Forgiveness - How To

I'm curious if we could share

1/ strategies

2/ reasons

to forgive.


How would you walk someone through forgiving?

What are the benefits of forgiveness?

I'll start, they don't get the stomach ulcers or the sleepless nights.

I'd like to take this opportunity to question the idea of forgiveness? Does everyone deserve forgiveness? What if they still keep hurting other people?

I'd like to take this opportunity to question the idea of forgiveness? Does everyone deserve forgiveness? What if they still keep hurting other people?

You seem to be under the impression that forgiveness has something to do with the person who wrongs us. It doesn't.

How would you walk someone through forgiving?

I tend to think that people fail to forgive for one of two reasons: either they think that holding on to those bad feelings has some sort of punishing "evil curse" effect on the person who hurt them, or they're afraid that if they let it go, it'll happen again.

The first is magical thinking, plain and simple. Worse, it gives that person a lot of power over you... power they don't deserve, haven't earned, and may not even realize they have. If this is the situation, I'm likely to use Meta-model and Sleight of Mouth or maybe a Provocative Therapy approach.

The second is almost reasonable when we understand that "forgive and forget" is an idiom for "forgive". It's perfectly easy to forgive and remember, however, and a lot smarter to do so. You see, truly resilient people ask themselves three questions after they've gone through an ordeal:

1. What could I have done differently?
2. What can I learn from this?
3. What do I want this experience to mean?

Helping them with these questions might yield the results you're after. It has with me.

What are the benefits of forgiveness?

I think you've hit it in a nutshell. As we're social creatures down to our cores, holding a grudge is an "unnatural" (if you will) state, and it drains our energy. It also tilts our map-making skills, causing us to delete, distort, and generalize inappropriately... making us stupider, in effect.

As the saying goes, "Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves."

You seem to be under the impression that forgiveness has something to do with the person who wrongs us. It doesn't.

Now you're getting to the the good stuff. Could you please elaborate on this?

Good point Michael. From Damian,s post, I can see how forgiving someone who repeatedly hurts others could be difficult. Though you are correct, it is an individual's choice to forgive, as is the action taken and deciding to move on. They are all individual choices and each dependent to a large degree on the external input, in my map anyway.

For example, I can forgive someone who has wronged me. Forgiving them does not necessarily equal trusting them again or to place myself in a situation where that person could have influence over my wellbeing or interests.

Especially, if that person is a repeat offender, does not understand the impact their actions or how that they are hurting others. I could forgive them for their map of reality..... though, I would be wary around them, if not disassociate myself from them completely and/or the surroundings. I can forgive someone but the trust needs to be proven.

Hypothetically, I forgive my puppy for leaving a mess in the kitchen, I will be wary of it happening again and may decide to keep an eye on him in the future or if that is not possible put him outside. I forgive my wife for getting drunk and beating the children and I will be wary of it happening again and decide it is best not to take chances and move away to protect the children. I wonder, does this mean that I have not forgiven them completely? Or is it that I am been proactive and protecting my interest?

NLP has taught me that we all have choices; some people have more fuller and detailed maps than others, hence a greater number or more refined choices. Could this also influence forgiveness, specifically the extent and amount of forgiveness given and/or trusting that person in the future?

Have a great day

Frederic

I wonder is the process of forgiveness affected if the person who is being forgiven is unaware of the initial harm they caused and then also unaware of the forgiveness gifted to them?

Quite recently, I did some significant work in my own life around this issue.

Simply put, when I was able to see that the anger and desire to hurt the other person was not useful to me or anyone else, I just let it go.

I would agree with Michael that unforgiveness causes deletions, distortions and generalizations. When I finally decided to let it go, it was amazing how my perception of the other person changed!

Cheers,

Phil

I do think we forgive for our benefit, not the other persons. Be intelligent. If you forgive someone who runs you over with a car, it doesn't mean you'd stand in the middle of the road to get run over again.

When your dogs shits on your rug you forgive him. Why?

Why don't people forgive? Which secondary gain do they get out of it?

What do people need to do to forgive? ie. see the other person as actually being disempowered.

Which actual patterns would you use to forgive?

Dogs don't know better and neither do mentally disabled people - nor some women getting away with murder on the basis of PMT. Lack of Forgiveness could be a survival stategy. As for your car item, do you mean a deliberate car run or accidental? WHY should someone be forgiven? Is it ok not to forgive? How can you get over the negative drawbacks of anger when not forgiving someone but still hold the non-forgiveness? (If possible)

I do think we forgive for our benefit, not the other persons. Be intelligent. If you forgive someone who runs you over with a car, it doesn't mean you'd stand in the middle of the road to get run over again.

When your dogs shits on your rug you forgive him. Why?

Why don't people forgive? Which secondary gain do they get out of it?

What do people need to do to forgive? ie. see the other person as actually being disempowered.

Which actual patterns would you use to forgive?

Sam,

There was a thread about forgiveness a month ago which gave reference to forgiveness on Steve Andreas site... Steve Andreas Home

What I can say from personal experience is that you can look at forgivenss from a selfich viewpoint, it's not about making a choice to "forgive" but a choice to release negative energy because YOU don't need it and it will distract from YOUR journey

Now you're getting to the the good stuff. Could you please elaborate on this?

I was going to, but I see others have beaten me to it.

I wonder is the process of forgiveness affected if the person who is being forgiven is unaware of the initial harm they caused and then also unaware of the forgiveness gifted to them?

I don't think it is. It may be easier if we think, "They didn't realize what they were doing," but I think that's not process, but content.

I don't think it is. It may be easier if we think, "They didn't realize what they were doing," but I think that's not process, but content.

Well something is happening there.

What I can say from personal experience is that you can look at forgivenss from a selfich viewpoint, it's not about making a choice to "forgive" but a choice to release negative energy because YOU don't need it and it will distract from YOUR journey

Yes, Graeme, and then from that perspective, it's an easy slide into the perspective of there is an energy that can exist between myself and others when I release and forgive, and now I can more fully participate in the dynamic of life that occurs all around me and with me, and through me and others...in other words, as Stephen Gilligan puts it in self-relations therapy, the awareness of that which is greater than ourselves.

Be well and forgiving,

Phil

Well something is happening there.

Artfully vague.

Artfully vague.

Yeah, wish I'd thought of it!

Phil

I would expect everyone's reasons to be slightly different, but here's my comments and responses to Sam's qusetions...

When your dogs shits on your rug you forgive him. Why?
He doesn't because he's been trained well! But if he did, I would have to forgive him as such, because I would know something was wrong for him to do that, so I would immediately be looking at whether he was ill or what had prevented him from behaving normally.
I don't consider dogs as equivalent to humans, they function quite differently and are far less restricted by intelligence. If a dog maliciously shit on your rug, you could bet you probably deserved it...

Why don't people forgive? The reasons are many, I believe.
Fear, anger, loss of face, low self-esteem, beliefs about vengeance and justice, self-righteousness, resentment, ignorance, social pressure, status, psychopathy, mental illness, malice, secondary gain, inflexibility, the list could go on...

Which secondary gain do they get out of it? Your assuming that, rightly perhaps. Look back at the list above - secondary gain is a reason in itself, but is probably a factor in every case, perhaps.
There could be any number of gains. Here's a few: safety, staying risk-free, stability, righteousness, social status as 'the wronged one', comfort in 'victimhood' (power position), having someone to persecute, justification for / reinforcement of prejudice, not having to adjust map / model, again the list goes on...

What do people need to do to forgive? ie. see the other person as actually being disempowered. There should probably be a list of 'tasks of forgiving' like the famous 'grieving tasks' ( there may be one already) Here are a few thoughts:
They need to seperate behaviour from fundamental worth - in the forgived and in their general thinking, possibly about themselves also.
They need to take responsibility for their own self-worth, self-image / perception, status.
They need to seperate temporally from the event(s) - 'move on'
They need to objectify events and learn from them.
They need to seek the positive and reject / transform the negative.
They need to recognize that maintaining a 'victim' position after the fact (and a reasonable recovery period) is a choice that they are making not an imposition of the origianl offender.
There are probably lots more, but I'm tired right now...

Which actual patterns would you use to forgive?
I don't think patterns are really 'actual' or not. They are 'useful' or 'not useful' - why not look at what I've said here (and others - this a great thread) and create some. Maybe I already have...
I don't like to be an NLP robot, using set-pieces - that's a quick way to get stuck, in my opinion.

If anybody doesn't like what I've said, forgive me...

:cool:

When your dogs shits on your rug you forgive him. Why?
I don't consider dogs as equivalent to humans, they function quite differently and are far less restricted by intelligence. If a dog maliciously shit on your rug...

Interesting, so intention matters...