Tagged: “Dr. Robert Enright”

When going back to the unjust event, do I have to feel the feelings from that point in time?  I might be re-traumatized if I feel those feelings again.

The forgiveness process does not ask you to go back and re-experience your feelings from the past.  Instead, the point of thinking back in time is to ask this question: Was I treated unjustly and how unjustly was I treated?  We need to ascertain this because forgiveness starts with true injustice.  Sometimes, for example, a person might think that Mom was terribly unfair 20 years ago, only to look back and conclude that there was a misunderstanding based on the person’s views as a child.  When the person does conclude that, indeed, there was injustice, the process shifts to the effects of that injustice on the person now.  How has this injustice affected your current feelings, your level of fatigue, your ability to trust others in general?  So, in response to your question, you are not asked to feel the feelings from the past.

So, Then, What Has Changed in These Past 10 Years?

I re-read one of our posts here at the International Forgiveness Institute.  It was dated February 29, 2012. What surprised me is this: It was as if I were reading a contemporary news item from 2022.

As you read the 10-year-old essay below, consider asking yourself this: Has anything changed for forgiveness within societies in that timespan? What must we do so that in 2032 the news is not a repetition of the past 20 years?

Here is that essay from 2012:

Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker Movement is alleged to have said that a good society is one in which it is easy to be good. I write this blog post today as I reflect on some recent news stories (posted in our Forgiveness News section of this website). We have the shooting of innocent teenagers in Ohio and we have the murder of a 4-year-old.  Anger can sometimes be deadly for the other person who just happens to be in the angry one’s way.

I wonder what those outcomes would have been had those with the weapons been bathed in forgiveness education from age 5 though 18. I wonder what those outcomes would have been had the weapon-carriers, as they grew up, practiced forgiveness in the home. I wonder.

The wounds in the world are deep and everlasting, it seems. What we do here at the International Forgiveness Institute, Inc. (helping people if they so choose to learn to forgive and then practice forgiveness) will never be out of date. Yet, my big worry (yes, it is a big worry) is this: Will there be sufficient laborers in the forgiveness vineyard to bring the virtue of forgiveness to children so that they can become fortified against the grave injustices that come to too many too often as adults?

I worry about those 6-year-olds, sitting now in classrooms, learning their mandated ABCs, without also learning the ABCs of how to deal with injustice. You see, society is not emphasizing forgiveness. We are not being taught forgiveness on a regular basis. We are in a society where it is not easy to be a good forgiver. And so too many of those who are bullied in school do not even think to forgive those who perpetrate the bullying. In Ohio this week, one bullied student’s response was a gun and then murder.

So much pain in the world and yet too many societies do not have the vision and the resources to bring forgiveness education far and wide. Question for those who are listening: The next time a city wishes to build a $250 million complex for athletics or entertainment or whatever, who has the persuasive skills and accompanying wisdom and courage to ask that one half of one percent of that be siphoned off to forgiveness education? If we could go back and ask the deceased students in Ohio or the innocent 4-year-old what is the higher priority….what do you think they would say to us?

Society, what do you think?

Robert

To what extent do you think a person should revisit the injustice, feel the emotions from that time, and relive the event in order to gain insight into how to confront all of this now?  I am concerned that such revisiting could induce re-traumatization.

The process of forgiveness does not require that the other revisit the event of the injustice.  Instead, the big question from that past time is this: Was I truly treated unjustly?  If the answer is “yes,” then the goal is to examine, not the actual past event, but instead the current effects of that event on the person now.  So, re-traumatization is not likely to occur because the person definitely is not asked to revisit in detail that past event.  We have to realize that some degree of trauma exists now, if the injustice is deep.  So, it is not that the potential forgiver is revisiting negative feelings.  Instead, it is the case that the person is examining current negative feelings that now can be changed to more adaptive emotions and reactions.

How can I know whether my anger is controlling me or whether I am in control of my anger?

You can ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I dwelling on what happened to me? Do I ruminate often on the other person and the situation that was unfair to me?

2. Does this rumination interfere with my sleep?

3. Am I too tired too often?

4. Do I think what happened to me is interfering with my getting on with life, with my achieving meaning and purpose in life?

If you answer yes to most of these questions, then the anger may be in control.  Forgiving can lead to an answer of “no” to most or all of these questions.  It is then that you will see that you are in control of your anger.

You discuss in the Uncovering Phase of forgiveness that a person should examine defense mechanisms.  For example, might I be in denial that the other truly was unjust?  Since defense mechanisms usually are hidden from the one who is denying, how are we to uncover these defense mechanisms?

I think there are two keys to uncovering the defense mechanisms.

First, if the one who is considering forgiveness does not think that there is a solution to the inner pain, then this fear can prevent an opening up to reality, to the true conclusion that “I have been wronged and I am in pain.”  When this potential forgiver sees that forgiveness is a safety net to getting rid of that inner pain, then opening up to what really happened is more likely.

Second, as the potential forgiver sees the extent of the inner pain (which can be deeper than is first discerned), then this realization of deep inner pain can be a motivation to move forward with healing.  This courageous decision to move forward helps people to see even more clearly now that the pain must be confronted, which can weaken the defense of denial.