Tagged: “Forgiving”

Reflecting on Resolutions — Again

Editor’s Note: Exactly 10-years ago this week, in this very same website section, Dr. Robert Enright urged his blog followers to consider adopting a New Year’s resolution to “have a strong will as a forgiver.” Given the unprecedented hyperawareness of forgiveness and forgiveness interventions that has developed since then, his 2012 essay “A Reflection on Resolutions” merits an encore. Here is part of what he wrote:

“This New Year’s Day, my challenge to you is: resolve to have a strong will as a forgiver. . . By that I mean your inner determination and behavioral manifestation of staying the course, finishing the race. . . We talk in society about free will and good will, but rarely about the strong will that helps us stay the course.

“To forgive requires a free will to say yes to the path of mercy and love, a good will to embrace mercy in the face of unfair treatment, and a strong will so that you do not stop persevering in forgiveness. To persevere in forgiveness is one of the most important things you can do for your family, your community, and for yourself.

“Without the strong will, you could easily be like the rowboat, once tethered to the dock, now loosened from the moorings as it slowly drifts out to sea. As the cares of the world envelope you, the opportunity to cling to the forgiving life may slowly fade until you are unaware that the motivation to keep forgiving is gone.

“Having a strong will means that you will remember what you resolved; you will follow through with the resolution. You have the opportunity to make a merciful difference in a world that seems not to have a strong enough collective will to keep forgiveness alive in the heart. The choice is yours. The benefits may surprise you.”

Dr. Robert Enright, Ph.D., who pioneered the social scientific study of forgiveness, is co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute. He is also a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a licensed psychologist. The various titles and labels that have been bestowed on him during his 37-year career devoted to forgiveness include:

• Dr. Forgiveness. . .
• Dr. Bob. . .
• The forgiveness trailblazer. . . 
• The father of forgiveness research. . .
• The man who pioneered the social scientific study of forgiveness. . .
• Creator of a Pathway to Forgiveness. . . (the Enright Process Model of Forgiveness)
• The guru of what many are calling a new science of forgiveness. . .
• Aristotelian Professorship in Forgiveness Science. . .

Dr. Enright’s Forgiveness Essays Reach One Million Views

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase “one million?”

• One million dollars?
• One million stars in the sky?
• One million pebbles of sand on a beach?

For Dr. Robert Enright, the psychologist who is often called “the father of forgiveness research,” the term one million gained a new significance recently when he learned that the blog column he writes for Psychology Today has surpassed one million views.

“When I first began studying forgiveness      36-years ago, it was extremely difficult to find even one single academic article on the subject,” says Dr. Enright. “The fact that my blog essays have been read more than one million times during the past few years is an extraordinary story of how important forgiveness has become in our lives.” 

Appropriately called “The Forgiving Life,” (the same title as one of Dr. Enright’s most popular books), the Psychology Today column authored by Dr. Enright focuses on how forgiveness benefits individual, family, and community health. At the publication’s request, Dr. Enright wrote his first Psychology Today forgiveness essay in December 2016. Since then, he has written 93 blog entries as part of the series, all of which are available on the publication’s website.

Dr. Enright’s Psychology Today blogs have been accessed online an average of
548 times per day since he began writing them.

Here is a list of 10 of Dr. Enright’s most popular Psychology Today blogs (with hyperlinks to the actual articles):

• Afraid of Mingling with the Relatives This Holiday Season?
• A Message for All Who Bristle at the Idea of Forgiving
• How Forgiving Are You? Take the Forgiveness Test
• 6 Things to Consider Before Reconciling with an Ex 
• Whom Do I Forgive in the COVID-19 Crisis? 
• Finding True Love: 7 Questions to Ask Your Potential Partner 
• Are Some Acts Completely Unforgiveable? 
• Why Forgiveness Is Heroic 
• Five Forgiveness Exercises for Couples 
• Why We Need Forgiveness Education 

“My Psychology Today essays are designed to pose a challenge to everyone who reads them,” Dr. Enright says. “I want readers to consider whether they can incorporate forgiveness into their everyday interactions so that they can become more compassionate while at the same time becoming healthier. I call it becoming forgivingly fit.” 

You can access all 93 of Dr. Enright’s Psychology Today blogs at The Forgiving Life.

According to the website’s Author Profile page:

Robert Enright, Ph.D., is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a licensed psychologist, and the founding board member of the International Forgiveness Institute, Inc., who pioneered the social scientific study of forgiveness. He is the author of over 120 publications, including seven books: Exploring Forgiveness, Helping Clients Forgive, Forgiveness Is a Choice, Rising Above the Storm Clouds (for children), The Forgiving Life, 8 Keys to Forgiveness, and Forgiveness Therapy. His colleagues and he have developed and tested a pathway to forgiveness, called Forgiveness Therapy, that has helped incest survivors, people in drug rehabilitation, in hospice, in shelters for abused women, and in cardiac units of hospitals, among others. Enright has developed Forgiveness Education programs for teachers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Athens, Greece, Liberia, Africa, and Galilee, Israel.

What do I say to a partner who keeps pressuring me to forgive?  I am not a very virtuous person, he keeps telling me, if I will not forgive him.

A key question is this: Are you open to the possibility of forgiving in the future?  If so, then you can discuss with your partner that forgiving can take time.  You can clarify that your intention is to forgive, but you need a period of processing what happened, of dealing with your emotions (of sadness or anger, for example).  You should let him know that forgiveness is a choice which needs to emerge slowly for you in this case.  Even asking him for patience may reduce his pressure on you to forgive.

I have a problem with my partner.  He does not see that he has hurt me, despite my best efforts.  I now am wondering if reconciliation is even possible.  What I mean is that he keeps hurting me and doesn’t even see it.

This is a difficult situation because you now have a lack of trust that he can change.  I recommend that you first forgive him and from that softened-heart position, approach him at an opportune time and have this kind of a conversation with him: First, you could let him know that you suspect that he is practicing the psychological defense of denial, in that he possibly is afraid to see the truth of his hurtful actions.  Second, if he begins to see that he indeed is using the defense of denial, you then can let him know the extent of your hurt, for example, on a 1-to-10 scale with 10 being an enormous amount of hurt.  Third, if he sees this hurt and sees it as caused by his actions, the next step is to work with him on a plan to deliberately change the behavior that is causing the hurt.  Please keep in mind that even if all three strategies work, it still will take some time for you to build up trust because this tends to develop slowly after a pattern of injustices that cause hurt.  Your continuing to forgive may increase your patience with the trust process.

I am wondering why people don’t just simply use the word “kindness” rather than the word “forgiveness.”  When you forgive, aren’t you just being kind to those who were obnoxious?  If so, then shouldn’t we use the word “kindness”?

“Kindness” is not an exact enough word in the context of a person treating you unfairly.  I say that because you can be kind without this issue of injustice entering into the situation.  For example, you can be kind to a three-year-old who offers you her toy.  She did nothing wrong to you.  In the case of forgiveness, yes you can be kind, but you also can be loving and it always, without exception, occurs when someone was unfair to you.  That is the specific difference between kindness and forgiveness.  The latter always is in the context of being treated unfairly whereas kindness can occur when the other has been treating you kindly.