Tagged: “forgiveness is a choice”
I am in an unfortunate situation at work. My boss is overbearing to such an extent that I no longer want to work here. Yet, because of my current circumstances, I cannot leave my position. If I seek justice from the boss, I could be fired. So, what do you recommend?
When we forgive, we do not necessarily get the best result of a whole and fair relationship. If you forgive your boss, which I do recommend if you are ready, then at the very least, your resentment can lessen and so your inner world will not be as disrupted as it might have been. The forgiving may help you to have sufficient energy to apply for other positions if this opportunity arises. Even without justice in the workplace, you are taking steps to guard your inner world.
Learn more at What is Forgiveness?
I recently discovered that my wife of 17 years had two affairs in the last 3 years. She would like to reconcile. I came to believe that I should extend compassion to all beings, including my wife, and I would like to forgive her. However, I am not sure I want to take the next step and reconcile. I understand that we are human and everybody makes mistakes, but I feel that I deserve to be respected and treated much better. I think I am respected and treated very well by everybody I know (friends, family, my kids, and my colleagues), except my wife. I also suspect that our values, commitment to truth, and view of morality are very different. I feel that I have to extend compassion to myself as well, and this means that I cannot reconcile. Is this way of thinking a sign that I have not yet forgiven?
Because forgiving and reconciling are not the same, it is possible that you have begun to forgive even if you end up not reconciling. At the same time, your discovery of the affairs is “recent.” Thus, you may still be quite angry and not yet forgiving. I recommend that you take some time to assess your current level of anger toward your wife. If you currently are very angry, this could be clouding your decision regarding to reconcile or not. In other words, you may need some time to process that anger, begin the forgiveness process so that the anger diminishes, and only then ask the important question about reconciliation. If you think that your wife does not share your own sense of morals, this is worth a deep discussion with her prior to making a decision about whether to reconcile. I wish you the best as you work through this challenging issue.
My partner has hurt me very deeply. Now he refuses to get help for his drinking and basically is destroying himself. How do you forgive someone under these circumstances?
Actually, the forgiveness process will not differ to a great extent when the person is destroying the self. You might actually forgive for the original offense and then forgive for the situation in which the person now is not working with you to rise above the very challenging situation. In other words, you can forgive twice and the second one may be harder than the first because the person is not working as a team with you.
Learn more at Forgiveness for Couples.
After 50 Years of “Living as an Angry Person,” Forgiveness Brings Peace
WIBC-FM, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA – Although she is known around the world for forgiving the Nazis who tortured her during World War II, Eva Mozes Kor reveals in a newly-released film that she lived for nearly 50 years as an angry person before learning to forgive.
“I was very angry with many people. I was in a lot of pain,” said Kor as she reflected on her life and how uncomfortable she was baring her soul for the documentary “Eva” that was released in April.
“Forgive your worst enemies. It will heal your soul and it will set you free,” Kor says in the new film narrated by Ed Asner. It documents Kor’s life, her travels and struggles and how she became the person who was able to forgive the individuals who committed atrocities on her, and who killed her family and millions of other people.
Kor and her sister Miriam were the only survivors in their entire family and that was because they were twins who were separated from the others by the Nazis. Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor, was fascinated with twins and performed experiments on Kor and her sister among others. The lingering effects are believed to be what killed her sister in 1992.
The Holocaust (in Hebrew, “Ḥurban” meaning “destruction”), was the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this “the final solution to the Jewish question.”
Even before the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they had made no secret of their desire to eliminate all Jews. As early as 1919, had written, “Rational anti-Semitism (discrimination against the Jews), must lead to systematic legal opposition.…Its final objective must unswervingly be the removal of the Jews altogether.”
In his political manifesto, Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), Hitler further developed the idea of the Jews as an evil race struggling for world domination. Nazi racial ideology characterized the Jews as “subhumans” and “parasites” while the Aryans (Germans) were the “genius” race. Ultimately, the logic of Nazi racial anti-Semitism led to annihilation of millions of Jews.
- Watch the official “Eva” movie trailer (2:08).
- Listen to an Eva Kor interview about the new movie (9:54).
- Hear from other Holocaust survivors in this University of Michigan-Dearborn Holocaust Survivor Oral History Project.
- Learn more about the horrific History of the Holocaust from this comprehensive report in Encyclopedia Britannica.
Read previous posts on this website about Eva Mozes Kor:
- A Feb. 27, 2018 guest blog by Eva Mozes Kor written especially for this website.
- Eva Mozes Kor: “Let’s heal the world through forgiveness” – March 6, 2018
- Some Auschwitz Survivors Disagree with Eva Mozes Kor – May 6, 2015
- Nothing Good Ever Comes from Anger – April 28, 2015
- Forgiveness as Freedom – March 17, 2012
Is the gift-giving to an offending other person a way to prove to yourself that you, indeed, have forgiven?
The gift-giving in its essence is not for the forgiver, but instead is for the one forgiven. Forgiveness as a moral virtue is concerned with goodness and that goodness flows out of the forgiver to the forgiven. While the gift-giving can be a sign to you that you have forgiven, that is not its primary function. The primary function is to do good to the other as a moral act in and of itself.
Learn more about what forgiveness is and is not at What Is Forgiveness?
