Tagged: “hurtful event”

Is it ever too late to forgive? My dad has been angry with his own father now for decades. This anger has become part of his identity, part of who he is. I am worried that he never will be able to forgive and find peace.

You make a good point about anger sometimes becoming part of one’s identity. Also, at times people are fearful of confronting their own anger because they fear an inability to be rid of this. Yet, once a person realizes that forgiveness is a kind of safety net for the unhealthy anger, they tend to go ahead with forgiveness because they have more confidence in their ability to eliminate this excessive anger.

Also, with regard to the theme of identity, people can transform their identity, from resentful persons to persons who are caring and who do not let others’ injustices define who they are. If you see receptivity in your father regarding forgiveness, you might want to talk to him about these two themes: a) forgiving is a safety net for his anger and thus that anger will not overwhelm him if he starts to look at his own father’s behavior; and, b) his identity might change in a positive way.

For additional information, see Learning to Forgive Others.

I hate to admit it, but I have been hating someone for years. How long now will it take me to forgive? I want it all wrapped up this week.

Please do not think of forgiving as a kind of pill one takes for a headache. You do not take a forgiveness pill and then wait a little while for complete relief. Forgiveness, instead, is a process, a challenging process, that takes time to develop. We find that the more severe the injustice against a person, then the longer it may take to forgive. If you work at it, we find that people tend to feel some relief in about 12 weeks; others still may take much longer, but even in this longer process, you might sense that your anger is diminishing, which can motivate you to keep at the forgiveness process. Anger is not necessarily entirely eliminated when a person forgives, but hatred (very deep and abiding anger) does tend to diminish. I am encouraged that you are considering forgiving even with hatred in your heart. This, to me, is a good sign that you will make progress in your forgiving.

People forgive for whose sake: the other or the self?

The point of forgiving is to offer goodness toward the one who acted unjustly. Yet, one very common motivation is to forgive to feel better, to rid oneself of resentment. This motivation (relief from suffering in the self) is not the same as what forgiving actually is (a gift to the other).

For additional information, see What Is Forgiveness?

You have the Process Model of Forgiveness with 20 steps. If I skip some of the steps, am I cheating?

The 20-step Process Model was not built to be an inflexible, demanding system. Instead, think of it as a road map. On your journey to forgiving, you have the option to stop at 20 different places. Some may be irrelevant to you, or perhaps you already worked through some of the steps. It is just fine to move on to another step. Also, it is fine to go back and revisit some of the more challenging steps as you see a need for more work on that step. So, no, you are not cheating.

For additional information, see How to Forgive.

How does forgiving work in huge issues such as the Holocaust, for example? Can a person forgive an entire group that has followed a misguided ideology?

This idea of forgiving in the context of “huge issues” such as the Holocaust is extremely controversial. Some will say that forgiving is not appropriate in this context for a number of reasons (The vast majority of people in the current generation were not in the Holocaust and so it is not their place to offer forgiving; some injustices are so grave as to eliminate the possibility of offering forgiving). Yet, there are people who are on record as offering their own forgiveness to the Nazis. The late Eva Mozes Kor, in the film Forgiving Dr. Mengele, is one example of this. People can forgive groups because when we forgive we do forgive people; groups are made up of people. Thus, if certain people so choose, they can forgive those who instituted Nazism or slavery, as two examples.

Also, the philosopher, Trudy Govier, makes the distinction among primary, secondary, and tertiary forgiving. Primary forgiving is when someone hurts you directly; secondary forgiving occurs when you are hurt because a loved one was hurt (a grandson, then, who is hurt by the death of a grandparent in the Holocaust, can forgive for his own sake, but not forgive on behalf of the grandparent); tertiary forgiving is when you forgive, for example, a public official who is guilty of corruption in another country. In this case, you are not hurt directly and, let us suppose for the sake of this example, none of your relatives were hurt directly. You feel badly, even resentful, and so tertiary forgiving is appropriate.

We need to remember that forgiving is a person’s own choice. Even if everyone else says that injustice X is too severe for anyone to offer forgiveness, we still might be surprised to see that someone steps up and decides to forgive despite popular opinion to the contrary.

For additional information, see Forgiveness Defined.