In the 1980s psychologist Everett L. Worthington, Jr. Ph.D., began studying forgiveness while working with troubled couples. On New Year’s Eve, 1995, his mother was murdered. Dr. Worthington then dedicated his life to encouraging and educating people about forgiveness. He turned grief into mission by writing books, speaking, and founding A Campaign for Forgiveness, which has raised millions of dollars to support the search of forgiveness.
In her book, “The Law of Forgiveness,” author Connie Domino devotes a chapter to the scientific evidence for the power of forgiveness. Some of the studies she includes are fascinating, and will have you dump your righteousness and mend the strained relationships in your life before you’re ready.
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This raises the old question about whether the goal of psychology is to adjust individuals to systems or to help people change systems that are unjust. Certainly adopting forgiveness can make one less angry with consequent benefits in terms of lower stress, but should people be less angry about things that are wrong in their environment. Anger serves a useful purpose because it motivates efforts to accomplish change. Ireland would still be an English colony if previous generations had not nurtured the same sense of grievance that is now being ameliorated in Northern Ireland. It may be good for the individual to let go of anger but is it good for society?
When we promote self-help books about forgiveness, aren’t we helping those who thrive by oppressing others, casting our lot with the systems that commit wrongs against individuals? I don’t believe that is or should be the role of psychology. So, advocating that people should engage in forgiveness without knowing their individual circumstances strikes me as misguided. Our goal for people is not to help them attain equanimity by learning to tolerate their enslavement (invasion of privacy, economic impoverishment, inadequate health care, whatever) without protest.
The movie Brain Candy very colorfully shows us that even negative emotions exist for good reasons and that we should not be seeking to eliminate negative affect because if we do our world will be a worse place. We must recognize and use affect to tell us what is fine and what needs to be changed in our lives.
How do you forgive once so much has been done to you in life? You remember that you are not forgiving them for them, you are forgiving them for you. You do it because hate eats one up inside and it also destroys our society.
You remember that things are not always fair so you hold to your truth and live your life, and yes you can forgive if you look at your own weaknesses in life with a real hard soul searching look.
No one is perfect, we have all made mistakes, it is not just others that are always in the wrong, that just makes it easy when you point a finger out ward and away from you, but when you realize that at least four are pointing back at you then you might stop it?
Do you forgive? Do you ask for forgiveness? Do you expect others to forgive you? Do you need to be forgiven? Sure! It depends on who it is though, right. When it is everyone then we might be able to start healing our world, which is far more damaged than any single individual anyone has ever pointed their finger at. Think about it.
When people are all inherently flawed, there is nothing that requires forgiveness or apology. Since it is our nature to be human, why must we grovel or adopt an attitude of deficiency? Why must we depend on a benediction from someone else for anything we have done in good faith?
I find this whole forgiveness movement to be another psychological scam in which people are promised happiness if they just follow the teachings of some guru. Embrace all of your feelings and stop chasing happiness. Other cultures consider the American obsession with happiness to be immature (childish) and selfish.
F*ck Forgiveness – in the sense that it’s going to cause any kind of change in the forgiver’s life. I forgive. It’s never been reciprocated. I’ve only ended up feeling like a patsy. My admitting my small transgression to other’s profound abuse has just been used as another log to beat me with, to crush into me how wrong I was and how right the other was. (They did NOTHING wrong, or course.) Some of us have very sick family of orgin. Actually I do forgive them, but I am still human, still very hurt by their lack of understanding and support. For me to stay somewhat on the sane side I have to just forgive these very sick people but also protect myself and keep myself away from them. And admit that yes, they do still hurt me and fill me with anger. Many may say this is not forgiveness. They are not in my situation and should stop being a judge of who “really” forgives and who doesn’t. And stop judging what the feelings and outcome of “Forgiveness” “should” be. Like every thing else, it’s unique for each indiviual born into very dysfunctional families. Unless you’ve been through it, you have no idea what you are talking about, I don’t care who you are.
sounds like it is working pretty good for you…i can sense the serenity in your post…
keep fighting
I am in my 40′s & suffer from major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder & pstd from past severe abuse. I will never be able to forgive those who hurt me. I feel it is not my job to forgive them – that’s is up to God. This way I have taken all the stress about forgiveness & given it to someone else. Instead I am trying to choose how I feel towards certain people i.e. choosing to feel nothing toward a person & trying to move on.
Selma Juanita: “How do you forgive once so much has been done to you in life? You remember that you are not forgiving them for them, you are forgiving them for you. You do it because hate eats one up inside and it also destroys our society.”
Am I normal because I can’t hate? I get angry and sometime for longer than just on the moment; I could get angry just recalling something that affected me over limits. But angry as being very frustrated is different than hate. There are things that I could not forgive if the one or ones that has done something bad (or just wrong) don’t make efforts to straighten mistakes that could be straightened and then not repeated, as obviously harming for others or for me.
(No idea if this make sense for others)
“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.” – Anne Lamott. Someone pointed out to me that the one who suffers by not forgiving is me. The perpetrator may go off on their merry way, ignoring the whole matter, meanwhile I remain bitter, stewing. Who suffers? I do. Forgiving, to me, doesn’t mean excusing the wrong, nor does it mean I don’t work to correct injustice. It just means I’ve personally released the grudge. I’ll let God take care of any retribution. I’m going to go on with life. Another quote that helps me: “When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at all, but our hate is turning our days and nights into a hellish turmoil.”–Dale Carnegie