Tagged: “Enright Forgiveness Process Model”
Can your Forgiveness Education materials be modified for secular universities, which are looking at racial injustice, white supremacy, social justice?
Our Forgiveness Education programs are built for ages 4 through age 18. For university settings, I would recommend the following:
The video, The Power of Forgiveness, as a way to get people discussing forgiveness in the context of societal challenges.
Then you might consider small groups that read and discuss any of the following of my self-help forgiveness books:
Forgiveness Is a Choice (2001)
The Forgiving Life (2012). This is my most in-depth self-help book because it links forgiving to the moral virtue of agape love. This book is a Socratic dialogue between two women.
8 Keys to Forgiveness (2015)
Please keep in mind that some who advocate for social justice misunderstand the importance and beauty of forgiveness, thinking it is a way of caving in to injustice. This is not what forgiveness is. Yet, if a person misunderstands forgiveness in this way, it may lead to a rejection of forgiveness because of this misunderstanding of its true meaning.
What is one concrete step I can take to begin forgiving another who has hurt me?
Try to commit, as you read this, to do no harm to the other. This includes talking with bitterness about the other, deliberately ignoring, or thinking about taking revenge.
How can I bring forgiveness resources to schools?
We have developed Forgiveness Education Curriculum Guides for teachers and parents. These guides run from pre-kindergarten (age 4) through the end of high school (age 18). All of these guides are described here on our International Forgiveness Institute website, in the Store section. You can read some of our scientifically-tested school programs here as well by going to the Forgiveness Education section. At the dropdown menu, select Research. That will bring you to a page with some of our Forgiveness Therapy research (presented first) and our Forgiveness Education research. I am here to help if you want to approach schools on this vital issue of forgiveness education.
It seems to me that for forgiveness to succeed, it is necessary for low self-esteem and toxic anger to disappear. What do you think?
For forgiveness to significantly raise a person’s self-esteem and to lower toxic anger, the person needs to commit, with a strong will, to the practice of forgiveness. This takes, as Aristotle says, practice, practice, and more practice. Our Process Model of Forgiveness is an empirically-verified way of helping people to reduce in negative emotions. Yet, when we forgive, we do not necessarily leave all negative psychological issues behind. For example, we still may have some residual anger, but that anger now no longer controls us. Instead, we are in control of the anger.
Is it possible that the expression of forgiving can cause the person who originally acted unjustly to feel annoyed? If this happens, does this make the act of forgiving wrong?
If the one who acted unjustly is annoyed at the genuine expression of forgiveness by the offended person, this is not the fault of the forgiver. Why? It is because the forgiver is giving something good, love, to the other. Rejection of that love does not make love bad. As an analogy, if a parent gives a birthday present out of love to a child and the child does not like the present and yells, is this the fault of the parent or of the act of gift giving?
