Each show consisted of three segments. At the beginning of each segment, a guest told their side of the story to the host. Most often, the guest was someone who had done something to hurt a friend or relative, in which case the guest hoped the other person would offer forgiveness. Sometimes, the guest was the one wronged by someone else, and wanted an apology from the second person. Occasionally, the other person was interviewed during the segment via closed-circuit television, during which time the host usually tried to help the two sides come to a resolution.
Near the end of the segment, the guest was asked to proceed to a large door at the end of the stage. If the other person was willing to forgive or apologize, he or she would be waiting behind the door, and the two would reunite when the door opened. However, if the second person was not willing to make amends, the door would open to reveal only a black curtain on the other side.
Forgive or Forget
Forgive and forget is an oft-repeated piece of advice with biblical origins. Although it might seem trite, there's a reason this little phrase still gets uttered so often. There's true wisdom in forgiving and forgetting. When someone really hurts you, you may question whether you want to forgive someone; it may, in fact, seem utterly unnatural. But there are many reasons why it's sometimes better to forgive and forget, even if part of you doesn't want to. Here are just a few of them.
Not forgiving someone is the equivalent of staying trapped in a jail cell of bitterness, serving time for someone else's crime. "It's a mixture of anger, depression, and blame. But most of all, the opposite of forgiveness is stagnation," psychologist Kristina Hallett, Ph.D., writes at mbg. "It's getting mired in an emotional place regarding a particular incident, and it prohibits future growth and discovery. ... There's a common saying: Not forgiving someone is like slowly poisoning yourself and secretly hoping the other person dies."
You've probably heard the phrase "forgive and forget" at some point, and honestly, it's pretty safe to say that it's easier said than done. But really, what does it mean to forgive and forget? Does it mean you no longer have any built-up resentment toward someone who hurt you? Does it mean you can go on with your life without ever thinking about what happened again? Forgiving and forgetting can be a difficult thing to do, but understanding what it really means is the first step to accomplishing forgiveness and moving on. When it feels like someone has betrayed you and done something that may seem unforgivable, it can be extra tricky to forgive and forget, but guess what? According to the experts I spoke to, it is possible. Hard, yes, but possible all the same.
To truly be able to forgive someone, it's helpful to understand the difference between forgiving and forgetting, and how each can benefit you. "The forgiveness aspect of this phrase signifies that you're willing to understand that all humans are imperfect; having moments of selfishness, vindictiveness, and cruelty," Winter says. "To 'forget' is an entirely different story. In truth, the offense is never fully forgotten. Emotional, physical, or economic cruelty doesn't get erased. However, we can give ourselves the personal freedom to liberate ourselves from the continual remembrance of the offense." By choosing not to dwell on whatever (or whoever) it is you're trying to forgive and forget, you allow yourself to fully move past it more easily.
If you can't seem to find it in yourself to forgive and forget someone who has done you wrong, that's OK. Don't pressure yourself to take a step you're not ready for yet. Everyone does things at their own pace. "You will move forward regardless," Rubin says. "Things change, and you face a new normal. It may take time, and you may be cautious. Be gentle with yourself. Try not to obsess over the details."
Think of the positives that come from moving on. Winter says, "when you begin to think of the personal benefits derived from forgiving and forgetting, the phrase takes on a much more empowering meaning." Amen to that.
Forgiveness, however, may bring enormous benefits to the person who gives that gift, according to recent research. If you can bring yourself to forgive and forget, you are likely to enjoy lower blood pressure, a stronger immune system, and a drop in the stress hormones circulating in your blood, studies suggest. Back pain, stomach problems, and headaches may disappear. And you'll reduce the anger, bitterness, resentment, depression, and other negative emotions that accompany the failure to forgive.
"Despite the familiar cliche, 'forgive and forget,' most of us find forgetting nearly impossible," says Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Hope College. "Forgiveness does not involve a literal forgetting. Forgiveness involves remembering graciously. The forgiver remembers the true though painful parts, but without the embellishment of angry adjectives and adverbs that stir up contempt."
"When focused on unforgiving responses, their blood pressure surged, their heart rates increased, brow muscles tensed, and negative feelings escalated," she says. "By contrast, forgiving responses induced calmer feelings and physical responses. It appears that harboring unforgiveness comes at an emotional and a physiological cost. Cultivating forgiveness may cut these costs."
"You can't just will forgiveness," says Luskin, author of Forgive For Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness. "What I teach is that you can create conditions where forgiveness is more likely to occur. There are specific practices we offer that diminish hostility and self-pity, and increase positive emotions, so it becomes more likely that a genuine, heartfelt release of resentment will occur."
"You can change, 'I hate my mother because she didn't love me,' to, 'life is a real challenge for me because I didn't feel loved as a child,'" Luskin said. "That makes forgiveness so much more possible."
Everett L. Worthington Jr., PhD, a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Applications, divides forgiveness into two types. Decisional forgiveness involves choosing to let go of angry thoughts about the person you feel has wronged you.
"You can tell yourself, 'I am not going to seek revenge,' for example, or, 'I am going to avoid that person,'" Worthington says. "You could choose decisional forgiveness and still have a lot of emotional unforgiveness."
The ultimate goal, however, is emotional forgiveness, in which negative emotions such as resentment, bitterness, hostility, hatred, anger, and fear are replaced with love, compassion, sympathy, and empathy.
"Emotional forgiveness is where the health action is," says Worthington. "Emotional unforgiveness causes a chronic stress response, which results in obsessing about the wrong done to you. Rumination is what gets people into trouble. Rumination is the mental health bad boy. It's associated with almost everything bad in the mental health field -- obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression ... probably hives too."
"First you recall the hurt objectively, without blame and self-victimization," Worthington says. "Then you empathize by trying to imagine the viewpoint of the person who wronged you. The altruistic part involves getting people to think about a time they were forgiven and how that felt. When it's time to commit to forgiveness, people usually say, not yet, but when they finally do, they must then hold on to forgiveness."
But some people cannot forgive, and that's OK too, according to Jeanne Safer, PhD, a psychotherapist and the author of Forgiving and Not Forgiving. For some of her patients, recognizing that they don't have to forgive is a huge relief.
The final step involves reinterpretation of the injury, including an attempt to understand the person who caused it. "This is where forgivers and nonforgivers divide," Safer said. "Sometimes you're not able to reconnect with the person, but if you go through this process, at least you won't be a victim."
Forgiveness research proliferated after the publication in 1984 of Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve, by Lewis B. Smedes, who claimed that forgiveness produced benefits for the forgiver.
"What's important is working it through and achieving resolution, whether it leads to forgiveness or not. Forgiveness involves wishing the other well. You're already there if you don't wish them ill," Safer says.
2. We have to distinguish between our calling to forgive those who are sorry and ask for forgiveness and our call to love everyone without exception, including those who have wronged us and are not sorry that they did. Sometimes these two concepts are conflated.
The first step to loving and forgiving as God does is to recognize that we cannot do it apart from Christ. It is essential to meditate upon what Christ did for us on the cross and the fact that he loves us infinitely and forgives us over and over again. Ultimately, we have to get to the place where we acknowledge our powerlessness so that we can allow Christ to love and forgive in us and through us.
How does forgiveness predict the likelihood of reoffending? One survey study, one experiment, one 4-year longitudinal study, and one 2-week diary study examined the implications of forgiveness for reoffending in relationships. In all four studies, agreeableness interacted with partner forgiveness to predict subsequent offending; partner forgiveness was negatively associated with subsequent offending among more agreeable people but positively associated with subsequent offending among less agreeable people. Furthermore, Study 4 demonstrated a unique mechanism of each simple effect; relatively agreeable people engaged in fewer transgressions against more forgiving partners because they felt obligated to refrain from transgressing against such partners whereas relatively disagreeable people engaged in more transgressions against more forgiving partners because they perceived those partners were less easily angered. These studies indicate that completely understanding the intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of forgiveness requires recognizing the dyadic nature of forgiveness and attending to qualities of the offender. 2ff7e9595c
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