Tagged: “Forgiveness Process”

You use the expression, after forgiving, “You now are in control of your anger rather than your anger controlling you.”  How do I know if I am in control of the anger?

You can start by asking yourself these questions: 1) Is your anger leading to strained relationships in the family, with friends, and in the workplace? 2) Are you discontented or more settled in your life, even if your circumstances are not the best? 3) Are you less tired than you were before you started to forgive? 4) Are you thinking less about the situation or about the same?  If your relationships are doing better (with no displacement of the anger onto others), if you are more settled, less tired, and thinking less about the situation, I would conclude that the anger is no longer controlling you.

Even though I forgive people, I still can get angry when I think back to the person and the situation.  It seems to me that I have not forgiven.  What do you think?

When we forgive, all of the anger does not necessarily leave us.  We still can have residual feelings that include anger, sadness, and disappointment.  If these emotions are not frequent and intense, and if you have gone through the forgiveness process and are wishing the other well (even if you cannot reconcile), then I think you are forgiving.  This does not mean that there is no more work to do.  When the negative emotions surface, consider going through the forgiveness process again.  It likely will be quicker and take away, once again, some of the negative emotions.

How important is it for me to follow exactly your 20 steps in your Process Model of Forgiveness?

This process model was not constructed to be a rigid model in which you have to follow the sequence in the exact order.  Some of the units will be irrelevant for you and so you can skip them.  Sometimes, as you are near the end of the forgiveness process, your anger re-emerges.  At that point it may be best to cycle back to the earlier units to once again examine and confront your anger.

You emphasize anger in your forgiveness model.  Yet, I am not feeling anger. I am feeling pain.  Might you have missed this in your model?

I agree with you that pain occurs after being treated unjustly.  I think the sequence is as follows: 1) Someone is unfair to you; 2) Next comes shock or even denial; 3) Then comes pain, as you describe; 4) If the pain does not lessen or if you have no effective way of reducing and eliminating the pain, then you may become angry.

That anger can be at the person for acting unfairly, or at the situation, or even at the pain itself that resulted from the unfair treatment.  It is the anger, if it abides and deepens, that can lead to health problems (fatigue, anxiety, and so forth).  So, I emphasize anger within Forgiveness Therapy because it, in the form of excessive anger or resentment, can be dangerous to health, relationships, and communities.

You emphasize love, compassion, and benevolence as part of forgiveness, but not part of the decision to forgive.  Why do you not see these as part of the decision phase of forgiving?

The decision to forgive usually is a cognitive act rather than an expression of the heart, of one’s emotions.  One usually makes a decision to forgive without necessarily feeling love and compassion because we are not yet ready to offer these when we make the cognitive decision to forgive.