Tagged: “forgiveness is a choice”
Why Resentment Lasts—and How to Defeat It
Editor’s Note: As a regular blog contributor to the online version of Psychology Today, Dr. Robert Enright (founder of the International Forgiveness Institute) has repeatedly received special recognition for his posts. Yesterday, his latest blog was given “Essential Topic” status meaning that it receives prominent placement on their website along with being featured on the first page of blog topics like“Education” and “Therapy.” Here is that blog:
Posted March 25, 2017 – Psychology Today
Let us keep the philosopher’s resentment and let us banish the other.
Yet, the psychologist’s kind of resentment all too often is not a polite guest. It seems to never know when to leave. In fact, if left unchecked it can take over the psychological house within you. Why is this? Consider three reasons.
First, we have all felt the initial euphoria created by a response of courage after another’s offense. We will stand up for ourselves. We will resist. Resentment can give you a feeling not only of euphoria but also of strength. Nurturing such a rewarding feeling can become a habit. I know of one person who, upon having his morning cup of coffee, would replay the injustice and feel the inner strength as a way of getting ready for the day. He did this until he realized that over the long-term, such a routine was leaving him drained before he even left for work. His temporary adrenaline rush was turning on him. This is a case of positive reinforcement for something that shows itself in the long run not to be so positive.
Second, once we realize that our short-term euphoria is turning against us, we just don’t know how to get the resentment to leave. How do I turn off the resentment? What path do I take to have some inner quiet? Taking up jogging might do it……but once you have recovered your energy from the run, the anger returns. How about relaxation training? Same issue: once the muscle relaxation is over, there is the resentment with its perverse smile looking back at you. “I just don’t know how to rid myself of the resentment!” is a cry I hear too often.
“Resentment could linger for the rest of your life unless you confront it.”
Third, and this is the most sinister of all, resentment can become a part of your identity, a part of who you are as a person. You move from showing resentful behavior to being a resentful person and there is a large difference between the two. Once you start saying that you are a particular kind of person, it sometimes is threatening to change the identity. So often people will live with an identity—a sense of self, a sense of who one is—that is compromising for them because they are afraid of change. The familiar is better than the alternative even if the familiar includes pain and unnecessary suffering.
So then, what to do about the unwanted guest? Try these 5 approaches:
- Try to see the inner world of the one causing the disturbance. Might he be carrying an extra burden of resentment, perhaps from times past? Might she be living with bitterness that is spreading to others, including you? Can you see the woundedness within the person who is wounding you?
- Commit to doing no harm to the one who is harming you. This allows for a new kind of inner strength to develop.
- Stand in the pain so that you do not pass that pain to innocent others. This, too, can strengthen you.
- Science has shown on many occasions that there is a resentment-buster in the name of forgiveness (Enright, 2012). To forgive is a way of offering goodness to the one who gave you the unwanted present of resentment. Rather than the strength of the clinched fist and jaw, the strength from forgiveness shows that you can soften your heart toward the one who infected your heart. This can bring you inner relief.
- Finally, be open to your new identity: I am someone who can stand in the pain. I am someone who can forgive. I am even someone who can ask resentment to leave……and it leaves.
Which is the better identity: a life lived with an unwanted inner guest or a life free to be a conduit of good toward others and yourself?
Posted March 25, 2017 – Psychology Today
References:
Enright, R.D. (2012). The Forgiving Life. Washington, D.C.: APA Books.
Enright, R.D. & Fitzgibbons, R. (2015). Forgiveness Therapy. Washington, DC: APA Books.
MacLachlan, A. (2010). Unreasonable resentments. Journal of Social Philosophy, 41. 422-441.
You use the term “accept” or “bear” the pain of others’ injustices. Does this mean that we handle this ourselves or do we need help?
I think that help of some kind is always good if that help is wise and supportive. In other words, speaking with someone who cares about you can help with the carrying of the pain and the lifting of that pain. So, talking it out is a good thing as long as the other understands, cares, and does not pressure you to forgive.
“Forgiveness is a decision. . . a daily decision.”
WOWO News-Talk Radio, Indianapolis, Ind., USA – A 28-year-old mother was fatally shot during an apparent robbery at her home in Indianapolis last November. Police say she was beaten and sexually assaulted before she was killed.
Amanda Blackburn was 12-weeks pregnant with her second child at the time of her death. Now, Amanda’s husband, Davey Blackburn, says he has decided to forgive the three men charged in her death.
“What I realized was that forgiveness isn’t an emotion. I wasn’t ever going to feel like forgiving them,” Blackburn said. “Just point blank: You’re never going to feel like forgiving someone for doing something to you that’s irreparable.”
Blackburn added, “What I realized is that forgiveness is a decision. And it’s not just a one-time decision. It’s a daily decision. I have to wake up and I have to decide to forgive. And here’s why I decided to decide to forgive. It’s because bitterness and unforgiveness is going to be a cancer to no one else except for me. And it’s going to eat me up inside if I hold on to that.”
Blackburn, who helped found Resonate Church in Indianapolis in 2012, also said he hopes he can eventually share his faith with the three accused men.
Read more:
» Husband of slain Indianapolis wife says he will forgive accused killers » Memorial For Slain Indianapolis Woman Draws More Than 2K People
Mother Forgives Hit-and-Run Driver Who Killed Her 4-Year-Old Son
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, PA, USA – Four-year-old Abdul “Latif” Wilson was playing outside with his two brothers when he scampered between parked cars and into the road on April 13, 2015. A surveillance video caught grainy images of Shanika Mason, 28, hitting Latif with the rented Ford Edge she was driving, her own three children in the back seat. Mason apparently panicked and drove off before turning herself in the next day.
Mason, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 2-5 years in state prison for “letting panic overtake decency” that night. At Mason’s sentencing hearing, Latif’s mother Dominique Lockwood, 30, despite choking back sobs, was eloquent and dignified as she read the three-page statement she’d handwritten.
“I look at what now is my past merging into my future,” Lockwood said. “It’s a sharp pain that goes through my heart – the very heart my baby boy once listened to as he slept while I kept him safe, healthy and warm in my belly.”
Although she was in obvious pain, Lockwood didn’t talk out of anger. Instead, she talked about how she has found a new way to go on, for her own sake and for that of her surviving children, Samaj, 9, and Everett, 6.
“I can only live on by having faith that this very sharp pain that cuts deep down in my heart is just my intelligent baby boy letting me know he didn’t go anywhere,” she said. “I forgive you, Miss Mason, as hard as it is to say. I have to forgive you so that my own heart can be as pure as my baby’s so that I can be with him again one day.”
In memory of Latif, Lockwood has founded a nonprofit called Embracing God’s Angels. Its mission is to lend a hand to those who’ve lost loved ones suddenly – perhaps to help pay for a headstone or for a day of pampering in the aftermath of loss.
“It is hard. I cry every day for my child. But I have to keep moving forward in forgiveness and goodness,” Lockwood said.
Read the full story: In court, a day of sadness & forgiveness in hit-and-run
On page 174 of your book, Forgiveness Is a Choice, you write, “When people are angry, bitter, and self-absorbed, they cannot be creative and open to new experiences. They are bound by their limited paradigms.” This seems like an unhappy state in which to dwell. If I now see this and see the beauty of forgiveness, am I now obligated to help others whom I see as being in this state?
I think the answer will depend on your growth in understanding and appreciating the virtue of forgiveness. Have you so lived with forgiveness that you see it as vital within yourself? Is forgiveness now part of who you are as a person? Do you now think that you have a certain obligation to forgive others, not a grim obligation, but a joyous one?
If you answer yes to these questions, then I think you likely have within yourself an obligation to share what you know with others—-without force or condemnation toward those who are not ready for your message. As you started with forgiveness being a choice for you, it is a choice for others. Please see that and let people have their own free will as you make known what you see as the beauty of forgiving.
