Tagged: “injustice”

When I apologize, I like to explain my behavior so that the other person knows I did not mean to be hurtful.  Is this a good idea to explain or should I only apologize and keep quiet about the reason for my actions?

When you apologize you do have to be careful not to make it sound as if the other person simply misunderstood you. In other words, your explanation might seem like an excuse to the one who was hurt. If you did wrong, you can admit to that. On the other hand, if you truly think you acted morally and the other took offense anyway, you might consider saying something like this: “I am sorry that my actions hurt you.” In this way, you are not saying that you did wrong, but you are acknowledging that what you did led to the other person’s negative reaction.

The Essence and Definition of Forgiveness

A just-released video interview with forgiveness guru Dr. Robert Enright called “The Essence and Definition of Forgiveness” is now available to view at no cost on a website called Inner Change which bills itself as “a video journey into our collective humanity.”

The 2 min. 15 sec. video was recorded by a talented group of film producers based in Switzerland that has cinematic staff in the US and more than a dozen other countries around the world. It is one of 13 short video segments that Inner Change has recorded with Dr. Enright and which it will release over a 2-year period. Thus far, four of the Dr. Enright interviews have been made available for viewing including:

• The Essence and Definition of Forgiveness (2 min. 15 sec.) – In this interview, Dr. Enright defines forgiveness from an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and interfaith perspective that basically includes what Socrates would call the “essence” or core of forgiveness. He concludes by adding that the highest form of forgiveness is to unconditionally love those who hurt us.
• How I Became Involved in Forgiveness Studies (4 min. 16 sec.) – Dr. Enright explains how after years of studying moral development at the behest of his employer, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he asked himself, “What might make a difference in the world in people’s lives?” The answer he came up with in 1985 was “the virtue of forgiveness” which he saw as a way to heal from the injustices we all face.
• The Two Paradoxes of Forgiveness (1 min. 0 sec.) – In this brief segment, Dr. Enright outlines the two paradoxes (apparent contradictions that are not contradictions) of forgiveness: 1) by forgiving, you are giving unexpected goodness to the person who hurt you; and, 2) in the process, you become stronger and emotionally healed.
• Learning to Forgive in the Small Things (3 min. 19 sec.) – By practicing forgiveness with the smaller hurts in your life, what Dr. Enright calls “exercising your forgiveness muscles,” you can become forgivingly fit and more easily handle the larger injustices in life.

Dr. Robert Enright, founder – International Forgiveness Institute

The Inner Change website includes interviews with psychologists, spiritual teachers, activists, and neurologists. Those interviews are part of the website’s “Peace Video Library” where visitors can “discover what it means to be fully human, what resources we all share,  how we can tap into our full potential as humans.” Other website features include musical meditation segments following each video and a collection of more than 30 music videos all with original songs recorded at Chernobyl (the site of the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster) and the nearby ghost town of Prypiat in Northern Ukraine.

Other notable forgiveness-related personalities featured on the site include:

1) Marina Cantacuzino, founder of the Forgiveness Project, a nonprofit that collects and shares stories from both victims/survivors and perpetrators of crime and conflict who have rebuilt their lives following hurt and trauma;

2) Bill Pelke who forgave the young woman who murdered his grandmother by stabbing her 33 times with a butcher knife and who went on to found an organization called Journey of Hope–from violence to healing that provides support to families of murder victims; and,

3) Dr. Andrew Newberg, a physician and neuroscientist who studies the relationship between brain function and various mental states who is also a pioneer in the neurological study of religious and spiritual experiences (a field known as “neurotheology”) as demonstrated in his recent book The Rabbi’s Brain.

How can I show my brother that forgiveness is a choice so we can forgive each other and move on?

If your brother is hesitant to forgive, as you say, it is his choice. In my experience, when people are hesitant to forgive, they often misunderstand what forgiveness actually is. A common error is this: The person thinks that in the forgiving, the injustice is wiped away to such an extent that it really was never an injustice in the first place. Yet, a true understanding of forgiveness is that what happened was wrong, is wrong, and always will be wrong. What changes when we forgive is our response to the person who acted unfairly. We begin to see and appreciate the inherent worth within that person. See if your brother might be more open to the idea of forgiving when you explain this to him. I wish you the best with this.

In your video of an actual counseling session, you advise the client to see the emotional wounds in her mother. Yet, what if the mother were deceased. How would you proceed with the counseling with regard to this issue of the mother being wounded?

A client still can ascertain the history of emotional woundedness of one’s mother even if the mother is deceased. The client can look back at what is known about the mother’s childhood and adolescence and see if others were unfair and hurtful to her.

As a follow-up to my question about growing in our humanity when we forgive, do you think that our forgiving others can help them grow in their humanity?

The philosophy of virtue-ethics has as one of its major premises that all people have free will. This is the case because, without our free choices in life, we cannot willingly decide, for example, to be just or fair to others. When you forgive someone for unjust behavior, you are giving that person the opportunity to examine that behavior and to change. Yet, because of the premise of free will, it now is up to that person how to grow in fairness. The person will need insight (I did wrong), have inner sorrow (remorse), apologize (repent), and amend the ways that are unfair. Your forgiving will not automatically lead to all of this, but again, you are offering an important opportunity in that direction for the one who offended.