Tagged: “hurtful event”

I have done the exercise for your Process Model and I see the stresses that the person was under. Still, this does little for my anger. Yes, I see a wounded and even a weak person, but I still want to punch him for what he did to me. What can you suggest to me so that I am not living with this resentment?

Doing the exercises is not an automatic way out of resentment. It will take time for the resentment to end. I recommend homework for you on a daily basis. Here is that homework: At least twice a day for the next two weeks, please go over the tasks in this exercise, trying to see the person more clearly at the time of the injury. Say to yourself, “I forgive (name) for hurting me at that time when this person was under stress. I will try to be merciful even though I did not receive either justice or mercy.”

Based on a response in 8 Keys to Forgiveness, Chapter 5.

If someone has frustrated and offended me and I choose silence because I am afraid to choose dialogue and confront him, is this actually forgiveness on my part? Is it true forgiveness? 

First, do you commit to doing no harm to the other? If yes, this is the beginning of forgiving.  Do you see the inherent worth in the other, not because of what was done, but in spite of that?  This, too, is part of forgiving.  Do you wish the other well?  This is part of forgiving as the late Lewis Smedes reminded us in his book, Forgive and Forget.  The silence itself is not necessarily forgiving. Why?  I can be silent with hatred in my heart.  To forgive is to have a change of heart toward the offending person (as the philosopher Joanna North said in the book, Exploring Forgiveness, 1998).

You probably have heard the expression, “No pain….no gain.”  I sometimes wonder if forgiving, which reduces pain, gets in the way of growth.

The expression “no pain….no gain” does not imply that one must be in constant pain to grow as a person.  In weightlifting, for example, the pain is temporary for more long-term growth of muscles and strength.  I think it is similar for a person’s psychology.  The pain from unjust treatment is our forgiveness-gym as we develop our forgiveness muscles.  The point, as it is in weightlifting, is to stop the pain so that one can grow.  So, we do grow as we go though the pain.  We also grow in character as we forgive. In other words, pain, working through pain, and finding relief from the pain all work together to help a person grow in virtue and character.

For additional information, see Bearing the Pain.

“You talk about forgiveness as a process, one that can take time. I find that as I go along the path of forgiveness, that I slip into revenge-seeking. I do not mean anything violent, just some nastiness or even verbal disrespect. Do you think this will delay my forgiveness process?”

We are all imperfect forgivers and so we cannot think of forgiveness as a straight line from the start to the finish. We go back and forth with forgiveness. At times, we see the one who offended us as possessing inherent worth. Then we might have a dream about the person and we wake up angry and do not want to even think about the person. The key here is to understand that the process is not a straight line. Have patience with yourself. Try to have patience with the one whom you are forgiving. In time, this back-and-forth will even out and improvements in forgiving are likely as you continue to persevere in the forgiveness process.

For additional information, see The Four Phases of Forgiveness.

Know and Practice Bearing the Pain

When you suffer from another’s injustice, if you quietly endure that suffering, you are giving a gift to those around you by not passing on anger, frustration, or even hatred to them. Too often, people tend to displace their own frustrations and angers onto unsuspecting others. These others, then, end up inheriting the original person’s internal wounds because this person refused to bear the pain him- or herself.

I am not saying here that it is good to shoulder psychological depression or unhealthy anger by being silent and keeping it all in. On the contrary, here is the point: What happened to you is now a reality. It did happen and you cannot change that. You have inherited a certain amount of pain from another person. What will you now do with that pain? Will you try to toss it onto someone else in the hope that it somehow leaves you? Or, will you accept that this hurtful event in fact happened and you will not now pass the pain down the line to others? Consider taking this perspective in bearing the pain:

“If I can shoulder this pain now, I will not be passing it on to other people, even innocent people who never had anything at all to do with the original offense. My anger could be transferred to innocent people and they, in turn, could pass on this anger to someone else, who passes it to someone else, and down the generations my anger goes. Do I want that? Do I want my anger to live on as it is transferred for many years to come? I can prevent this from happening as I decide, today, to bear the pain that came my way.

I will not call what happened to me ‘good.’  It was not. But I will do my best to shoulder it, and, paradoxically, that pain is likely to start lifting from my shoulders as I accept it now. This pain is not forever and my bearing the pain may help reduce it faster.”

Reminder: As you bear the pain of what happened to you, you may be protecting others and future generations from your anger.

Robert

Enright, Robert. 8 Keys to Forgiveness (8 Keys to Mental Health), excerpt from Chapter 6. W. W. Norton & Company.