Abstract
If we are to love, we will at some point experience
deep injury.
The result of deep personal injury can easily
become resentment, which research has shown to be not only destructive
to our social relationships, but very destructive to our bodies as well.
Forgiveness has long been acknowledged as an antidote
to the resentment of deep injury. However, most models of Forgiveness
ask the injured to produce compassion for their injurers. An investigation
into the roots of Forgiving indicates that the original intent was releasing
pain in the injured.
Several diverse models which accomplish this end
are discussed and compared. The final determination is made that
models based on psychological processes of forgiving; self-responsibility
and amends; meditation; and spontaneous remorse -- each lacking in aspects
unique to the others -- are able to accomplish the final end of releasing
deep personal injury directly to the extent that they bring about surrendered
self-responsibility in the injured.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FORGIVING: INTRODUCTION
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WHY BOTHER?
Forgiveness is about
freeing yourself from the pain of the injury; It is not about
freeing the injurer!
Chapter 1
EXAMINING FORGIVENESS
IN THE LIGHT OF THE UNCONDITIONAL
OUGHTS OF RELIGION
Chapter 2
WHAT FORGIVENESS IS AND
WHAT IT IS NOT
Chapter 3
RESOLVING RESENTMENT BY
FORGIVING
Chapter 4
-
Examination of psychological defenses
-
Confrontation of anger
-
Admittance of shame, when this is appropriate
-
Awareness of cathexis
-
Awareness of cognitive rehearsal of the offense
-
Realization that self may be permanently and negatively
changed by the injury
-
Insight that the injured party may be comparing self
with the injurer
-
Insight into a possibly altered “just world” view
-
A change of heart / conversion / new insights that
old resolution strategies are not working
-
A willingness to explore forgiveness as an option
-
Commitment to forgive the offender
-
Reframing, through role taking, who the wrongdoer
is by viewing him or her in context
-
Empathy toward the offender
-
Awareness of compassion toward the offender
-
Realization that self has needed others’ forgiveness
-
Acceptance / absorption of the pain
-
Finding meaning in the suffering and in the forgiveness
process
-
Awareness of decreased negative affect and, perhaps,
increased positive affect, if this begins to emerge, toward the injurer
-
Awareness of internal, emotional release.
RESOLVING RESENTMENT BY
MAKING AMENDS – AA’s APPROACH
Chapter 5
-
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that
our lives had become unmanageable.
-
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
-
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over
to the care of God as we understood Him.
-
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.
-
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human
being the exact nature of our wrongs.
-
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these
defects of character
-
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
-
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became
willing to make amends to them all.
-
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible
except when to do so would injure them or others.
-
Continued to take personal inventory and when we
were wrong promptly admitted it.
-
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our
conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge
of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
-
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of
these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice
these principles in all our affairs.
ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON
OF THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF GASSIN & ENRIGHT’S
PROCESSES
AND ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS’ STEPS
Chapter 6
Unit 10 / Steps 1, 2 & 3 Surrender
Unit 10 1-9 & 12 / Step 4 Self examination
Unit 15 / Step 5 Admitting
Unit none / Steps 6 & 7 Willingness to
change
Unit 11 / Steps 8 & 9 Making amends
Unit none / Steps 10 Continuing as a way of
life
Unit none / Step 11 Meditation
Unit none / Step 12 Living it and sharing it
Units 12, 13, 14 & 15 / Steps 4-8 11 Reframing
the offender
Unit 16 / Step none Accepting and absorbing
the pain=
Units 17 & 18 / Step 12? Finding meaning
and purpose
Units 19 & 20 / Step 12? Awareness of change
and release
RESOLVING RESENTMENTS
WITH HYPNOTHERAPY
Chapter 7
RESOLVING RESENTMENT
BY MEDITATING
Chapter 8
-
Miller’s Meditation
-
Breathing Meditation
-
Stage 1: Just for you.
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Stage 2: For you and those like you
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Stage 3: For you and the injurer
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Stage 4: For you and the injurer
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