Tagged: “Forgiveness Education”
What if the one who hurt me is not well known to me. How can I come to understand this person? Do I have to make something up about this person?
We help people walk through three different perspectives toward the one who was unfair to them: the Personal, Global, and Cosmic Perspectives. The Personal Perspective is the one that is the focus of your question because this perspective asks you to see the history of woundedness in this person, not to excuse what happened but instead to better understand the one who hurt you. If you do not know the person well, as you say, this Personal Perspective may not be possible for you. Yet, you now can take both the Global and the Cosmic Perspective. I explain these two perspectives in the next two questions because people have inquired about each of these.
Thank you for your clarification about the distinction between forgiving and excusing. When I consult dictionaries, I see that they often equate forgiving and excusing. What do you think of that?
Those who write the dictionary definitions for excusing and forgiving probably are not philosophers and so they are making a mistake in not more clearly articulating the specific difference between these two concepts.
What is the difference between forgiving and excusing?
When you excuse, you are overlooking an offense. In other words, you no longer blame the other for the wrongdoing. When you forgive, you do not overlook the offense. When you forgive, you know that what the other person did was wrong, is wrong, and always will be wrong. When you forgive, you change the way you respond to the one who did wrong. You do not alter your perception of the wrong. You strive for kindness and even love toward the person, despite the wrongdoing.
I am a little confused. Your Process Model of Forgiveness asks the forgiver to examine the history of the one who acted badly. The point, it seems to me, is to see the woundedness in the one who was unfair. If I see that he was wounded, for example, in childhood, doesn’t this act as an excuse for his behavior?
Actually, no, this insight does not act as an excuse for his behavior because he has free will regarding how to respond to other people when he is wounded. Given his free will, he then has a choice to be fair to others or to exploit others . His previous woundedness does not automatically make him a robot who now acts badly.
I hurt someone without any intention of doing so. Yet, this person still is fuming at me and this really confuses me. I explained that I certainly did not mean to hurt her. I also apologized, but it seems to make no difference regarding her continued anger. What do I do about this?
First, you might consider forgiving yourself for the behavior even though there was no intention of acting badly. If you think this is appropriate, then I recommend trying self-forgiveness first. Next, do your best to be patient with this person because forgiving is this person’s decision and she obviously needs some time with her anger. If you can respond to her with kindness and respect, she eventually may see that forgiving is a viable and healthy response for the relationship.
