Tagged: “Love”

I have been deeply hurt by unjust family situations.  This actually has changed who I am as a person.  I now am less compassionate toward others.  Should I just accept who I am now or do I try to change?  As I try to forgive, I think I will begin to change as a person and I do not like that idea.  What worries me is this: If I start to change this one thing, then off I go changing other things until I no longer am the same person.  This scares me.

Whether or not you try to become more compassionate, one thing still is likely to happen: You will change.  Life is about developing and therefore we do not stay static.  You have been hurt and your trust has been damaged.  As you practice forgiving, you are correct, you likely will change.  You likely will become more compassionate and more trusting in general (but not necessarily toward those whom you should not trust).  If you notice, those characteristics of compassion and trust are positive developments.  Forgiveness could help change you in very good ways.  Try to enjoy the positive transformation.

To learn more, see Why Forgiveness Is Not Only a Psychological Construct.

What are the costs of forgiving?

When a person is not used to forgiving, this is not unlike a sedentary person starting a physical fitness program.  It can be uncomfortable thinking kindly about the other.  It takes work.  Bearing the pain that the other caused you also is painful, but as you bear the pain, it lessens and lifts.  The questions of whether or not to return to a relationship can be painful as can the other’s rejection of your forgiving.  All of these might be called “costs,” but they do pay the dividends of emotional healing and possibly relational healing.

For additional information, see Bearing the Pain.

Lately, when I have an argument with my boyfriend, I find myself bringing up old issues that I thought were behind me, for which I thought I had forgiven him.  Do you think I truly have forgiven him for the past issues or not, given that I tend to bring them up?

It seems to me that you have begun the process of forgiving, because you state that forgiveness is part of you now.  At the same time, I would recommend more forgiving work toward your boyfriend for those past events so that you can leave them in the past.  Please keep in mind that still feeling some pain from past injustices is normal.  It is the excessive anger from those incidents that you want to diminish and more forgiving should accomplish that in you.

Learn more at Forgiveness for Couples.

“Is it possible for someone to actually improve in forgiveness? If so what do you suggest as some keys for me to do that?”

Forgiveness is not a superficial action (such as saying, “It’s ok” when someone is unfair to you). Instead, it is a moral virtue, as is justice and kindness and love. Aristotle told us thousands of years ago that one challenge in life is to become more perfected in the virtues. In other words, we do grow more proficient in our understanding and expression of the virtues, but only if we practice them. It is a struggle to grow in any virtue, including forgiveness. So, first be aware that you can grow in this virtue. Then be willing to practice it, with the goal of maturing in love, which is what forgiveness is (loving those who are unkind to us). You need a strong will to keep persevering in the struggle to grow in forgiveness. In sum, you need: understanding of what forgiveness is, practice, a strong will, and keeping your eye fixed on the goal of improving in love a little more each day.

For additional information, see On the Importance of Perseverance when Forgiving.

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.