Tagged: “family”
Revisiting the Question: ‘Do I Really Want to Forgive When Traumatized?’
Note: When I posted the blog essay below on September 27, 2017, as an excerpt from my book, The Forgiving Life, published in 2012, I had no idea how a backlash against forgiveness would emerge in the published literature. There appears to be an association between the increasing popularity of forgiveness and the publication of criticisms against it. As one rebuttal here, I have reproduced the essay from 2017. It is even more relevant today, in 2025, than it was eight years ago.
Do I Really Want to Forgive When Traumatized?
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Why would anyone want to forgive when another has traumatized you?
I would like to suggest a different perspective on trauma and forgiveness. It is not forgiveness itself that is creating the sense of fear or disgust or danger or moral evil. Instead, it is the grave emotional wounds which are leading to these thoughts and feelings about forgiveness. When people are wounded they naturally tend to duck for cover. When someone comes along with an outstretched hand and says, “Please come out, into the sunshine, and experience the warmth of healing,” it can be too much. We then blame the one with the outstretched hand or the warmth of the sun or anything else “out there” for our discomfort when all the while the discomfort is what is residing inside the person, not “out there.” And this reaction is all perfectly understandable, given the trauma.
If you experience a blown out knee while working out, and it is gravely painful, is it not difficult to go to the physician? There you face all the sharp white-lights of the examining room, and the nurses scurrying about, and the statements about surgery and recovery and rehabilitation. It all seems to be too much. Yet, it is not the physician or the nurses or the thought of the scalpel or the rehab that is the ultimate cause of all the discomfort. That ultimate cause is the blown-out knee. Isn’t it the same with forgiveness? You have within you a deep wound, caused by others’ injustice, and now the challenge is to heal.
Forgiveness is one way to heal from the trauma which you did not deserve. Like the blown-out knee, the trauma needs healing. So, I urge you to separate in your mind the wound from forgiveness itself. My first challenge to you, then, is this: Is it forgiveness itself that is the basic problem or is it the wound and then all the thoughts of what you will have to do to participate in the healing of that wound?
Forgiveness heals. Forgiveness does not further traumatize. To forgive is to know that you have been treated unjustly and despite the injustice, you make the decision to reduce your resentment toward the offending person and eventually work toward mercy for him or her. That mercy can take the form of kindness, respect, generosity, and even love. Do you want that in you life—kindness, respect, generosity, and love? Forgiveness can help strengthen these in your heart or even begin to have them grow all over again for you.
– Excerpt from the book, The Forgiving Life, Chapter 2.
Reader’s Digest Presents 10 Powerful Stories of Forgiveness
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On June 9, 2025, Reader’s Digest published 10 heart-warming stories of people who have forgiven others for deep injustices. As one example, entitled The Unexpected Caregiver, Pascale Kavanagh, a survivor of domestic abuse, stated that she never imagined reconnecting with her abuser, her mother, in her adult life. Her mother, however, had multiple strokes, preventing her from speaking or caring for herself. Kavanagh started reading to her mother beside her bedside. Kavanagh reports that her hatred for her mother turned into forgiveness and love as she took care of her on a daily basis.
Dr. Enright essay on the definition of forgiveness featured in UC-Berkeley publication
Dr. Robert Enright
On July 7, 2025, Robert Enright had an essay published within the Big Ideas section of the Greater Good Magazine of the University of California-Berkeley. The focus was on the definition of forgiveness. Click on this link to check out the article!
A Hug for a Murderer?
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As reported in El Paso Matters (https://elpasomatters.org/2025/04/22/victims-sister-hugs-walmart-gunman-patrick-crusius-el-paso/) on April 23, 2025, Yolanda Tinajero lost her brother to murder by Patrick Crusius in 2019. When allowed to speak in court, she faced Mr. Crusius and said, “I feel in my heart to hug you very tight so you could feel my forgiveness, especially my loss. But I know it’s not allowed. I want you to see and feel all of us who have been impacted by your actions that has brought us all closer with God’s love, which shows you that this great city of El Paso is a very forgiving place to dwell in.” When the judge allowed it, she hugged the defendant as the judge wept.
Dr. Enright featured on radio interview and podcast this summer
Dr. Robert Enright
Two recent media interviews on forgiveness by Robert Enright are the following:
Live interview on the Voice of Islam Radio, London, United Kingdom, on the topic of forgiveness, anger, and humility, July 8, 2025.
Interview with Dr. Buck Joffrey and Nikki Leigh, Longevity Junky podcast, on the idea of forgiveness for health, June 25, 2025.
