the topic of forgiveness
Chasity Webster
PSY 400
Martin Methodist College

Forgiveness is one of the most compassionate things that we can do for one another. The term is greatly misinterpreted and because of this it is not often given in the truest sense of the word. Forgiveness requires finding and feeling compassion and then being able to let go of anxiety, anger and yearning for revenge. Letting go of grudges and bitterness can make way for compassion, kindness and peace. In an article reviewing compassion, the authors define compassion as the feeling that arises in witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a subsequent desire to help. The definition theorizes compassion as an affective state defined by a specific independent feeling, and it differs from treatment of compassion as an attitude (Goetz & et. al 2010). According to Webster’s Third Edition, to forgive is to cease to feel resentment against, on accord of wrong committed, to give up claim to requital from or retribution upon an offender, to absolve; pardon. Generally, forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you might always remain a part of your life, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on you and help you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Forgiveness can even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who hurt you. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you deny the other person's responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn't minimize or justify the wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. Forgiveness brings a kind of peace that helps you go on with life.
It is easy to hold on to grudges because when you're hurt by someone you love and trust, you might become angry, sad or confused. If you dwell on hurtful events or situations, grudges filled with resentment, vengeance and hostility can take root. If you allow negative feelings to crowd out positive feelings, you might find yourself swallowed up by your own bitterness or sense of injustice. But if you're unforgiving, you might pay the price repeatedly by bringing anger and bitterness into every relationship and new experience. Your life might become so wrapped up in the wrong that you can't enjoy the present. You might become depressed or anxious. You might feel that your life lacks meaning or purpose, or that you're at odds with your spiritual beliefs. You might lose valuable and enriching connectedness with others. Forgiveness can lead to healthier relationships greater spiritual and psychological well-being less anxiety, stress and hostility, lower blood pressure, fewer symptoms of depression, lower risk of alcohol and substance abuse
Forgiveness, then, refers to a voluntary act, a decision, a choice made about how a person deals with the past. One possible set of choices is to seek revenge and retribution for wrongs committed against us and consequently to feel resentment and bitterness until one is vindicated, until there is a chance to retaliate or get even with the wrongdoer. This choice is based on the belief that a person is able to pass judgment on events and acts and on the belief that it is possible to measure the magnitude of an offense and that to receive an equal amount of retribution somehow balances the account. An unforgiving attitude assumes that how one feels about past events is based on an economy similar to that of money and that a person will thus feel poor and deprived if he or she has not sought an equal measure for all the wrongs committed against them. Revenge is a zero-sum game. Another set of choices is to practice an attitude of forgiveness. By deciding to absolve what are perceived as wrongs committed against one, a person is able to let go of resentment and be free from bitterness. One does not have to wait for vindication, at any moment a person can take control of how he or she chooses to feel about the past. Forgiveness is based on the understanding that one screens and creates the past through the process of judgment in the same way that one screens and creates the present through the process of perception, that a person’s judgments are subjective and unreliable. Hence, one can assume the freedom of how one wishes to deal with the past. A forgiving attitude is based on the economics of love and abundance. By choosing to forgive the past we need not feel deprived and unfulfilled, and we do not expend our energy in the process of seeking vindication (Hope 1987).
In an article written by Suzanne Freedman, she states that because forgiveness is frequently criticized and misunderstood, it is extremely important to be as clear as possible when defining what it is, what it is not, and how to go about forgiving (Freedman 2011). She goes on to say that forgiveness can only occur between two people, that it does not make sense to talk about forgiving a natural disaster, and that forgiveness is liberating and empowering. One does not need to receive an apology before forgiving, and must understand that forgiveness is not that same as pardoning, condoning, excusing, or reconciliation. In a book entitled Finding Forgiveness, it is stated that forgiveness is about resolving the misperception we have projected on someone else. It is about healing a deep psychological injury we believe someone did to us. Saying therefore forgiveness is a process of shifting perceptions in which we recognize that these perceptions are only our creations and not fact (Freedman 2011). It is hard to both forgive and to ask for forgiveness, yet it does depend on the circumstances. If someone makes fun of you, it would be much easier to forgive them than to ask for forgiveness, because asking for forgiveness does not make sense considering they make fun of you first, and if by some chance you ask for forgiveness it makes you seem weak and less dominant. In asking for forgiveness you also have to admit that you are wrong and people do not like to do that because it may give the redeemer a sign that now he or she has leverage over the person asking for forgiveness in their relationship. Norvin Richards suggested that there is no love without forgiveness and there is no forgiveness without love. Forgiveness can be defined as the foregoing of resentment or revenge when the wrongdoers actions deserve it. Forgiveness can encompass many different things, form merely accepting someone’s apology to helping them find their way out of the situation they put themselves in (Richards 1988). In order to forgive others, one must have to first be able to forgive themselves. By this I mean that if you feel guilty about something, you have to be able to accept that you made a mistake, but you also have to then carry on and move forward. If you cannot forgive yourself, you will constantly berate yourself and you will not be able to leave the past behind. Of course, you have to learn from the mistakes you made and make sure never to repeat them, but it is not necessary to constantly dwell on something that has already happened and cannot be changed.
One believes that educators can introduce a pedagogics of forgiveness into the curriculum as a way to promoting healing and reconciliation within families and the family of nation. Forgiveness is not suppression of pain. The key is to forgive and remember, not to “forgive and forget.” Forgiveness is intricately linked to memory. The call must be to forgive and to remember, and to forgive again, thereby necessitating renewed commitments to forgiveness. Refusing to wallow in those hurts and to nurse resentment, we must nonetheless remember what happened and choose to forgive again. One must also recognize that forgiveness can never be equated with conditioning or excusing, which will strengthen us in realizing that forgiveness has nothing to do with softness or weakness (Rodden 2004).
In his research over forgiveness, R.C. Roberts says that forgiveness is the act or process of forgiving is a dispelling of justified anger at one how has offend against oneself, in particular dissolution of the victim’s retributive gestalt of the offender. Forgiveness is not just any such dispelling or dissolution, but one in which the judgment ingredient in the anger; that the offence is significant and the offender culpable-is retained, and the emotion is dispelled by any of a set of considerations that bear, in various ways, on the concern to be in a compassionate and harmonious relationship with the offender. In his discussion of the process he suggested that an understanding of how the judgment ingredient in anger can be retained while that anger itself is overwhelmed by the benevolence considerations on having a view of emotions in which a person’s of can change without any change in his or her judgments. The account emotions as concern-based perceptions or construals meets this requirement. Thus, when the angry one construes her offender in terms of the offender’s good will as expressed in repentance, or compassionately in terms of the offender’s suffering, or in terms of the offender’s close relationship with the victim, or in terms of the victim’s moral commonality with the offender, with perhaps the help of mitigating excuses for the offender, the retributive construal is apt to be supplanted by a more benevolent one. But this new way of seeing the offender by no means rules out the judgment that the offender is guilty of a significant offense and deserves some punishment. The emotional state is rather matters of what features of the situation are perceptually salient to the victim, in this special “seeing-as” sense of “perceptual”. Forgiveness is the disposition for this act to be performed or the process to occur (Roberts 1995).
Forgiveness, in one instance is viewed as a matter of overcoming; in the sense of eliminating, resentment. Forgiveness requires that the forgiver stops blaming the wrongdoer (Zaibert 2009). Forgiveness is a commitment to a process of change. To begin the process of forgiving you might consider the value of forgiveness and its importance in your life at a given time. Reflect on the facts of the situation, how you've reacted, and how this combination has affected your life, health and well-being .When you're ready, actively choose to forgive the person who's offended you. Move away from your role as victim and release the control and power the offending person and situation have had in your life. As you let go of grudges, you'll no longer define your life by how you've been hurt. You might even find compassion and understanding. According to an article in the Southern Medical Journal, genuine forgiveness is astonishingly hard because it takes place only in the context of pain, whether it be the forgiveness of others, self-forgiveness, or divine forgiveness. Forgiveness is explained as a promise by one who has been wronged to “let go” of that wrong and not bring it up again, whether to the offender, to others, or to oneself. The authors of this particular article contested against the old saying, “forgive and forget” saying, forgiveness is not a self-induced amnesia, nor does it require the victim to become a doormat. Forgiveness does not automatically restore trust, but it may allow repentant offenders an opportunity to earn trust back over time. Forgiveness is given and trust is earned (Hugenberger & Knight 2007).
Forgiving an offender can be difficult, even when one is truly motivated to do so. Consistent with our expectations, the results from the four present studies clearly demonstrated that executive functioning facilitates forgiveness, not only concurrently but also over time. It is important to note that executive functioning is primarily related to forgiveness in the case of a severe offense, when higher levels of executive functioning may lead to less ruminative thoughts about the offense, and in this indirect way facilitates forgiveness. With this, the current research sheds new light on the beneficial effect of cognitive processes on forgiveness and, we hope, on relationship success in general (Pronk,Karremans, Overbeek, Vermulst, & Wigboldus, 2010).
Forgiveness is not justice. It is certainly easier to forgive someone who sincerely apologizes and makes amends. However, justice, which may include acknowledgment of the wrong, apologies, punishment, restitution, or compensation, is separate from forgiveness. You may pursue your rights for justice with or without forgiving someone. And if justice is denied, you can still choose whether or not to forgive. Forgiveness is a powerful choice you can make when it’s right for you that can lead to greater well-being and better relationships. Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness is one person’s inner response to another’s perceived injustice. Reconciliation is two people coming together in mutual respect. Reconciliation requires both parties working together. Forgiveness is something that is entirely up to you. Although reconciliation may follow forgiveness, it is possible to forgive without re-establishing or continuing the relationship. The person you forgive may be deceased or no longer part of your life. You may also choose not to reconcile, perhaps because you have no reason to believe that a relationship with the other person is healthy for you. Forgiveness is one person’s inner response to another’s perceived injustice. Reconciliation is two people coming together in mutual respect. Reconciliation requires both parties working together. Forgiveness is something that is entirely up to you. Although reconciliation may follow forgiveness, it is possible to forgive without re-establishing or continuing the relationship. The person you forgive may be deceased or no longer part of your life. You may also choose not to reconcile, perhaps because you have no reason to believe that a relationship with the other person is healthy for you. Forgiveness is not forgetting. “Forgive and forget” seem to go together. However, the process of forgiving involves acknowledging to yourself the wrong that was done to you, reflecting on it, and deciding how you want to think about it. Focusing on forgetting a wrong might lead to denying or suppressing feelings about it, which is not the same as forgiveness. Forgiveness has taken place when you can remember the wrong that was done without feeling resentment or a desire to pursue revenge. Sometimes, after we get to this point, we may forget about some of the wrongs people have done to us. But we don’t have to forget in order to forgive. Forgiveness is not condoning or excusing. Forgiveness does not minimize, justify, or excuse the wrong that was done. Forgiveness also does not mean denying the harm and the feelings that the injustice produced. And forgiveness does not mean putting yourself in a position to be harmed again. You can forgive someone and still take healthy steps to protect yourself, including choosing not to reconcile. Forgiveness is not justice. It is certainly easier to forgive someone who sincerely apologizes and makes amends. However, justice; which may include acknowledgment of the wrong, apologies, punishment, restitution, or compensation; is separate from forgiveness. You may pursue your rights for justice with or without forgiving someone. And if justice is denied, you can still choose whether or not to forgive. Forgiveness is a powerful choice you can make when it’s right for you that can lead to greater well-being and better relationships.
The authors of the article Sanctification of Forgiveness states that people who view forgiveness as an important factor spiritually, more likely to forgive than others. The sanctification of forgiveness is defined as the degree to which a victim considers it to be spiritually important to forgive a specific offense. Forgiveness is defined as a victim’s reduction of negative thoughts, emotions, motivations, and behaviors toward an offender and usually increases in positive ones (Davis 2012). The topic of forgiveness has become a widely researched topic over the past few decades, and will only continue to flourish. Forgiveness can be applied to all sorts of situations and is good for both the offender and victim.

References
Davis, D. E., Hook, J.N., Van Tongreen, D.R., & Worthington, E.L.,Jr. (2012). Sanctification of forgiveness. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 4(1), 31-39. doi: 10.1037/a002580

Freedman, S. What it means to forgive and why we define forgiveness matters. Journal of Peace Psychology, Vol 17(3), July 2011, 334-338. doi: 10.1080/10781919.2011.587365

Goetz, J.L., Keltner, D., & Simon-Thomas, E. (2010). Compassion: An evolutionary analysis and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 351-374. doi: 10.1037/a0018807

Hope, D. (1987). The healing paradox of forgiveness. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 24(2), 240-244. doi:10.1037/h0085710
Hugenberger, G.P., & Knight, J.R. (2007). On Forgiveness. Southern Medical Journal, 100(4), 420+.
Pronk, Tila M.; Karremans, Johan C.; Overbeek, Geertjan; Vermulst, Ad A.; Wigboldus, Daniël H. J.: What it takes to forgive When and why executive functioning facilitates forgiveness.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 98(1), Jan 2010, 119-131. doi:10.1037/a0017875
Richards, N., (1988). Forgiveness. Ethics, Vol.99, 77-97. The University of Chicago Press.
Roberts, R.C. (1995). Forgiveness. American Philosophical Quarterly, 32(4), 289+
Rodden, J. (2004). Forgiveness, education, public policy: the road not yet taken. Modern Age, 46(4), 333+
Zaibert, L. (2009). Forgiveness: an introduction. The Monist, 92(4), 481+