Tagged: “forgiveness journey”

Is It Better to Wait for the Other Person’s Apology Before Forgiving?

July 25, 2025 No comments

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When people do not apologize, many of those hurt by others’ injustices believe that it is wrong—possibly even immoral—to forgive them. “My self-respect is demonstrated by my waiting for the other person to apologize,” I have heard people say. “I will not tolerate the cruel treatment.”

Yet, why is the way someone treats you correlated so strongly with your sense of self-respect? Rather than seeking validation from others to confirm your significance as a person, you can respect yourself for who you are, regardless of their responses to you.

Yes, sincere apologies are good.  Waiting for the genuine apology, with the other person’s sense of remorse and repentance, can be a protection for both the relationship and for you. Such a sincere apology can signify that the other person will avoid similar injustices in the future.

A vital issue to keep in mind is this: Regardless of whether or not the other apologizes, you can and should ask for fairness from the person. This can occur even before the person apologizes. In this instance, the other person’s apology is not the sole means of obtaining justice.

Suppose you insist on an apology coming first. In that case, you are essentially saying to yourself, “I will not allow myself to exercise mercy toward this person until he/she acts in a certain way (an apology in this case).” Do you see how your freedom, including your ability to move past the injustice on an emotional level, has been restricted? It has been experimentally demonstrated that forgiveness lowers anger, anxiety, and depression. Your emotional healing may be slowed down or even prevented if you insist on an apology before you start the process of forgiveness.

You, not the other person, put yourself in the prison of unforgiveness with all of its possible wrath and suffering when you demand an apology from the other before you can forgive. It does not seem morally right to do this to yourself.

The way to emotional liberation is to forgive without condition. With anger lessened and a sense of the inherent worth of the other, which can be fostered as you forgive, your path to a just solution is enhanced. After all, talking with others when you are fuming with anger may not lead to the best outcome for both of you.                                                                                                                               

Wall Street Journal Writer Suggests that Revenge Can Be Addictive and There Is One Best Cure for It

July 25, 2025 No comments

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On June 5, in the Wall Street Journal, James Kimmel Jr. reports on how he was bullied as a child, which led to him becoming an “aggressive attorney” as an adult. He realized that whenever he sought revenge or even imagined getting revenge, he felt better.  As he researched the neuroscience of revenge, he discovered that the brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure and reward.  This feel-good sensation kept him seeking or fantasizing about revenge until he decided to stop the cycle of revenge, dopamine, feel-good, and more revenge to release the dopamine.  In his quest to break the cycle, he discovered that forgiveness is a means to halt the cycle of revenge, which in turn eliminates the need for more dopamine, thereby reinforcing the need for revenge.  Forgiveness was the cure for him.

More on this story can be found here: https://www.newser.com/story/369842/revenge-is-like-an-addiction.html.

 

 

 

Is it true that people “Forgive and Forget”?

June 26, 2025 No comments

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A recent set of four studies examined the extent to which people actually forget the unjust situation once they have forgiven.  The reference to that work is:

Fernández-Miranda, G., Stanley, M., Murray, S., Faul, L., & De Brigard, F. (2025). The emotional impact of forgiveness on autobiographical memories of past wrongdoings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001787

The authors made the distinction between the possibility that the memory of the event fades (what they called “episodic fading”) and what they called “emotional fading” in which the strong and negative emotions are diminished upon forgiving.

The authors, in their abstract, concluded this:

“While the episodic fading account predicts that forgiveness is associated with less vivid and detailed memories of being wronged, the emotional fading account predicts that forgiveness need not be associated with diminished episodic characteristics. Across four studies (N = 1,479, after exclusions), we found consistent support for the emotional fading account but not for the episodic fading account.”

In other words, people do not literally forget what happened once they forgive.  The memory can pass through the mind and heart without the heightened negative emotions welling up.

“Forgive and forget” may need to be rephrased as “forgiving and remembering in new ways.”