Tagged: “Forgiveness Process”

To what extent do you think a person should revisit the injustice, feel the emotions from that time, and relive the event in order to gain insight into how to confront all of this now?  I am concerned that such revisiting could induce re-traumatization.

The process of forgiveness does not require that the other revisit the event of the injustice.  Instead, the big question from that past time is this: Was I truly treated unjustly?  If the answer is “yes,” then the goal is to examine, not the actual past event, but instead the current effects of that event on the person now.  So, re-traumatization is not likely to occur because the person definitely is not asked to revisit in detail that past event.  We have to realize that some degree of trauma exists now, if the injustice is deep.  So, it is not that the potential forgiver is revisiting negative feelings.  Instead, it is the case that the person is examining current negative feelings that now can be changed to more adaptive emotions and reactions.

Perseverance versus Novelty in Establishing Forgiveness Programs

What is one of the biggest impediments to forgiveness interventions in schools, homes, and organizations?

Having implemented research-based and service programs of forgiveness since about 1990, I can say that one of the most significant challenges is the quest for novelty, for that new, cutting edge activity that fills people with a short-term rush of enthusiasm.  When novelty becomes an end in and of itself, it is then that it becomes an impediment to the slow and steady build up of the moral virtue of forgiveness in hearts, homes, and communities.  This is the case because the newly popular can extinguish that which has been there for years.

The philosopher Blaise Pascal emphasized that one of the major distractions to growing as persons is what he called diversion.  In his book, Pensees, Pascal spends a lot of time discussing this issue of diversion, or being so busy with whatever is preoccupying the person at present that there is no time to contemplate what is important in life.

Consider this quotation from  #171 in the Pensees: “The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries.  For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it.  But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.”

So, even if a family or an organization or even a community discovers the beauty of forgiveness and implements it, then the challenge is this: How do we keep forgiveness present to us instead of latching on to the newest fad, the newest game, the newest social cause that will fade when the next newest-whatever emerges in about a year or two?

This idea of persevering in forgiveness is vital according to Aristotle, who reminds us that it takes much time and effort to grow in any of the moral virtues.  We start with questions about what it even means to forgive.  As we work out our misconceptions (it is not excusing or automatically reconciling with someone who is harmful), we then begin to practice forgiveness, applying it to those challenging situations in which we are treated unjustly.  This can occur in schools as well.  Yet, once the new mathematics textbook appears, or the new anti-bullying approach, or the new field trip guidelines, forgiveness as a part of schooling can quietly fade away, as a rowboat does, from the dock, as the moorings are slowing and imperceptibly loosened from the wooden piling.  Forgiveness can slowly drift out to sea without anyone even noticing.

The first step in persevering with forgiveness once it is planted in a group is to realize that it could very easily fade away.  This kind of consciousness must not be lost.  As a second strategy, we all need to take a lesson from Pascal and know that diversion is not necessarily our friend, especially when it comes to growing courageously in the moral virtues and then persevering in practicing them.

Long live forgiveness, even in the face of the temptation of adding more and more diversion into our lives.

Robert

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.