Why is it so hard to forgive? Why is it sometimes impossible to forgive?
What does forgiveness mean to you? Don't answer this question yet. Just ask yourself this question and continue reading the article. For now, let the question hang somewhere on the periphery of your consciousness.
So, first let's understand the term. Let's turn to the dictionary and look at the etymology of the word. The Russian word “forgive” comes from the Proto-Slavic *prostiti, from which, among other things, came: Old Russian prostiti, also “heal”, Russian prostiti, Ukrainian prostiti, Bulgarian prostya “I will forgive”, Serbo-Croatian prostiti, prostȋm, Slovenian prostíti, prostím " forgive”, Czech prostit “to free”. Associated with *prostъ; see simple.
Those. occurs and is related in meaning to the words and meanings of the words: simple, liberate and heal. Simple, i.e. without any difficulties or conditions, take and release, i.e. give freedom, etc., thus heal.
It seems like a good deed and useful. But in practice it is very, very difficult. Why is this so? For some now unknown reason, the word “forgive” is used only in the expression: “forgive the offender.” But how can you forgive an offender who has harmed you and continues to do so? When, as a result of someone else’s actions, you suffered damage or became a victim of someone’s malicious intent. Where can you find the strength within yourself to take and cross out what is impossible to cross out?
It seems to us that to forgive the offender means to remove the guilt from him, to justify him. Allow him to continue to behave the same way. How to allow you to continue to do the same with yourself and other people. For many people, “forgiving” means devaluing all your feelings that arose as a result of the offense, devaluing yourself (if I allow this to be done to myself, then what kind of person am I?).
Many people have this position. I don't know where it came from in this form. Perhaps their Christian culture?
Reasons for resentment
Forgiveness is not at all an excuse for the person who acts as the offender. It is not related to the behavior of the one who committed the crime against you. When is forgiveness of sins permitted? For someone who has been offended, who is ready to forget about the act committed against him, this is a kind of sacrifice for the sake of love, harmony in the family, relationships in the team. In cases where evil was caused intentionally, it is difficult to find the strength to justify such actions. But psychologists are convinced that it is necessary to find internal opportunities within oneself to forgive the offender. In this case, you will be able to live with a feeling of freedom, a light heart, and will not bend under the heavy burden of evil and negative emotions. But in any case, the offender must suffer a well-deserved punishment. During forgiveness, you will transfer your offender into the hands of God's court, give him the opportunity to commit an act of justice. Don't forget that forgiveness is in some sense a divine concept, involving mercy and love despite vile actions towards you.
What does it mean to forgive?
There are three things you can do with resentment: forget, swallow, or forgive. This is how one of the founders of the psychology of forgiveness, Robert Enright, explains the difference between these processes: you can truly forgive only when the one who was offended recognizes the malicious intent of the offender. If you deny the intentional nature of the offense, then it is impossible to forgive - it turns out that there is nothing to forgive. Following this logic, the act of forgiveness can be divided into two stages:
- acknowledgment of grievance;
- getting rid of negative emotions associated with resentment.
Another researcher of the phenomenon of forgiveness, Everett Worthington, especially noted that you need to forgive an offense first of all within yourself, and it is not so important whether formal reconciliation with the offender takes place. The main task is to work through fear, pain and bitterness in order to ultimately develop empathy for the person who offended you.
To do this, it is necessary, according to Warrington, to change the motivation - from destructive vindictive to positive compromise. It is important to understand that the willingness to forgive the offender does not mean the willingness to put up with him. Reconciliation is an interaction with another person, and forgiveness, as we have already learned, is an entirely internal process.
Will and forgiveness
Forgiveness is a serious and responsible step, which testifies to the presence of willpower in someone who has committed an offense or, God forbid, an atrocity, but has realized the wrongfulness of his actions in relation to the offended person. There is an opinion according to which those who forgive their ill-wishers are considered weak and weak-willed people. In reality, this is a completely wrong point of view. Psychologists confirm the fact that the meaning of the word “forgiveness” is closely related to the manifestation of a strong spirit and will. It is necessary to make quite a lot of effort in order to find within yourself the opportunity to extinguish resentment, hatred, and anger. These feelings often visit a person, but in order to get rid of them, superhuman efforts have to be made. Not everyone is able to say the word “sorry.” Only truly strong-willed people engaged in self-development and self-education can ask for forgiveness.
Background to the Parable of Forgiveness
Before proceeding, we need to discuss the background data.
One talent is a thousand dollars, converted. 10 million dollars. Or approximately 260 tons of gold. And one denarius is 17 cents.
Perhaps these figures are old, and are taken at the dollar exchange rate in the 1960s, and then it was much higher. A denarius was a day's wages in Judea at that time. Let's calculate, daily earnings in Ukraine are 150 UAH. In Russia - 1000 rubles, in the States - 40 dollars. That is, the amount is not very small. Somewhere around 1,500 hryvnia / 10,000 rubles / 400 dollars. And on the good side, I don’t really want to forgive such an amount.
And what does an ordinary person do? He grabbed the debtor by the throat, choked him, shook him and demanded to repay the debt. The guy had shortness of breath and his eyes rolled out of his head. But our hero doesn’t care about this - he needs to repay the debt.
How does this feeling arise?
Analyzing the interpretation of the word “forgiveness,” we note that such a desire appears only among those people who consciously made such a decision. When a person decides to let go of the desire for revenge, he no longer wants to recover all the damage from his offender, he loses interest in him, returns to a state of internal harmony and peace. It is forgiveness that helps open the heart so that all negative and suppressed feelings that destroy soul and body leave it. What does true forgiveness give a person? The significance of the decision made is difficult to assess, because thanks to this you can rid yourself of shame, bitterness, resentment, anger, hatred, and guilt. With true, cleansing forgiveness, a person experiences a feeling of peace and amazing peace. The whole essence is filled with peace, the desire to evaluate the actions of others through the prism of negative emotions and experiences disappears. As a result, deep spiritual wounds are opened, a healing balm falls on them, after which the pain completely subsides. Sincere words of forgiveness can be compared to a summer shower, which with its moisture returns life to withered plants and trees, cleanses them of dust and dirt, and revives living nature. Throughout his life, a person repeatedly finds himself on the path of forgiveness.
Forgiveness reduces stress levels
From a neurobiological perspective, forgiveness is a successful coping strategy under stressful conditions that works for three reasons.
Firstly, it directly eliminates the destructive influence of resentment: it reduces the stress reaction, normalizes blood pressure and heart rate, and helps reduce cortisol.
Secondly, it helps to improve the external emotional background, for example, relationships at work. Thirdly, it changes the internal state, generating positive emotions.
According to the Mayo Clinic, forgiveness can reduce symptoms of depression, improve mood and improve mental health, and increase self-esteem. However, the effect goes beyond the emotional sphere. One experiment found that sincere forgiveness even strengthens the immune system in patients with HIV.
From a neurobiological perspective, forgiveness is a successful coping strategy under stressful conditions.
Let go of the past
What is the lexical meaning of the word “forgiveness”? First of all, we are talking about accepting explanations from the offender. Misunderstandings often arise between people due to the fact that they did not listen to each other completely, did not even try to understand their interlocutor, analyze his position, or put themselves in his place. It would seem that grievances remain in the distant past, mental wounds have healed, but it often happens that the past breaks into everyday life again and again, forcing us to relive unpleasant moments of resentment and humiliation. For forgiveness, one person is enough, but for complete reconciliation, mutual desire is important. If you are convinced that you have made every effort to forgive your offender, but his unseemly actions continue, try to ignore him. By limiting your social circle, his interest in you will gradually weaken, and you will not need to endure humiliation. As for punishment, the offender will have to answer before the highest court for all his humiliations and insults committed against you.
Coming to terms with the word “NO”
Stanford forgiveness teacher Fred Luskin offers a simple definition of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the ability to accept the word “no.”
What are we talking about? Laskin believes that, despite the uniqueness of each specific pain and resentment, they are based on a universal experience: wanting “yes” and receiving “no”.
I object to the way life is and try to change it to what I want, and then get upset when I don't get what I wanted. We look for ways to manipulate the world to make it a safe and pleasant place for us and it doesn't work in the long run. When something doesn't go as planned, we get angry.
I wanted my partner to be faithful to me. He wasn't faithful and I got a no.
I wanted to hear the truth, but what I got was a lie—I got a “no.”
At the core of forgiveness is the ability to persevere when things don't go your way.
After grief, come to terms with the word “no,” come to terms with the vulnerability inherent in human life. In order to move forward with an open heart, without prejudice, without attributing negative experiences to new relationships. Give a chance to a new moment, your future.
Fred Luskin's approach is based on the simple and radical notion that how we respond to these grievances is up to us. We can choose to forgive.
Laskin leads the largest research project on interpersonal forgiveness. His nine-step method of forgiveness has been tested on virtually every offense imaginable and has been scientifically proven to be effective.
Domestic grievances
It’s hard when loved ones and relatives commit betrayal towards those who sincerely trust them. The hardest thing to forgive is domestic humiliation, insults, and physical violence. Statistics show that due to the numerous quarrels and grievances that occur between spouses, the child’s psyche suffers first of all. The child does not understand what he did wrong to his mother or father, why after a quarrel they transfer their negative emotions to him. In childhood, the psyche is unstable and vulnerable, so if the baby thinks that he is the cause of all the problems and conflicts in the family, he will try to rid his parents of his presence. Unfortunately, the number of suicides among children and adolescents has recently increased.
Unforgiveness leads to stress
Until you forgive, you still have negative emotions inside you: hatred, hostility and indignation towards the offender. Johns Hopkins Hospital psychiatrist Karen Schwartz calls feelings of resentment and disappointment a huge burden on the body: “We are not obligated to forgive offenses or correct our emotional reactions. But we must keep in mind that negative emotions can affect not only relationships with people, but also our physical and psychological state.”
Scientists conducted a study: they asked volunteers to think about those who had offended them in the past or treated them unfairly. During the test, participants had their blood pressure, pulse, degree of facial muscle tension and sweat gland activity measured.
This is what happened to the volunteers when they completed the task: they sweated, their pulse quickened, their blood pressure jumped. On an emotional level, they experienced anger, depression, anxiety, and lost a sense of control over themselves. These are all typical signs of severe stress.
. But when the scientists asked participants to imagine forgiving their offenders, their stress levels dropped.
Worthington came to similar results in his experiments. He studied the role of forgiveness in romantic relationships. It turned out that those who consider their relationships to be terrible not only have higher concentrations of cortisol (considered one of the “stress hormones”) in their saliva, but also lower scores on a test of willingness to forgive. Happy partners, on the contrary, demonstrated the ability to forgive each other's grievances, and their stress levels remained within normal limits, despite the inevitable quarrels and friction.
Love and forgiveness
How to cope with all the grievances and find the strength to forgive? Everyone tries to cope with these feelings in different ways. Some people make an appointment with a psychotherapist, others immerse themselves in work. There are also those who invest the whole meaning of their existence in finding ways to take revenge on their offender for all his humiliation. Evil has destructive power. Any attempt at revenge leads to the destruction of one’s own personality, loss of the desire to create, love, and enjoy life.
Of course, you can't just forget about the pain you had to experience. But by setting yourself up for forgiveness, you can let go of problems and let love and harmony into your heart. A new period of creation will begin in your life, and the time of destruction and deprivation will remain in the distant past. If your spouse has a new hobby, do not try to save the family by any means. You cannot glue a vase that has broken into many small pieces. Try to analyze the reason for his (her) behavior, accept the situation from this perspective in order to find a decent way out of it.
Metaphysics
So which is correct - “sorry” or “excuse me”? It turns out that the whole difference is in admitting or not admitting guilt? This is true in the meaning of the words. “I’m sorry” carries a more personal meaning, expressing one’s emotional experiences, while “I’m sorry” is a formality that is required of us by etiquette.
But what to do with the sensations from the words that we use, expressing sympathy, repentance, regret. Often telling our interlocutor “I’m not to blame,” the negative particle is lost and we still remain guilty for the one from whom we ask forgiveness. What to do?
In English there are several expressions for apologies: excuse me - “justify me”, forgive me - “forgive me” and I'm sorry - “I'm sorry”. When answering the question whether it’s correct: “I’m sorry” or “I’m sorry,” we can only give advice, rely on our emotions and feelings, and when trying to express our regret, use a simple but effective phrase: “I’m very sorry.”
How to learn to forgive
Try to change your lifestyle, include active sports, and choose a suitable hobby. If this is not enough to understand and forgive the grievances that were inflicted by another person, find another place of work, change (if possible) your region of residence. The offended person does not always have enough strength to completely forgive his offender or agree to reconciliation. What is important to remember when storing resentment in your heart? The negativity that you will ultimately concentrate in yourself will certainly lead to a general deterioration in your physical condition. Instead of enjoying life, enjoying communication with people close to you, you will turn into a real “whiner”, endlessly complaining about your offenders. As a result, there will be almost no one left near you who will be willing to listen to all this. Are you ready for this state of affairs? Don't want to find yourself in such an unpleasant situation? Then listen to the advice of professional psychologists.
How to forgive someone and why it is so difficult to do
This is the third in a series of articles about working with grievances and forgiving yourself and others to achieve inner harmony.
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