Tagged: “Love”

Starting forgiveness is not so bad, but continuing with it is rough.  I kind of want to move on to other things in my life.  So, how do I persevere to the end and complete forgiveness without giving up?

In the book, The Forgiving Life, I talk about the good will, the free will, and the strong will.  The good will allows you to see those who hurt you in all of their woundedness and to respond to them with kindness.  The free will allows you to say “yes” to the forgiveness process itself.  The strong will allows you to keep going even though it is difficult.

Try to be aware of the strong will.  Cultivate it in other areas even apart from forgiveness.  For example, stay with the challenge of an exercise program; finish the book you started; complete a home-project that you started a while back.  These efforts can strengthen the strong will which can advance you toward the finish line of forgiveness.  Please keep in mind that even when you reach that finish line of forgiveness, anger can resurface later.  Apply the good will, the free will, and the strong will again as you revisit the forgiveness process.

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

I really do not understand this pie-in-the-sky idea that I must feel positively toward the people whom I forgive.  How about just some indifference toward them?

Think of forgiveness as a process.  We start out with anger or sadness or some other emotion that we find unpleasant.  As we grow in the moral virtue of forgiveness, the anger (or sadness) begins to diminish and we then can develop a kind of indifference toward that person. Yet, over time, and because forgiveness is a  moral virtue, we might continue to grow even more deeply in our appreciation of the other as a person.  This can lead to compassion, respect, generosity, and even love (the kind of love that is willing to be in service to the other for the other’s sake) toward that person.  So, you might want to think of indifference as one stop on the journey to greater perfection in the growth of this moral virtue of forgiveness.

For additional information, see The Four Phases of Forgiveness. 

I have a problem with this whole idea of forgiveness.  Forgiveness asks me to “just move on” or to “leave it in the past.”  How can I “leave it in the past” when it is constantly  nipping at my heals and the memories just won’t leave me alone?

Forgiveness is not just moving on or leaving something in the past.  As a moral virtue, forgiveness is focused on goodness toward particular persons, those who have been unjust to you.  As you forgive, you begin changing your view of that person and so this memory of “nipping at your heals” lessens.  Without this paradox of struggling to be good to those who were not good to you, it is very difficult to “leave it in the past.” Forgiving allows you to move into the future without that burden of continual unfinished business.

For additional information, see  The Four Phases of Forgiveness. 

I don’t feel anger.  So, I don’t need to forgive my father for ignoring me while I was growing up, right?

You do not have to feel anger to forge ahead with forgiving.  For example, are you feeling disappointed or sad?  Do you think you can have a genuine trusting relationship with your father now?  If not, then forgiving would be appropriate.  In other words, it is not only feelings of anger that motivate forgiving.  If you think you have been treated unfairly and this is getting in the way of your current relationship with your father, then forgiving would be appropriate if you choose to do so.

For additional information, see Forgiveness Defined.

I am not in favor of focusing only on behavior and then saying, “What the person did was bad.”  No.  There are bad people and we can truly say, “This is a bad person.”  Do you agree?

I would agree with the following:  Humans, unlike any other primates, have a free will. This unique characteristic allows us to make choices that can affect our very humanity.  Given this premise that we all have free will, and given the further premise that our choices can affect our humanity, it then follows that we can grow in our humanity, growing toward the greater good.  If this is the case, then, through our free will choices, we can either grow in our humanity (toward the good of justice, courage, wisdom, temperance, forgiveness, and agape love in service to others) or diminish in our humanity (toward treating others as objects, cowardice, deliberately bad choices, greatly excessive behaviors, hatred, and selfishness).  I would avoid the term “bad person.”  Why?  It is because a diminished humanity, forged by a free will of bad choices, always can be reversed by that very same free will that diminished the person’s true humanity (the goodness mentioned above).  If we say someone is a “bad person” this is too permanent a label, given the free will possibility of reversing the choices that led to the stereotype of others calling the person “bad.”

For additional information, see Why Forgive?