worth toward those who have offended him. It will help him to check the temper tantrums because people who see the worth in others do not impose the pain of temper tantrums on them. Once he begins to see the value of forgiveness toward others and develops a capacity for forgiveness, you might want to introduce him to self-forgiveness. He may have to forgive himself for the times he was intemperate with others by his regressive actions of excessive anger toward them.
Will you please clarify for me the distinction between forgiving and trusting a person who has harmed me?
To answer your question, here is an excerpt from the book, The Forgiving Life (Enright, 2012):
When you forgive, you do not say, “Because I forgive you, I now trust you.” No. You can forgive and still not trust. If the person is showing you that he or she is a danger to you, then mistrust of his or her behavior is warranted. At the same time, and this is stated specifically to those who have experienced trauma, be careful not to confuse a general mistrust and particular mistrust toward a particular person. In other words, many traumatized people have a pervasive mistrust that needs work. Sometimes the traumatized person meets someone who truly is a good person, reliable, and safe to be with, yet the mistrust from past relationships is so great that he or she just cannot give of oneself in the new relationship. Knowing this and working deliberately on the previous issues of mistrust will help. Forgiveness will help. Time will help. Trust is such a delicate thing and needs work if it will improve.
