Tagged: “Love”
How young can someone be to start forgiving?
We have found that pre-kindergarten children (age 4) and kindergarten children (age 5) are able to follow picture-book stories centered on family love. This is an important foundation for learning how to forgive. We have found through our scientific studies that children as young as 6-years-old can understand the causes and consequences to behavior. They, therefore, can understand unjust actions by others (a cause) and the development of resentment in the offended person (a consequence). Further, these 6-year-old children then can understand that the resentment can be overcome by forgiving, which in some cases can restore relationships (if the other is willing to cooperate).
For additional information, see Your Kids Are Smarter Than You Think.
I am forgiving my husband for some really inappropriate behavior. Even so, I cannot say that I feel any sense of freedom from all of my effort. Does this mean that I have not forgiven?
We do not necessarily reach complete feelings of freedom upon forgiving because we sometimes have anger left over. As long as the anger is not controlling you, and as long as you are not displacing that anger back onto your husband, then you very well may be forgiving or at least in the process of moving toward forgiving. Has he altered the behavior that you say is inappropriate? Sometimes there is the unfinished business of seeking justice toward a full reconciliation. You might need to talk with him about the behavior and if he willingly changes, then this may help with your sense of freedom.
Learn more at Forgiveness for Couples.
I have been offended at least 10 times by my roommate for the same thing: coming in late, being noisy, and disrupting my sleep. Do you recommend that I forgive each of these 10 incidents one at a time or can I forgive all at once for all of these?
I think you can forgive all at once for all of these, but at the same time, as you forgive, you should ask for fairness or justice from your roommate. If the roommate had been unfair to you in, say, three entirely different ways, then you could forgive for each of these independent injustices.
For additional information, see Forgiveness Defined.
Have you changed anything about yourself since studying forgiveness?
I think I have become much more attuned to the suffering of others. I now try to see beneath the surface of others to their inner world, particularly the woundedness that others carry silently within them, and I think there is a great deal of this woundedness in the world.
For additional information, see Choose Love, Not Hate.
I never met my father, who abandoned the family before I was born. I wonder now: How can I take a perspective on him, given that I have never met him?
You might start by asking your mother about him: What does she know about his upbringing? What does she know of how others treated him so badly that perhaps his trust was damaged? Also, you do not have to know someone personally to ask this: Is this person a human being as I am? What do we have in common as part of our shared humanity? Does he possess inherent worth as I do? You can do a lot of this kind of cognitive work without knowing the specifics of a person’s life.
For additional information, see Inherent Worth.
