| What
Makes Forgiveness So Hard? ©
copyright 1999 by Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC
Why Forgiveness is so Hard?
And how we can change? Human behavior that suggests
that people are “hard-wired" to experience ruptured relational bonds,
psychological distance, physiological arousal, and the desire to
retaliate when they have been hurt by another person. Our
pride or self-esteem is injured. Our expectations or dreams are
disappointed. We lose something very valuable to us.
We want recompense for the damages.
But there are other
resistances which block our motivation to forgive......
1. Automatic thoughts
or beliefs: What automatic thoughts or beliefs do we have that would impede
us from forgiving others? We tell ourselves, "I won't forgive because
he/she never accepts responsibility for what he/she does" or "I would
be a hypocrite if I forgave because I do not feel like forgiving" or
"Forgiving is only for weak people".
2. Explanations for
behavior: When someone hurts us or lets us down....how do we generally
explain his/her behavior? We Tend to assign internal causes for behavior
to others: personality or character traits:
“He’s just
so forgetful or careless” “She doesn’t appreciate me”
“She did that purposefully” We judge them harshly.
When we do something
wrong or hurtful/disappointing...how do we generally explain our behavior?
We tend to excuse our own behavior by attributing external causes:
“My child made a mess” “There was a car accident on the highway.”
We tend to let ourselves off the hook and give ourselves permission to
fail.
This is called the Fundamental
Attribution Error...when we assign total
responsibility/blame to
others/spouses for their behavior while explaining away our own negative
actions in terms of situational factors.
Understanding and accepting
the error in the Fundamental Attribution Error does not relieve offending
people of moral responsibility. The goal is to promote empathy and
forgiveness and look more realistically at the hurtful events from their
point of view...”thinking the best” as 1 Cor. 13:7 reads: "Love always
hopes, always trusts..." and using the Causal Agnosticism exercise: “one
can never know the precise causes of a
person's/spouse’s hurtful
behavior...
3. Lack of empathy (empathy
is the psychological highway to forgive others) for others....
We need to develop empathy
for others by beginning to change Fundamental Attribution Error way of
thinking we have about people’s actions to a more empathic view and use
the Causal agnosticism exercise which says, "One can never know the precise
causes of another person's behavior".
When have you been able to
have empathy for someone who has hurt you? Ask yourself “do
I want things bitter or better?” Recall when you have needed forgiveness....
Don't let resentment imprison you
for life....it will destroy you and your other relationships. Lewis
Smedes wrote: "To forgive is to set the prisoner free...and
to discover that the prisoner was you."
Let go of the pain.
Give it to God. For God alone understands more than anyone the pain
and humiliation you feel. Jesus felt more pain, rejection
and humiliation than any person. He came unto His own and
His own did not receive Him. Not only did the created
not receive the Creator, they tortured him and put him to death...
on a cross.
Phil 2:5-8
5 Your attitude should
be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very
nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in
appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross! (NIV)
And then Jesus said as
He hung on the cross dying for our sins, "Father, forgive
them for they know not what they do".
May God give you the
grace to forgive. To not only set the other person free
but to set yourself free from the past and to become more like Christ.
Lynette J. Hoy, NCC, LCPC
Resources:
Order
the What's Good About Anger? anger management certificate course
this
book and program teaches you how to turn your anger into faith,
assertiveness, problem-solving and forgiveness!
To Forgive is Human : How to Put Your Past in the Past by
Michael E. McCullough, Everett L. Worthington (Contributor), Steven
Sandage (Contributor)
Read more about how to know
God personally in the article on Faith.
Other articles on our web
site that talk about forgiveness:
Forgiveness
is a Choice
The
Power of Forgiveness
and Divorce
questions
Books I would recommend:
Check out the Resources
page for books like this:
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