Tagged: “Forgiveness Process”
I work hard on forgiveness, but sometimes I get to a week in which I do not want to even think about it or what happened to me. During these times, what can I do to not feel guilty or uncomfortable about setting forgiveness aside?
Let us take an analogy here. Suppose you have a physical fitness regimen. Do you work out every week for an entire year or do you take some time off to refresh, to heal, to re-group? Physical trainers tell us to take some time off. It is good for us. Think of becoming forgivingly fit in the same way. Hard work is good, but we need some time off to refresh and re-group so that we come back to that work with renewed enthusiasm.
Is it harder to forgive if a person is filled with anger compared with another person who is filled with pain and sorrow after being treated unfairly?
It seems to me that if the anger is very intense and includes resentment or even hatred, then, yes, it is harder to forgive. Some people who are fuming with anger cannot even use the word “forgiveness” because it intensifies the anger. At the same time, if a person has deep sorrow, sometimes there is an accompanying lack of energy and the person needs some time to mourn first. At such times, the person needs to be gentle with the self as emotional healing takes place.
It seems to me that anger is not always a bad thing. Can’t people be energized by their anger, focus, and attain fairness?
Yes, anger can be part of the motivation for achieving good. Yet, we have to make a distinction between anger within reasonable bounds (the emotion does not disable us, is not extreme) and anger that turns to resentment (a long-lasting and intensive anger that can lead to fatigue, distraction, and even physical complications). If we do not make this distinction, we could slip into resentment and conclude that it is good rather than dangerous in the long-term.
Lou’s Forgiveness Story
I went to the Police Academy four months after my open-heart surgery, which I was lucky to survive.
I was hired as a Police Recruit, mere months after my lifesaving open-heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (I was born with the same condition as Jimmy Kimmel’s son, Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia on 06, 10, 1994). I have had five open heart surgeries throughout my life. I passed the Minneapolis mandated medical evaluation after conferring with their appointed pre-employment Doctor’s at great length. I wanted to be an “open book” with my command staff and willingly involved my world-renowned Mayo Clinic Cardiologist, in early discussions and phone calls. Despite my disability, I was qualified. I had a Bachelor’s degree, prior experience as a Reserve Officer.
Unfortunately, as Police Academy progressed some of my Police Instructors didn’t understand why I was showing signs of extreme fatigue. I thought it was elementary that recent open-heart surgery produces fatigue. Apparently, what I deemed to be an elementary assumption was wrong. One of my instructors called me “odd” after I tried to discuss my disability with him and after I explained that I had almost died from my recent health complications. He also told me that he didn’t like the way I was sitting during this conversation. After I talked to him again about my disability, he said I was “insubordinate”. I said “I was just trying to open up to you” and left it at that.
I was confused why some of my instructors were initially so harsh to me. I was often treated harsher than my completely healthy classmates. I found later in my personnel file that an Instructor thought that both my Doctor and myself were willfully withholding my medical information. Somehow, he envisioned that my Mayo Clinic Cardiologist was purposefully being deceitful, despite numerous healthcare laws and my rapidly changing medical health. More troubling was that he also stated in writing that for the first nine weeks of Police Academy he and some of his staff thought I was “indolent”. For nine weeks I was treated as someone who has an “attitude problem” would be in a militaristic setting. Grown men with badges, twice my age, assumed the worst in me and showed their worst to me. For nine weeks I was “guilty” of having a disability. For nine weeks I was punished for being sick.
After they realized their nine-week long misjudgment, I was sidelined from most activities. I nonetheless cheered my classmates on as they progressed. Not surprisingly, I was discharged a few weeks later for my health and bid my classmates a tearful farewell. I even caught some of my Instructors crying when they heard that I was leaving (the majority were extremely kind).
It doesn’t bother me that it didn’t work out due to my health, I am incredibly grateful that I am no longer there. I believe I was their first (or at least one of their first) openly disabled recruits at this Police Academy and it certainty showed. I hope that in the future there might be another young and openly disabled Police Recruit in their Academy (it’s a voice that is too often silenced or marginalized).
I believe that we need not fear our differences, but only the voice that says our differences are to be feared. We must strive to make our hearts large enough to listen without fear and accept without prejudice. A robust and healthy heart, filled with love, compassion, light and intelligence will not be scared of anything different. Therefore, every heartbeat must be towards expansion, every pulse towards compassion, otherwise we fall woefully short of what the human heart is capable of. Once we escape the illusionary walls of fear that separate our hearts from others, a torrent of love will follow.
Forgiveness has freed my heart and allowed me to move on from this ordeal (it has healed my heart). I realize that it was really a blessing in disguise that I am no longer there. Someone with my education and background would have not been happy in such an unsupportive environment. Through forgiveness I have seen that what I once thought was a curse to be an incredible blessing. I am no longer scared of “missteps” and I have found forgiveness for myself and others to be liberating.
Peace Education Goal: Emotional Healing for Individuals, Families, Communities
During his 30 years of studying the moral virtue of forgiveness, Dr. Robert Enright has become convinced that forgiveness is the missing piece to the peace puzzle. While recording major milestones in pursuit of that peace premise throughout his career, Dr. Enright is now complementing those extensive efforts by pursuing “peace education” initiatives designed to inform, inspire, and engage educators who are working to enhance peace efforts around the world.
Peace education hopes to create in the human consciousness a commitment to the ways of peace. Just as a doctor learns in medical school how to minister to the sick, students in peace education classes learn how to solve problems caused by violence. Peace educators use teaching skills to stop violence by developing a peace consciousness that can provide the basis for a just and sustainable future.
As “the forgiveness trailblazer” (TIME magazine), Dr. Enright’s most recent peace education efforts include these three just-published studies:
An addition to peace education: Toward the process of a just and merciful community in schools
Published in the Aug. 6, 2020 issue of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology®, this qualitative research study with teachers in the US and China demonstrated that justice and mercy need to be partners in school disciplinary policy:
“Peace education may be more complete if both justice and mercy are part of the disciplinary process of schools. Justice by itself, as a traditional method of discipline in schools, will not necessarily address the resentments that can build up in both those offended and those offending. Mercy offers a second chance and the recognition and acknowledgment that many carry emotional pain which must be addressed for thriving in the school setting.”
Authors: Lai Y. Wong, Linghua Jiang, Jichan J. Kim, Baoyu Zhang, Mary Jacqueline Song, Robert D. Enright.
A philosophical and psychological examination of “justice first”: Toward the need for both justice and forgiveness when conflict arises
Published in the April 16, 2020 issue of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology®, this study examined justice and forgiveness between communities in conflict:
“The idea of ‘justice first’ between communities in conflict may be insufficient and therefore is depriving people within communities of emotional healing through the exercise of forgiving. The concern here is with the build-up of resentment or unhealthy anger as justice is not realized, especially over a long period of time. Yet, this resentment, and the psychologically-negative effects of this resentment, can be substantially reduced through the practice of forgiving, which has empirically-verified evidence for reducing such anger and significantly improving mental health. Learning to forgive and to put forgiveness into practice can start, not across communities, but instead within one’s own family and community for emotional healing.”
Authors: Mary Jacqueline Song, Robert D. Enright.
Effectiveness of forgiveness education with adolescents in reducing anger and ethnic prejudice in Iran
Published in the August 24, 2020 issue of Journal of Educational Psychology, this study (along with other similar studies) demonstrates that forgiveness education can be an important means of reducing anger and ethnic prejudice in Eastern and Western cultures.
“This research investigated the effectiveness of a forgiveness education program on reducing anger and ethnic prejudice and improving forgiveness in Iranian adolescents. Participants included 224 male and female students (Persian, Azeri, and Kurdish) in 8th grade who were selected from 3 provinces: Tehran, Eastern Azerbaijan, and Kurdistan. The results indicated that the experimental group was higher in forgiveness and lower in ethnic prejudice, state anger, trait anger, and anger expression compared with the control group. This difference was statistically significant in the follow-up phase.”
Authors: Bagher Ghobari Bonab, Mohamad Khodayarifard, Ramin Hashemi Geshnigani, Behnaz Khoei, Fatimah Nosrati, Mary Jacqueline Song, Robert D. Enright.
NOTE: Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology® is a publication of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 48–Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology Division.
