Tagged: “forgiveness”

Forgiving seems kind of superficial to me.  No offense, but if I am asked to just quietly let the past stay in the past and move on, that seems hard to do when I want to get the person who hurt me to change.

Forgiveness is not the same as moving on from the past. Forgiveness, as a moral virtue (as are justice, kindness, and patience), is doing one’s best to be good to those who have not been good to us.  The focus is on the person, not the event of injustice itself.  As we begin to see the humanity in the one who hurt us, the unjust event begins to have less influence on our emotions.  We sometimes can move on from the event if we do the work of seeing the worth in the other person, commit not to do even subtle harm to this person, and offer goodness of some kind when we are ready.

My mother was quite abusive when I was growing up.  She hurt me very much.  I am trying to forgive her, but it really is hard because mothers are supposed to nurture us, not abuse us.  Do you have any advice for me in this difficult situation?

Yes, I have an essay on the Psychology Today website discussing healing and forgiving from “the mother wound.”  You will see if you read it that you are not alone.  Over 190,000 people viewed this post.  Here it is:

Aiding Daughters in Healing From the “Mother-Wound”

I still think that my ex-husband has inherent worth as a person, but I cannot bring myself to forgiving him.  In other words, I do not want to enter back into a relationship with him.  So, how unforgiving am I?

Actually, I think you are confusing forgiving and reconciling.  If you have good reasons for not entering back into a relationship with him, and if you cannot trust him, this is an issue of reconciliation.  When two or more people come together again in mutual trust, this is reconciliation.  When you begin to see the humanity in the one who was unfair to you, and you deliberately try to reduce negative feelings and work on more positive thoughts (such as his worth) and positive feelings (such as wishing him well in his life), then you are well on the path to forgiving.  How forgiving are you?  I think you are doing well.

I am discussing forgiveness with a friend. When we got to the point of “standing in the pain,” trouble started. My friend said this, “When I think of standing in the pain, it scares me. Won’t the pain crush me? After all, modern times and modern medicine have the goal of eliminating pain, not heaping it onto our shoulders.” How do I respond to this?

Your friend is missing the paradox of forgiving. As we stand in the pain, we stop running from it and meet it courageously. As we do so, we realize that we will not be overcome by the pain. It is here that standing in the pain actually helps to lessen that pain as the person no longer is afraid of it and faces it. This is the paradox: Although it appears as if one will be crushed by the pain, the opposite occurs, and the person becomes free of most or even all of that pain.

I know you recommend stepping inside the offending person’s shoes, having empathy for this person, and understanding the struggles through which the person has gone from childhood to the present. When I do this, I feel as if I am feeling so sorry for this person that I want to say, “It’s ok.  What you did was not so bad.” 

To guard against excusing the person’s unjust actions, I recommend that you keep in your mind and heart the four issues that are not part of forgiving:

1. When we forgive, we do not excuse the wrongdoing;
2. When we forgive, we do not literally forget, but instead, we remember in new ways without the rancor building in our hearts;
3. When we forgive, we do not necessarily reconcile;
4. When we forgive, we do not abandon justice.

These points, which we discuss during the Decision Phase of the Process Model of Forgiveness, are meant to keep you tough-minded about what happened so that when you become tender-hearted, you do not fall into the error of saying, “It’s ok what happened,” or finding excuses for the unjust behavior.