Tagged: “hurtful event”

What do you see as the most common misconception about what forgiving is?

I think right now the mot common misconception is this:  When I forgive I try to “move on” from the hurtful situation.  As I move on, then the inner pain may lessen.  Yet, in my experience with others, no matter how far you try to run from the pain, it runs even faster than you.  So, if you try to run from the pain for two weeks, as you stop to rest, there is the pain right beside you asking the question, “What do you want to do now?  Shall we reflect even more on me, the pain, now?”  Forgiveness is not a moving on from the pain, but instead is a moral virtue of offering good toward the offending other person.  The paradox is this: As you engage in goodness toward that other person, it is you who is healed.

What is the difference between genuine guilt and false guilt?

False guilt occurs when you have not broken your own moral standards.  For example, suppose you have to meet someone soon and you forget your car keys, necessitating that you go back into your home, find your keys, get the keys, and now you are late for the meeting.  You did not intentionally try to be late for that meeting.  You made an error and did not willingly break a standard of honoring the other person.  Your acceptance of imperfection may be in order, but to deeply blame the self would be excessive and therefore in all likelihood is false guilt.  Genuine guilt occurs when you have broken your moral standards and now you are feeling guilty until you make amends.  As a final point here, sometimes unintentional errors can be serious enough to warrant guilt.  For example, if you are driving in your car and texting on your phone at the same time, resulting in an accident, you should have been paying more attention to the driving.  In that case, even without an intention to do wrong, the guilt would be genuine.

Can you suggest at least one very effective way to motivate a person to start the forgiveness process?

I find that a person’s internal, emotional pain is a strong motivator to at lease consider forgiveness as a healing strategy.  If the person has tried many different approaches, and none of them has led to significant relief, then a person often is ready to give forgiveness a try.

I have tried every solution and still I am angry.  Even when I forgive, I am still angry.  Do you have any advice for me?

We are all imperfect forgivers and so once you forgive, you still may have some anger left over.  A key question for you is this: Is your anger strong and consistent or has it lessened and is not continually present?  As long as the anger is not controlling you, then you are doing well.  If, however, the anger continues to be strong and stays within you, I would recommend going back to the forgiveness process regarding this particular person.  Practicing forgiveness and persevering in this can reduce the anger even more.

Forgiveness Is More than Seeing the Humanity in the One Who Offended

I recently heard a speech in which the speaker equated forgiving with seeing the humanity in the one who offended.  The one who was victimized sent a letter to the offender stating that the offending person owes the victim nothing.  The speaker said that the letter was sent to set the self free.  While these aspects of forgiving (seeing the other as more than the offense and writing the letter for one’s own sake) are both laudable and part of forgiveness, they do not, in themselves, constitute what forgiving is in its essence.

Had the speaker said something such as the following to the audience, it would be reasonable because the speaker would be instructing the audience that this is not the sum total of forgiveness: “I have worked at seeing the offending person as much more than his actions against me. I sent a letter to him to set myself free.  These are part of forgiveness, perhaps the best I can do for now, but there is much more to what forgiveness is than this.”  Otherwise, the messenger is engaging in the logical fallacy of reductionism, or reducing what forgiveness is to less than what it actually is.

Such a clarification is important for this reason:  Because forgiveness is a moral virtue, it is about goodness directed deliberately toward the other person for that offending person’s sake.  A letter sent for one’s own benefit is quite different from sending it to aid the one who offended. Again, the motive of self-healing is good, but there is more. The benefits toward the self are consequences of forgiving; these benefits for the self are not what forgiveness is in its essence.

Forgiveness is a response of mercy toward the one who offends.  It also includes the cultivation of compassion toward that person, the bearing of pain for the other, and the giving of a gift because that is what mercy does.  Forgiveness, then, is centered not only on insight about the other person but also on a deliberate gift-giving toward that person.  This does not mean that all who forgive reach this fuller level of forgiving, but it does mean that this is the goal.

When people are asked to speak to an audience, this implicitly sets up the expectation that the speaker has a certain wisdom about the topic so that the audience will get as clear an understanding of the topic as possible.  When the speaker then engages, without realizing it, in the logical fallacy of reductionism, this does not advance deep knowledge of that topic.

The take-away message of this blog post is this:  When you hear a scheduled talk by someone who is considered an authority on the subject of forgiveness, be very careful not to conclude that what the speaker is saying must be the truth and nothing but the truth because the person was asked to speak.  Sometimes, there is reductionism or patently false information given on the complex topic of forgiveness. Let the listener beware.

Robert