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1) Stages of Forgiveness
Uncovering Phase 1. Examination of psychological defenses
2. Confrontation and release of anger
3. Admittance of shame when appropriate
4. Awareness of cathexis
5. Awareness of cognitive rehearsal of the injury
6. Insight that injured person may be comparing him or herself with the injurer
7. Realization that the self may be permanently and adversely changed by the injury
8. Insight into a possible altered just-world view
Decision Phase
9. A change of heart, new insight that resolution strategies are not working
10. Willingness to consider forgiveness
11. Commitment to forgive the offender
Work Phase
12. Reframing who the wrongdoer is by viewing him or her in context
13. Empathy toward the offender
14. Compassion toward the offender
15. Acceptance and absorption
Outcome or Deepening Phase
16. Finding meaning for the self and other in the suffering and in the forgiveness process
17. Realization that the self has needed forgiveness from others in the past
18. Insight that one is not alone
19. Realization that the self may have a new purpose in life because of the injury
20. Awareness of decreased negative affect and increased positive affect toward the injurer; awareness of internal, emotional release. -
2) Prayer that helps me forgive
The “prayer” that most usually works is the only prayer often possible: “God, please give that s.o.b. what he deserves!” And so long as one does not presume to suggest “what he deserves,” amazingly, it works. The surrender of the claim of control, implicit in all real prayer, is of course one part of what is going on here.*
I know that when I start praying the prayer “God, please give that person what they deserve!” the first time, I have the hope that God will hit the person with a semi truck. I keep praying this prayer though and over time because I give up control to God when I pray the prayer the thought in the back of my head becomes that the person or people who have wronged me will find God’s love and repent. Ultimately the key to the above prayer is letting God take care of the situation instead of feeling some sort of need to “fix” the situation or “right” the wrong. God will take care of it in his time.
* Kurtz, Ernest & Katherine Ketcham: The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning (New York: Bantam Books Doubleday, 2002) -
3) Resentment = Spiritual Poison
Resentment is the poison of the spiritual life. The word means, literally, “feeling again,” in the sense of “feeling backward”; the emphasis is on a clinging to a past, a harping on it that becomes mired in it. Resentment goes over and over an old injury: revisiting the hurt, the powerlessness, the rage, the fear, the feeling of being wronged. Scraping the scab off the wound, resentment relishes anew its pain; it is the particular kind of memory that reinforces the vision of self-as victim. The vision is the antithesis of spirituality, for spirituality begins with the recognition of our own imperfections. Focusing on the past faults and failings of others blinds us to the reality of our own present defects and shortcomings. Kurtz, Ernest & Katherine Ketcham: The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning (New York: Bantam Books Doubleday, 2002)
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