The forgiveness factor

Not unlike humility, forgiveness resides in a place of paradox. Beyond the obvious problematic of whether to respond to personal or corporate violations with mercy or revenge, forgiveness presents a more complex predicament — the fact that one’s psychological release and healing are intertwined with a seemingly free gift of unconditional mercy being offered to the person/peo- ple who have caused the harm.While one would like to be convinced that the victim-survivor’s liberation is a separate process altogether from the emancipation of the offender or the offending institution, it is not.The ‘harmed’ and the ‘harm-doers’ are inextricably connected through the shared trauma experiences of the past.

On the other hand, forgiveness is not without critique, and it would be negligent not to mention the downside to this complex process.To do this, it may be useful to explore “grudge theory” as an explanatory framework for why people don’t forgive. According to Baumeister, Exline, and Sommer (1998, pp. 90—97), people hold grudges for at least five broad reasons: 1.) Claims on rewards and benefits, 2.) To prevent recurrence, 3.) Because of continued suffering,

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However, the question still remains — how are people (from a personal to a collective level) able to free themselves from the pain of the past? With the massing of quantitative and qualita­tive research on forgiveness over many decades (Enright, Gassin, and Wu, 1992; Worthington, 1998; Henderson, 2009) it has become clear that forgiveness does offer humankind a pathway to freedom from the ‘ghosts of our past'. It is not an easy path to follow, in fact, by all estimations it is an arduous journey that may take a lifetime, but it offers genuine liberation along the way.

1. ) R — Recall the hurt — Psycho-social trauma research has long determined that suppres­

sion of memory inhibits forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation.Truth-telling in the process of healing is essential, however just knowing the what, or understanding the why of a painful event is not enough.The key question is what is done with the memory and how is it acted upon once the truth is exposed?

2. ) E — Empathy awakened — In this phase a person(s) intentionally seek to understand why

others would choose to hurt them. They work through a process of role-reversal and ask the question: If I had been born and raised in the same circumstances of life as the one who committed the violation, could I have committed the same violence? In the words of the great Russian writer and poet,Alexander Solzhenitsyn,“ The battle-line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man”.

3. ) A — Altruistic gift — Ultimately, if a person(s) are genuinely pursuing forgiveness, they

will come to a place where they realize they will need to make a choice to uncondition­ally forgive regardless of the response of the other. It is in this space of making a principled decision of the will that a person(s) can release the other and themselves from the ‘closed loop' cycle of memory-revenge.

4. ) C — Commitment to process — The prior three stages could all be worked out inter­

nally, however, research indicates that the resolve to forgive is greatly strengthened when a person(s) are willing to talk to others about it. Not only is it vital to externalize this process (publicly speak about it), but it is equally import to solicit the support of a community of people who will hold the survivor(s) accountable to their commitment.

5. ) H — Hold on — Finally, the pathway of forgiveness has many minefields along the way.

There will be many voices of well-meaning relationships, influences of societal norms, and potentially “triggering” experiences that will push a person(s) to renounce forgiveness and embrace revenge. Worthington's longitudinal research discovered that many people have had to walk themselves through this five-fold model multiple times in their lives in order to stay in the space of forgiveness.²

When applying humility to the process of forgiveness, it is certainly not hard to see the pro-social linkages present. For instance, not only does the research connect humility directly to empathic responses and forgiveness, many of the other qualities of humility are also driving the forgive-

Table 14.3 Qualities and characteristics of humility that buttress the forgiveness process

(Nielson and Marrone, 2018; Wright et al., 2017; Chancellor and Lyubomirsky, 2013)

ness process.

While multiple positive links between humility and forgiveness are encouraging, there is clear research to indicate that the opposite is also true; that people with less humility tend to subscribe to negative or destructive behaviors that discourage forgiveness.Wright et al. (2017) uncovered a significant connection between people with low humility scores and higher mani­festations of manipulation, displaced aggression, vengefulness/retaliation, social dominance, and hierarchy-oriented values (Wright et al., 2017, p. 7). These research linkages raise important questions around the process of socialization and how certain cultural mores, socio-political ideologies, and religious norms may assist in forming humble citizens and others may not.

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