Tagged: “Enright Forgiveness Process Model”

Agape Love and Forgiveness Conference Speaker Videos Available in Four Languages   

Speaker videos from the International Educational Conference on Agape Love and Forgiveness, held July 19-20, 2022, in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, (funded by the John Templeton Foundation) can now be viewed online absolutely free in four languages–Arabic, English, Hebrew, and Mandarin–using the links below.

The 26 professionally produced presentations feature educators from Northern Ireland, Israel (both Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking), Taiwan, the Philippines, and the US. They describe their experiences teaching agape love and forgiveness to their 5th grade students and outline creative Forgiveness Education teaching techniques. 

Inaugural Partnership Achievement Award Presented to Tim Markle

Tim Markle, founder and director of Forgiveness Factor, has received a partnership achievement award for his years of commitment to helping others learn about the virtues of self-forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness.

Markle was recognized with the “Healing Hearts Hero” award by the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI), a 27-year-old not-for-profit organization that has established forgiveness education programs in more than 30 countries around the world. It was presented at the International Educational Conference on Agape Love and Forgiveness in Madison, WI, that was attended by 160 educators from the US, Northern Ireland, Taiwan, Israel, Spain, and the Philippines on July 19-20.

Tim Markle, a forgiveness advocate and founder of Forgiveness Factor, is the first recipient of the IFI’s prestigious “Healing Hearts Hero” award.

For the past 13 years, Markle has been an Outreach Specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman Center where his numerous titles include Director of the Southern Regional Center for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs. In those various capacities, Markle works to improve the lives of children and adults with developmental disabilities and neurodegenerative diseases, some of life’s most challenging conditions. He also develops curriculum for a variety of audiences, provides training for both children and adults, and is a prolific speaker.

Markle uses those same management and speaking skills to pursue his secondary passion of “educating people about the benefits of forgiveness”–the passion that earned him the Healing Hearts Hero award. In addition to teaching forgiveness techniques at workshops and conferences throughout the Midwest, Markle has teamed up with Stoughton Health to create a series of popular informational podcasts on the basics of forgiveness (i.e., “Forgiving Yourself” and “The Art of Forgiveness”). He also regularly sends out short written Forgiveness Boosts to his subscribers.

Through radio station Life 102.5FM in Madison, Markle has produced more than 50 short (2-4 minutes each) “Forgiveness Audio Boosts” that the station has been broadcasting since March 2021.

Markle even developed a six-week course that focuses on how to forgive and why forgiveness is indispensable for dealing with anger, depression, anxiety and trauma.  The course is based on the ground-breaking scientific forgiveness research work of Dr. Robert Enright, co-founder of the IFI and an educational psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Tim is a contributing writer for the IFI and the most prolific speaker we have for our Speaker’s Bureau service,” according to Dr. Enright “No one deserves this award more because Tim is not only one of our strongest forgiveness advocates, but he has created his own forgiveness education organization called Forgiveness Factor so he can even better broadcast his faith in forgiveness.”

The Toledo (Ohio) native has a BA degree in Psychology with a minor in Philosophy from Bowling Green State University (BGSU, Bowling Green, Ohio), a Masters in Counseling (MC) from John Carroll University  (Cleveland, OH) and a Master of Arts in Christian Studies (MACS) from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School north of Chicago. He and his wife Tracy have two adult children and live in Stoughton, 20 miles east of Madison, WI.

Learn More:

• Visit the Forgiveness Factor
• Watch Markle’s podcasts at Health Talk Podcasts
• Listen to Forgiveness Audio Boosts
• Subscribe to receive Forgiveness Boost emails
• Read Tim Markle’s Bio

Learn How to Forgive

You can add a methodical, rejuvenating process of forgiveness to your life by attending the upcoming 6-session “Freedom Through Forgiveness” course that begins September 29.

Taught by forgiveness instructor Tim Markle, the in-person course provides the tools and techniques that will enable you to gain a factual understanding of what forgiveness is, what it is not, and how to use it to methodically improve your health and well-being. The interactive sessions are based on the 20-step “Forgiveness Process Model” developed by Dr. Robert Enright, co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI) whom Time magazine calls “the forgiveness trailblazer.”

The course is being sponsored by Stoughton Health with classes held at Stoughton Hospital from 6:30-8:00 pm on consecutive Thursday evenings from September 29 through November 10 (with no class on November 3). The facility is located in Stoughton, WI, 17-miles southeast of Madison. There is no charge for the course but enrollment is limited and pre-registration is required. Visit Freedom Through Forgiveness – Stoughton Health for more information or call Stoughton Health at 608-877-3498.

Markle is an Outreach Specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman Center where he works to improve the lives of children and adults with developmental disabilities and neurodegenerative diseases. He earned a BA in Psychology from Bowling Green State University, a Masters in Counseling (MC) from John Carroll University, and a Master of Arts in Christian Studies (MACS) from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a contributing writer and speaker for the IFI and the founder of a forgiveness education organization called Forgiveness Factor.

I have a co-worker who never stands up for himself nor does he even politely confront those who are giving him a hard time.  Instead, he gets angry (away from those with whom he is in conflict). Sometimes that anger comes out toward me. He can occasionally bang his fist into the top of his desk.  Do you think his actions are sufficient to relieve his anger or does this even help at all?

Your co-worker seems to be using the psychological defense of displacement, which means to take out the anger on something or someone else rather than on the original person who acted unfairly.  In the short-run your co-worker might experience some relief from this catharsis, but in the long-run, as I am sure you know, his hitting the top of the desk will not solve the injustice.  If your co-worker can do some forgiving and exercise this along with courage and a quest for justice, then he might be able to go to those at whom he is angry and talk it out in the hope of a fair resolution.

I seem to be lost on the forgiveness path.  I try and try, but I do not think I have made much progress in forgiving my partner and this has been going on for about a year.  Should I just get off the forgiveness path regarding my forgiving him?

Before you give up, I have some questions for you:

1) Have you committed to doing no harm to your partner, even in the context of your having the opportunity to somehow hurt him?  If you answered, “Yes, I have committed to doing no harm,” then you are not lost on the forgiveness journey.  This is a big step in the process;

2) Have you tried to see his weaknesses, his confusions, his wounds that may have wounded you?  If not, perhaps you need to do some of this cognitive work, to see him in a wider perspective than only his injuries toward you;

3)  Do you think that your will is strong enough to do the work outlined in #1 and 2 above?  If so, that work could lead to your forgiving if you give this time.

So, what do you think?  Have you found your way back onto the path of forgiveness?