That's one of the exercises in a "forgiveness workbook" given to one group in a study, reported in "The Emotional Relief of Forgiving Someone/Replacing ill will with good will has marked mental health benefits" (NYT).
“What forgiveness does is sort of free the victim from the offender,” said Tyler VanderWeele, the director of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard and one of the co-authors of the study. “I would never say ‘Once you’ve forgiven, everything’s fine.’” But it is a better alternative to rumination or suppression, he said....
Asked to define forgiveness, VanderWeele said it's "just to replace ill will toward the offender with good will." And: "Forgiveness is not forgetting the action or pretending it didn’t happen; it’s not excusing or condoning the action, and it’s not the same as reconciling or forgoing justice."
VanderWeele describes a forgiveness exercise: "[S]et up two chairs and pretend the offender is in one of them. After describing what happened from your perspective, you sit in the chair of the offender and describe what happened from theirs. It can be a bit unsettling, but it’s a very powerful experience."
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Forgive, maybe, but don’t ever forget or you’ll give them the chance to do it again.
It's an advice column for neurotic snowflakes, who are their own problem in the first place.
I heard of a guy who use to talk about this all the time. Think his name was Geezus, Jaysuce, or Haysus. Something like that.
They executed him.
There's a novel called Forgiveness 4 You that explores these themes very nicely. I recommend it, it's not only thought-provoking but also funny, and ultimately uplifting, I thought.
There's a novel called Forgiveness 4 You that explores these themes very nicely. I recommend it, it's not only thought-provoking but also funny, and ultimately uplifting, I thought.
I recently finished "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling"; I wonder if any NYT readers will try "replacing ill will for good" in regards to Rowling.
"Set ‘em up Joe, play Walking The Floor
Play it for my flat chested junky whore
I’m staying up late and I’m making amends
While the smile of heaven descends"
One of the benefits of forgiveness is you get to walk away without having to drag any baggage behind you. But this is Sunday School 101. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Even if you don't believe in God, you can still learn valuable lessons from people who are religious. We've done a lot of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Well, that's one theory, but some wrongs are unforgivable. The most therapeutic thing you can do in some cases is to kill the bastard, bury his chopped up body in your backyard, and piss on it daily....As mentioned yesterday, Maggie Smith and Ernest Hemingway point the way towards another therapeutic option, but nothing is more stress reducing than pissing on the grave of a dead enemy...I knew a guy who did me an extremely wrong turn. It happened that he got pancreatic cancer and died way before his time. I smile now just thinking about it.....I'm probably not going to know eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Heaven, but here on earth there are rewards.
A basic tenet of Christianity. The idea has been around for 2,000 years.
Revenge is the ticket to happiness.
Good advice. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but still good advice.
The fuck I will.
Baby... fetal-baby, I forgive you, but you were a social "burden", a medical profit, a democratic leverage, a criminal indemnity, a climate progressive, a model of DIEversity in the modern family, a human... reproductive rite and ethical imperative.
"Projections from The Twilight Fringe" - NYeT, never.
The prequel will be titled "Levine's Dreams of Herr Mengele".
All right, I tried this. Every version ended with, "Fuck off and die screaming of testicular cancer, asshole." And I feel so much better.
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more. - John Donne
First heard about this fellow Donne via Mike Nichols ‘Wit’ (2001)
Forgiveness comes when you finally stop searching for a better past.
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."
Lily Tomlin
Directly from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Forgive those that have hurt you, and, acknowledge your own wrong doing, in the event.
Once I was living with a small pro-life group. At one daily Mass one of my associates stopped just before Communion. "We aren't supposed to receive Communion if we are angry with our brother or sister," she said, looking at me. She then forgave me. I said, OK. But then she said I couldn't go to Communion unless I forgave her and gave up my anger at her because she had said to my face that unborn children could never see God, including, she said, my own. I said I wasn't angry. She said I was. I did not say: "You seem unaware of the state of mind in which someone has decided that you are too stupid to think about." I said: "The Pope has declared that is not so." She said: "Sedes Vacantes." I did not say: "Right in front of me." I said: "Let's get on with this." Not the right way of putting it. The priest said: We both had to apologize, not saying for what. I apologized quickly to prevent any definition of what I was sorry for. In her own way she was a great prolifer and had saved many children, being highly motivated by the thought that they'd never see God and she was intensely critical of my somewhat mocking outlook on a movement to which at that time I was dedicating every moment of life. Somewhere in that there was something I was, in my own way, sorry for. After further struggle with her, we both managed to get to Communion. Some, hearing this story, might think I did not believe there was a Saviour of the world I was approaching at Communion, and some might see what I looked for and what I came to believe in.
Part of my recovery deals with forgiving others. I do forgive. Rather quickly now as the anger and resentment go away sooner than it did when I was drinking. But I do not forget. The extent of the violation determines whether I continue contact with the person.
On the other side, I hope they have forgiven me my transgressions.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
@Michael:
Maybe Hispanic; he was in the building trades. Yeah, they executed him, but it didn’t take.
My two favorite forgiveness quotes:
-“She nursed grudges until they died of old age, and then had them stuffed and mounted.” (David Weber—quote from memory)
-“Holding a grudge is like taking poison and waiting for the other guy to die.” (Unknown)
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus at the cross Luke 23:34. I wonder if the head of the "Flourishing Program" ( I am embarrassed, as an alumnus, to even write that) has ever spoken with the Chaplains on campus. Sometimes hard to remember that Harvard was established to ensure a supply of new world clergy. Can one have a concentration (major) in flourishing?
Murder, rape, assault, those you can forgive.
But pro-life racist xenophobic GOP deplorability, that's unforgivable. Their very chair is toxic.
I have a cousin who used to pull nasty tricks on me when I was a kid. Then when we were adults, his wife left him for another woman. I managed to forgive him after that. No writing on paper or reading a book involved.
"Replacing ill will with good will has marked mental health benefits" (NYT)
Tell it to the wokerati.
I was going to remark that I didn't want to forgive. But several commenters above have made me realize that the person I am thinking of has been so bitterly punished by subsequent events that I don't care about him any more. His misery has been an inevitable consequence of his wrongdoing. Funny how that works.
“What forgiveness does is sort of free the victim from the offender,”
JES beat me to it: this is what Christianity has been teaching for 2000 years. It's nice to see the NYT is finally catching up
notalawyer said...
My two favorite forgiveness quotes:
-“She nursed grudges until they died of old age, and then had them stuffed and mounted.” (David Weber—quote from memory)
-“Holding a grudge is like taking poison and waiting for the other guy to die.” (Unknown)
The 2nsd quote is great!
The first quote lead me here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/10517.David_Weber
Which led me to a quote that pretty much perfect for our times:
“...the one certain thing in life is that no one can make the truth untrue simply because it hurts.”
― David Weber, The Honor of the Queen
Just an old country lawyer said: "Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."
Lily Tomlin
The more I think about “the right side of history” the more ridiculous I believe the idea is.
Truth be told: I relate.
An old, buried wound.
Never knew it was there- until a catalystic remark: innocently made.
It’s been a long Winter and green is my favorite season.
I always believed the buried boulders had to be unearthed and excavated out.
I paid to be told- no. It’s too late.
Bury it up again.
Man.
Ps to rh: I am no snowflake.
I am, however: a woman.
A co-worker used to refer to the inability to forgive as "Irish Alzheimers."
Forgive and forget but first, get even.
Lem Quoted John Donne's poem, "Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more."
Awww, Lem, I have that same poem written down in my special journal/poetry/quotation book. It's beautiful, and true, and beautiful because it's so true.
His misery has been an inevitable consequence of his wrongdoing. Funny how that works.
Karmic irony.
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