Tagged: “forgive”
Dr. Enright discusses ‘Forgiveness is a Choice’ on Relationship Podcast
On April 2, 2024, Dr. Enright appeared on a one-hour podcast on YouTube, We Need to Talk with Dr. Darcy Sterling. Dr. Sterling is a New York City-based relationship therapist and host of E! Network’s Famously Single, who specializes in working with high-performance women who want to prioritize love and relationships.
Sterling describes her forgiveness journey that led her to interview Dr. Enright as follows on the YouTube video description:
“Years ago, I was gutted by a falling out with one of my siblings. It quickly became clear that we were on the verge of estrangement, and that impending loss brought me to my knees — I had just recovered from PTSD and was terrified of getting sucked into the black hole of trauma that I’d just come through.
Frantic for help, I found myself Googling a solution, and up came the term Forgiveness Therapy.
To be clear: I was not feeling forgiving. But I was feeling desperate. I did not want to revisit the darkness I’d just emerged from.
A book on forgiveness had recently been published by a professor named Robert Enright. In it he posits that forgiveness isn’t about cutting the other person slack. It’s a liferaft for people who feel wronged. Enright’s theory had been peer-reviewed — the gold standard in the field of psychology — so, despite my apprehension, I committed to following his program.
Today, my journey through forgiveness comes full circle in my conversation with the theorist himself, Dr. Robert Enright.
If you struggle with anger or are someone who holds grudges and you want to explore a solution, please listen to this episode.
In it, you’ll learn:
Why it makes sense if the thought of forgiving someone who wronged you makes you cringe.
The consequences of not forgiving.
How choosing to forgive puts you in control of your feelings.
How Enright’s program helped me to personally bypass a relapse of PTSD.”
Check out the interview below!
Regarding the issue of being pressured into forgiving by norms that can be rather insistent, you said that it is best if people are “drawn to the beauty of forgiveness.” What are some tips for doing this?
You can gently let people know that to forgive on its highest level is to love others, including those who behave badly. By “love” I mean agape or the kind of love that is in service to others, even when it is painful to do so. Forgiving can open people’s minds and hearts to this kind of love. Forgiving can open people’s minds and hearts to others’ suffering in this world so that forgivers now have the opportunity to reach out a helping hand as an important part of their lives.
Might the popularity of forgiveness now be negative for some people? In other words, maybe there are expectations now that people must forgive, which can put pressure on people and be a real turn-off to offering forgiveness to others.
We have to continue to realize that forgiveness is each person’s choice, through free will, to forgive or to wait for a while or to not forgive. We need to respect people regarding where they are on the forgiveness journey. We need to let each person be drawn to the beauty of forgiveness rather than dragged into it.
Will forgiveness require some suffering for me to be finished with the suffering of loss and betrayal from the one to whom I gave my commitment?
Yes, the process of forgiveness does require suffering when the injustice is deep. For example, you will need to struggle to see the humanity in the one who was unfair to you. This can be painful as you see, in your mind, the one who hurt you. As you forgive, you will be asked to “bear the pain”—to stand up to the pain—so that you do not toss that pain back to the offending person or to innocent and unsuspecting other people. Yet, as you bear this pain, the paradox is that it begins to lift. The bottom line is this: The pain suffered on the forgiveness journey is temporary. The pain suffered from the injustice can last a lifetime.
If I forgive, should I expect all of my inner pain to melt away or will there be some residual pain if the injustice against me is profound?
Many people, when treated extremely unfairly, can have some pain, such as residual anger, that stays with them. Yet, the inner unrest, the inner anger, no longer is intense. As one person said to me,”My anger used to control me, but now I am in control of my anger.” Continuing to forgive, even for years, is not unreasonable when treated cruelly. Yet, the forgiveness process becomes easier and takes less time as you continue to practice this moral virtue.
