By Diana Holbourn
Becky Gives Advice on the Radio Station she Works at and a Lecture at her Old University, and is Invited to Work on a Television Documentary
Book Seven of the online Becky Bexley series. Chapter 1 continued.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
When it was time for Becky to give her lecture, some of the students she'd known when she was at the university, and a lot of others, turned up to hear her speak. First of all, she told them about how she'd got to work at the radio station and about some of her experiences there. She could tell they were impressed! Then she spent the rest of the evening telling them about what the book she'd read about forgiveness said.
She said, "I'm going to tell you all about a self-help book about forgiveness I've been reading. I can't guarantee that all the advice in it is good, so you'll have to make your own minds up about that. And it's possible there are better books out there on the subject. But I'm hoping this one will be helpful. It's called Forgiveness is a Choice, by Robert Enright.
"So if you make some detailed notes, you'll be able to look back at them later if you ever need them. Maybe for some of you, they'll be helpful now.
"One thing the book does is to tell the stories of about five people who'd been mistreated by people in the past, and had started out believing they couldn't forgive the people who did that to them, but they were encouraged to give it a go by counsellors and other people, and when they eventually tried it, they found that they actually got to be happier themselves after they had some success, because they eventually managed to let go of anger and anxiety and stress that had been making them miserable ever since they had the bad experiences with the abusive people who had made them suffer in various ways before. And letting go of those things not only made them happier, but it made people around them happier too, at least with some of them, because they'd been taking their anger out on them before, so when their anger went away, they started getting on with them better.
"One person the book talks about is called Mary Ann. Her mum was nasty to her a lot of the time when she was growing up, often harshly criticising her for every little thing she did that she didn't like, blowing things way out of proportion, and being insulting. She would be nasty to her for hours a day, punishing her if she answered back, or even if she just thought she had a cheeky look on her face!
"After Mary Ann grew up and got married, every visit to her parents ended in a shouting match. Every festive occasion was ruined because things in the family could even turn into physical fights. There was even one where her husband and mother got into a drunken brawl while Mary Ann was in hospital having her third baby. And after the big rows the mother's behaviour sometimes caused while she was growing up, the mother would pretend to be sorry and whale about how it was all her fault. But if anyone agreed with her or accepted her apology, she'd get really angry with them, because she wasn't really sorry, but she was just pretending to be, in the hope that everyone would reassure her, saying it wasn't really her fault but theirs.
"When Mary Ann grew up and got married, she was full of anger because of what had happened to her for all those years when she was growing up. And it didn't help that she married someone who spent his evenings in the pub getting drunk, coming in after midnight. He had a serious drinking problem. Mary Ann would wait up for him, getting more and more worried and angry that he wasn't back home yet, until when he did come in, she was really upset. But he was often too drunk to even stand up, so she would just put him to bed without telling him what she thought. He was too hung over in the mornings to be able to tolerate conversation, so she couldn't tell him then, before he went to work; and she would feel exhausted, without the energy to cope with her naughty children. She was too upset to sleep properly, and her sleep deprivation must have contributed to her feeling miserable.
"She had three children, and she neglected them, because all she wanted to do all day was escape into fantasy novels and soaps on TV so she could forget about her miserable depressing life. Her anger and feelings of hopelessness drained her energy, so she wasn't in the mood to do anything more. But when the little children played up because they were just left to their own devices, or made a mess, she would get angry and yell at them in the nasty way her mum had criticised her, because she'd automatically learned to behave in the way her mum had behaved.
"She would ask her husband to help with the children, but he would accuse her of being a bad wife and mother, and they would argue the way she'd argued with her mother. Occasionally, she would get really angry with him, and they'd have a fierce argument, and then he'd walk out for a while. Then she'd get scared of losing him and having to cope on her own, and she'd apologise to him, begging him to come back.
"She spent her life feeling depressed, self-pitying and angry, often thinking of the times when upsetting things had happened, between times when she decided she really ought to change her ways, but never following through with the intention. She was worried that her behaviour would affect her children badly as they grew up, turning them into angry people, worrying that then they might take their own anger out on their own children.
"After her husband and mother had had the drunken brawl while she was in hospital having a baby, she decided she didn't want anything else to do with her mother, and cut off contact between them. But after a while, she started feeling guilty about it.
"She went for counselling, and told the counsellor about how her mum had treated her. She hoped the counsellor would help her, including reassuring her that she'd done the right thing by cutting her mother out of her life. When near the end of her first session, the counsellor asked her if she'd thought of forgiving her mother, she thought he couldn't have understood how bad what her mother had done was, and went over it again. Feelings of anger and dread came over her as she thought about the idea of forgiving her mother. But the counsellor said it was still possible that forgiving her would be a good thing, and suggested she just go and have a think about it.
"During the next four sessions of counselling she had with the man, she talked over her feelings about forgiving her mother, sometimes feeling angry at the idea, and sometimes feeling confused about whether it would be a good thing or not. But because the counsellor was convinced it would be good for her, so she came to think it might be, at the end of her fifth counselling session, she decided to try, without feeling like it at all, but just as an act of the will. So while she didn't like it, she said the words, 'I forgive my mother'.
"That was just the start of the process. It took a lot of working through angry and upset feelings before she finally felt forgiving; but after some time, she did begin to feel forgiving. And when she did, her anger drained away, and she became less miserable. Then she started treating her children better, not getting angry with them for just normal childhood behaviour like she had before. So they benefited from her change of heart towards her mother as well as herself benefiting.
"She realised that if she hadn't changed, she would have made her children suffer because of her anger all the time while they were growing up, and then they would have had a whole load of anger inside them because of their continual resentment against her, and then they themselves might well have taken it out on their own children, as well as on other people, and it might have continued down the generations, with each new set of children growing up full of anger because of the way their parents had treated them, taking it out on their own children, who would grow up full of anger, and so on. So she realised that letting go of the anger she held towards her mother and changing her ways might be making things better for generation after generation of people who came after her, not just for her own family.
"Her children grew up, and she was pleased with the way they turned out, and glad she'd worked through forgiveness early enough that her behaviour didn't cause them permanent problems.
"And her own life was transformed. She felt as if she had more energy, because she wasn't depleting her energy by feeling as upset about things as she had before. She learned to communicate in more helpful ways with her husband, and then his own behaviour changed for the better. That in turn helped. She felt as if she had a lot more energy once her lifestyle changed, and she didn't just want to blob in front of the television trying to escape thoughts about her life all day. She eventually actually started doing voluntary work with various organisations, and writing articles and giving talks about teenage health and well-being. And she started helping some friends and family members go through the forgiveness process after times in their lives when they were treated unfairly. Her relationship with her children got much better than it had been before. She felt as if she was even a different person than the person she'd been before.
"And when her own old angry feelings about her mother came back, she knew how to deal with them quickly so they didn't stay around for long any more.
"The author says that the transformation people can feel won't be instantaneous, but it can get better over time.
"He says that before people can forgive, they first have to admit to themselves how angry they are, and who they're angry with, and that can be hard, especially if they know some of their anger's unjustified. Mary Ann had a hard time admitting she got angry with her little children, because she knew her rages were unfair on them. And she felt guilty about being angry with her husband sometimes, because she would make excuses for him that she would believe, saying to herself that it was no wonder he drank, because his work stressed him out and his health wasn't good. So she would sometimes blame herself for being angry with him.
"But when she finally managed to admit she was angry with her husband and children, she could think through her anger, and use techniques to calm herself down. The author says forgiveness for serious wrongs can't be done just like that; it can take time. And it might involve forgiving people who didn't seem to need forgiving at first. For instance, after Mary Ann managed to forgive her mother, she realised she still had angry feelings towards her children for being so naughty. Then she managed to forgive them too.
"The author says that some people even find it helpful to forgive people who've left them by dying, especially if they're husbands or wives, or children whose parents died before they were grown up. Even though they know it's not fair really, they can still feel really angry with a person who's died for leaving them, especially if they unwittingly did things or lived lifestyles that contributed to their early deaths, such as eating lots of junk food or driving too fast in bad weather.
"They can find more peace of mind if they can admit they're angry, - even if it's hard to admit it because they know it's unfair, - and then they write all about their feelings to get them out of their systems so they feel calmer, and then work on forgiving the people who left them by dying, so they can let go of the anger altogether. And it can help people get more peace of mind in other ways, such as if they feel guilty for feeling angry, since the guilt will go away if they forgive them so their anger fades away. And the guilt can have caused them to feel anxious, so the anxiety can fade away too.
"And the same thing's true if people are angry with people for doing things that have caused suffering but it wasn't their fault, for instance if some of a child's needs were neglected by their parents, or if a husband feels angry at his wife for not paying him much attention, but there's really a good reason for it, such as that there's an ill person in the family who the parents or wife have often had to spend time looking after. A child or husband who feels angry with them might also feel guilty for feeling angry, because they know it's not their fault. Forgiving them anyway can get rid of the anger and the guilt.
"Sometimes a person's really angry at someone for things that aren't their fault, but they're so worked up with emotion that they aren't even willing to think about the possibility that the person isn't to blame, till after they start to forgive them for anything they've done that did cause a problem, and their emotion dies down a bit, such as if they're angry about a bad argument with a boss about new working conditions they don't like, where the boss refused to change anything, but when they can see things more clearly because they're not so angry, they realise they started the argument because they were taking their anger out on their boss for things he couldn't help, because the new conditions are just part of company policy, and there isn't anything he can do about them even if he wanted to.
"And some people feel really angry, and work on forgiving people, only to realise later on that they're not really the victims of injustice, but they just misunderstood and misinterpreted some things that were done, such as if someone feels disadvantaged in life because their parents didn't help them with their homework often when they asked, and they think it caused them to get lower grades than they could have done, but they later realise their parents can't be blamed, because they had to spend a lot of time with a severely disabled child who needed help, or they weren't very well educated themselves so they wouldn't have been able to help them much if they'd tried; the child might have just thought they were making excuses before if they'd said they didn't know enough to help. There are probably all kinds of different situations that that thing about people realising that forgiveness isn't all that necessary after all could apply to.
"The author says there's such a thing as pseudo-forgiveness, where people say they forgive others without really meaning it, sometimes as a way of trying to feel superior to an offender, and trying to create an image in people's minds of themselves as more saintly than the person they're forgiving. They might in reality be full of anger towards them, and just trying to show them up in front of other people out of spite.
"Or some people try to compensate for bad feelings they have about themselves by deliberately watching out for little things other people do that they can be offended by, and then telling them they forgive them, perhaps as a way to distract attention from their own faults by drawing people's attention to the other person's.
"But as for real forgiveness, the author of the self-help book says forgiveness won't get rid of all the upset a person feels towards the people who made them suffer altogether, but it can at least reduce it so it's easier to live with.
"He says Mary Ann thought forgiving her mother might be a bad idea at first, because she thought it would mean she would just have to put up with her mother's abusive behaviour from then on. But the author says that forgiveness doesn't really mean people have to do that. They can forgive abusive people, while at the same time even saying they're not willing to have anything more to do with them, for their own protection, and maybe the protection of their children.
"Abusive people can sometimes demand forgiveness, because they think that if the person they're abusing does forgive them, they'll drop any intentions they had to leave them or call the police, or to do something else they don't want. But forgiving doesn't mean trying to forget that anything bad ever happened and letting the abuser carry on being abusive. It's quite possible to forgive a violent person, and yet, for the good of the forgiver and maybe even for society, to seek to have them put in prison for what they've done. Forgiveness involves dropping any ideas about revenge; but justice isn't revenge.
"The author of the self-help book says forgiveness might not work for everyone, but he's seen lives become transformed by it, where people have become a lot happier and started doing things again that they gave up after they fell out with people. For instance, a young woman felt so angry she dropped out of university after feeling convinced her tutor had given her the wrong grade for something, and she'd had a serious argument with him about it that had left her full of anger; but after she struggled to forgive him, she went back to study there, which enabled her to get her degree and then carry on following her dreams. And a woman who hadn't seen her grandchildren in years, ever since she'd fallen out with her son's wife, got to see them again, which made her happy, after she decided to reconcile with her, and swallowed her pride and phoned her up to apologise and say she forgave her for her part in the arguments they'd had and the things they'd fallen out over.
"The author says that anger about things that have happened in the past can make people's lives miserable for decades and decades. Even people in nursing homes in their old age can still be seething with resentment about things that happened to them when they were children, still thinking of themselves as victims because of it, even though the people who made them suffer died long ago. They can have been angry all that time, because they never tried to let go of their anger and forgive the people who hurt them, so their quality of life got diminished because of their anger all their lives.
"And he says people who divorce can take their anger at what happened in their marriages into new marriages, which get spoiled because of it, and their children can be badly affected by it for years, because they take their anger out on them, or dampen their moods by expressing anger with their other parents in front of them. He says a therapist interviewed people who'd been divorced, and found that half the women and a third of the men were still really angry at the people they used to be married to, even though their divorces happened over a decade earlier. It was affecting their behaviour, so their children were suffering because of it too. That might have been especially if they criticised their former husbands or wives harshly in front of their children, and it upset the children to hear their other parents criticised.
"The author says it's hard to forgive completely, and that it's common for people to think they've forgiven someone, only to find angry feelings and temptations to brood over past injustices coming back every so often. That's just normal. But after someone's forgiven someone the first time, it'll be easier to refresh the forgiveness if the feelings come back again in the future, because the person will be used to what they have to do during the process of forgiving by then, so they'll know what to do to refresh it; and also, if they've forgiven most of what happened already, there won't be so much to forgive when the angry feelings come back again.
"And sometimes, incidents will come to mind that the person didn't think of the first time they went through the forgiveness process, and they feel the need to forgive those; and sometimes, they'll realise they still harbour angry feelings towards other people that they hadn't thought about when they went through the process of forgiving the main person who upset them, so they want to work on forgiving those too. So the forgiveness process might have to be done quite a few times during a lifetime.
"The author says a lot of therapists have said they've seen people's mental health and even their physical health improve after they've forgiven people who did bad things to them. Maybe people's physical health can sometimes improve because they look after themselves better if they're not so depressed any more, because people who are depressed often don't feel motivated to make the effort; and maybe it can also improve because if they're not so stressed any more, that can help, because severe stress can weaken the immune system while it's going on, so it's easier to catch infections. And it seems that high levels of stress hormones in the body long-term can cause other problems, even contributing to heart disease sometimes.
"And anxiety can cause insomnia, with people being kept awake by all the worrying they're doing, and other upsetting thoughts going around in their minds; and sleep deprivation can make people feel run-down, and stop the body being able to repair itself so well when it gets damaged, because it does that best during deep sleep. The author says there's also evidence that some people's high blood pressure can get lower after they stop feeling so stressed and angry. So it's possible that forgiving can even cause things to happen in some people's bodies that make it more likely they'll live a longer life.
"The author says it's been reported that some people who were anxious have found more peace when they've forgiven people; and people who were depressed, continually angry and even paranoid have found their symptoms were reduced quite a bit when they forgave people. Not forgiving is like allowing the person who did the bad things to still have power to hurt the person who isn't forgiving, because they'll carry on being upset, and the thoughts in their minds will spoil their quality of life.
"He mentions one therapist who saw a woman in her twenties who had come for therapy, who didn't have many friends because her behaviour was off-putting to most people, because she was very demanding and critical, and got angry easily. But she was lonely. She went to the therapist feeling upset about her life. She still lived at home; and it turned out that her mother had always been very critical of her, condemning her for the slightest breach of her unreasonable standards. That's where she'd picked up the habit of being quick to condemn people from, using it to take her anger against her mother out on people around her, being even better at condemning than her mum. But she had symptoms of anxiety and depression.
"She was helped when she thought of her mother's own upbringing, and how her mother had got to be the way she was because of how she herself was treated as she was growing up, although that didn't excuse her behaviour, because adults are capable of taking responsibility for the way they behave, and should. But reflecting on her mother's background made her mother's behaviour easier to understand, and the woman came to be able to forgive her.
"After she did, she realised that she herself could work on changing her behaviour; she didn't have to let her anger control her. She realised that both her and her mother were partly products of their upbringings, and were capable of both good and bad behaviour. She realised she'd learned to victimise other people because of the habits she'd picked up from her mother as she was growing up, and the way she'd wanted to start taking her anger out on people so she'd feel better, but that she didn't have to stay like that.
"She changed and managed to make friends after that, and even got married not long afterwards.
"The author says that people's sense of well-being can be increased even more if they can think of something positive that resulted from their suffering. That might be hard; but even some people who've suffered traumatic things have found later that the experiences did at least lead to a few positive things, such as them developing more empathy for other people who are suffering, because they know what it's like, so they could comfort them more, or them developing a desire to help other people with problems, ending up doing quite a bit of good."
Becky continued, "The author says that anger can be good in moderation, for a short time - it can help motivate people to protest against injustices, or get up and leave bad situations and so on. So anger can prevent future harms from coming to people. But long-term anger that just makes people bad-tempered and harder to live with is toxic, both to the person who has it, and to those around them.
"And people can't think so clearly when they're angry, because of all the emotion flooding their brains, which stops the intelligent parts of them from having the space to be able to function so well; and the emotion can make people just feel like getting rid of their anger quickly, so they can instinctively react more when they get the chance to take it out on people; so it's easy for them to get offensive things people do out of proportion, and get more angry with them than they deserve, because if a person's angry to start with, something that irritates them can make the anger tip over into a loss of temper, when it wouldn't affect someone who was relaxed at the beginning of it as much.
"One of the things that can cause anger is if unintentionally, something someone does reminds a person of things that happened in the past that made them angry, such as if a parent often belittled them, and someone makes a comment that sounds like something the parent said, and all the angry feelings they had towards the parent come flooding back, making them feel far angrier than the comment deserves, so they respond far more angrily to the person who made the comment than they deserve.
"And some people actually find that after years of being victimised, they get satisfaction from victimising other people, because it gives them a rush of feelings of power that compensate them a bit for the times when they felt powerless to cope with being abused by others. Forgiving the abusers can help them change that kind of behaviour, because their anger can go away, which is not only good for the people around them who won't be victims of it any more, but it'll be good for them themselves really, even if they enjoy taking anger out on people, because anger can eventually cause health problems for the angry person, even maybe contributing to heart disease.
"The author says that some people are reluctant to forgive others because they think people who made them suffer deserve all the angry thoughts they think about them, and that it's a sign of self-respect to stay angry, because not feeling angry would be like accepting what the offenders did meekly like a doormat. But the abusive people often won't even know about the angry thoughts the person's having; the only person whose life will be being spoiled by them is the person who's having them. And forgiving doesn't mean being more willing to put up with mistreatment in the future.
"The more angry or anxious or depressing thoughts go around in people's minds, the more they'll be upsetting themselves all over again about what was done to them. Forgiveness can stop the angry and depressing or anxious thoughts about the past, so it's easier to get on with life; and then one reason people's mental health can improve is because they've stopped upsetting themselves time and time again with their angry, hate-filled or depressed thoughts, because they've got their feelings out of their systems, so they don't cause problems for them any more.
"Forgiveness can sometimes actually become harder over time, instead of easier though, because the more angry thoughts people have about what happened as time goes by, the more their grudges and hatred can grow, so there's a whole lot more anger to get out of the system in the end than there was at first! And all the while, it's causing people to have a lower quality of life than they could have had otherwise.
"The author says some people are worried that forgiveness means brushing off offences as if they don't really matter, or getting to be on good terms again with abusers, meaning they put themselves in positions where they could carry on being abusive to them, or that it'll be necessary to forget offences that are stuck in the memory, or pretend nothing happened. But it doesn't mean any of those things."
Becky was encouraged to see that everyone so far seemed to be interested in what she was saying. So she carried on, hoping things would stay that way, though not being quite sure they would. She continued:
"The author of the book I'm talking about says he's done a lot of research on forgiveness, and has worked out a series of things people can do to help them forgive that work for a lot of people.
"He says forgiveness starts with people reflecting that they have a right to be treated with respect, and then that they have a right to feel hurt and angry and resentful. After all, people can't forgive if they don't admit to themselves that they've been hurt enough to make it necessary to forgive, and that what happened to them was wrong, and always will be. Forgiveness involves a person acknowledging to themselves that wrongs have been done to them that shouldn't be repeated, and that they have the perfect right to feel angry and upset about them, but that they're going to make efforts to let go of their anger, and start thinking about the offender with more goodwill, even though they don't deserve it.
"That doesn't mean pretending the offender's in any way decent if they're not, but it could mean such things as giving up the right to think vengeful thoughts about doing things to hurt them, and saying nasty things about them behind their back out of spite, and instead imagining what the offender might be like if they committed to changing their ways, hoping they become a person like that one day, wishing them well, as a kind of gift.
"One step in the forgiveness process is thinking about what might have turned the people who caused the suffering into who they are. That's not to excuse their behaviour, but to understand that part of what made them act the way they did was things that have happened in their own life to turn them into the person they became, so as to realise that they didn't get to be the way they are just because they wanted to. Being interested in them as a person and how they got to be the way they are can decrease anger towards them, because their behaviour can become more understandable; and it can increase curiosity about them, which can replace anger to some extent.
"The author says forgiveness doesn't mean trusting the offender again, and that in some cases, trusting them would be very wrong and dangerous, such as if they're a paedophile who would like to baby-sit their children, or a problem gambler who keeps asking his wife for money that she knows will just be spent on gambling if she gives in to his demands and gives him more. It would still be forgiving for her to say, 'I forgive you for your gambling, but I won't give you more money for you to spend it on gambling some more, because I need the money to spend on the family, and I think the most loving thing to do would be to try to motivate you to get help instead.'
"The author of the forgiveness book and a group of other people decided to test out whether people would be helped by forgiving people who'd upset them in a study. They worked with several groups of people over time, and found that a lot of people's mental health improved when they managed to forgive. One group was women who'd been sexually abused when they were children. There were twelve of them in the study, and they were all depressed and anxious, and had low self-esteem at first. Half of them were taught a way to work on forgiving their abusers, meeting up with someone trained in teaching the techniques once a week over the course of over a year, and getting manuals with instructions, and half of them weren't, to see how their mental health compared at the end of that time with the mental health of the women who were, since if it was just as good, it would be doubtful that forgiving made a difference; but if the mental health of the women who'd worked on forgiving was better, then it would show there was probably a benefit in doing that.
"After over a year, the women who'd gone through the forgiveness process had all managed to forgive their abusers, and were quite a bit less depressed and anxious, and more hopeful about their futures than they'd been before. The women who hadn't been taught techniques to forgive their abusers still had poor mental health. So they were taught the forgiveness techniques and worked through them over about fourteen months, and at the end of it, their own mental health had improved quite a lot. And then the mental health of the first six women who'd gone through the process was tested, and it was still as good as it had been when they'd finished it over a year earlier.
"It's impossible to know whether it was just the forgiveness that helped, or whether other things were important too, such as often meeting up and talking through problems with a sympathetic person. But still, forgiveness might have had quite a bit to do with it. The author of the book doesn't explain what all the techniques are that the women were taught; but he does talk about techniques that people can use.
"He says forgiveness is a gradual process, which might sometimes take over a year, and there are twenty things he and his research team have found help, that he recommends people work through, as long as they think they'll all be helpful to them, but that depending on people's situations, they might find some more helpful than others. And he says the steps don't necessarily have to be done in any order, and some might have to be done more than once, especially if some people realise afterwards that there are other things an offender did that they still need to forgive, or if they found some of the steps a bit too difficult at first because thinking about them made them feel too upset, so it'll help to go over them again later when they don't feel so bad.
"And if the process is getting too upsetting, he says people ought to feel free to have a break from it for a while.
"He says that it can really help if a person starting the forgiveness process finds someone they can confide in about it, who they can talk to as they go through it. Having someone else making comments and asking questions can help them not to get stuck thinking upsetting thoughts once they start thinking of what was done to them and thinking through how angry they really are about it. They can be soothed if the person's sympathetic, Or they might sometimes even realise they're more angry than is really fair, if they're angry at someone who caused them to suffer but it turns out that it wasn't really their fault, or if they blew an offence right out of proportion, so they got more angry about it than was fair.
"Or it might be that they brush off some offences that another person thinks are really bad, such as if a parent was abusive but told their child they were only doing things for their own good so often that they came to believe it, so they blame themselves for their anger against them, and they have mental health problems because they're always trying to repress their anger and upset feelings, which might cause depression and anxiety, when actually their anger and other feelings are perfectly justified. So another person's opinion can be valuable.
"For people who haven't got best friends, or other people they feel able to confide in, maybe they could see a counsellor, or else find a forum for people with problems who seem sympathetic, where they can journal about their feelings and hopefully get support from a few sympathetic people.
"I'm going to say something now that isn't what the author's saying; it's just me: It might sound daft to say this - actually, a lot of people have called me daft over the years, so some people would say that if I say something daft, it's kind of true to form really, but still:
"I hope I don't get disapproved of or anything for saying this, and I'm hoping that when I do say it, it won't make people lose trust in everything I'm saying, or anything like that; but I can't really be sure that everything I'm about to tell you that the author recommends doesn't have a risk of doing harm, not having been through this process myself, since I haven't experienced anything that would make me want to forgive something really serious so as to make me want to go through it myself; so I can't be sure that everything he recommends hasn't got the risk of doing any harm. Like I said, I'm hoping this doesn't make anyone who could do with it lose confidence in this whole process, but I think I'd better say that I can't be sure that everything he recommends will really do people good, or whether there's a risk that bits of it might do some harm, like if people confide in people, and it turns out to be a bad idea, because they turn out not to be sympathetic, or say things that upset them more or something.
"So think about what this author's recommending, and judge for yourselves whether you think it's a good idea to do. Like this confiding in someone stuff: It's really important to make sure it's someone you can trust, or it might make you feel worse afterwards than you did before. I mean, that's probably obvious, and you might think I'm a twit for saying it; but still, I reckon it's worth saying it anyway, and it goes for professional therapists as well as anyone else; I mean, not all therapists are good ones, so it's best not to trust all of them, but to maybe tell them a couple of things that aren't really important to you, but just the more minor details of what happened when you first start talking to them, to see how they react; and if they react in a way that gives you some intuition that you might not be able to trust them to be sensitive about things, it might be best to find someone else instead.
"I actually had a conversation not long ago with someone who said she went for counselling to try to get over some horrible things that happened to her when she was a child, and this counsellor kept on asking her to tell her more and more about them, saying she needed her to do that because when she had, she'd teach her how to think about them in different ways so she got less upset about them when she thought about them; but she never got to the point where she started doing that. Whenever the person asked her when she was going to start doing it, the counsellor would just keep saying she needed to know more things about her childhood before she could, before asking more questions, and it was really really upsetting for this person to talk about them, so she just ended up really upset, so upset that she was really crying her eyes out, and saying things that made the counsellor think she must be losing touch with reality, so the counsellor thought she might need to be taken away and put in a psychiatric hospital.
"But it wouldn't have happened if the counsellor hadn't kept asking her to tell her more and more upsetting things. In the end, this person came to the conclusion that the counsellor was probably just really nosy, and stopped seeing her. Hopefully that kind of thing doesn't happen all that often, but who knows! So I'm just saying that if you start to confide in someone and it doesn't feel right, it might be best to find someone else, or stick to just writing about it, so you can control what you say and when you say it, and how much you say at any one time, without any pressure to say more than you want to. You could always imagine there's someone really caring there with you, and think through what they might say if they were really wise and sympathetic."
Becky carried on, "Anyway, back to what the author of this book thinks, he says he's found that it's best if the first stage in the forgiveness process is if people just think about all the anger they hold towards people, so they can start dealing with it. He says that before some people decide how much they really need to forgive other people for, it's a good idea to deal with feelings like anger, as well as guilt and shame for any part the person themselves might have played in what happened, and some other feelings, before they actually start the real process of forgiving, since once those feelings are worked through, forgiving itself might be easier.
"He says it won't always be easy for people to even realise how angry they really are, since sometimes they might have tried to repress their anger because they don't think it's fair, or because they haven't thought it was helpful to them or anyone else; and sometimes, it's buried a lot of the time while people get on with their everyday lives, and only when they think of the things that made them angry will it come to the surface and cause a problem. So he says they ought to think about the things that made them angry, to bring anger to the surface, so it can be got out of the system or calmed in some way, if they're aware that it might be causing a problem for them.
"He says bringing the feelings to the surface by thinking about what caused them might be an upsetting experience, but that mental health will probably improve once the anger's out of the system, because repressed anger can cause problems for years. If there's someone to confide in at the time who can be on hand when they're needed and will be supportive, it'll hopefully prevent people from drowning in their feelings instead of being able to move on from them, so things end up worse.
"He says one thing that can often help is writing a journal, where people do such things as write about their emotions to get them out of their systems, explaining why they feel them, what the background is to how their emotional state and other things got to be the way they are, and why they have the problems they have, how well they're doing on their forgiveness journey so far, and anything else that comes to mind. Then they can look back over what they've said later if they want, to think about whether there's anything they can learn from thinking about what they've written down that could help them in the future.
"He says people will probably feel more at ease if they buy a journal to write in in a style they like; or if they write what they'd like to say on their computer, they could think first about whether they want it stored there, or whether they'd prefer to keep it on a memory stick that they can keep somewhere private.
"He says it can help a lot of people to get down to writing if they develop a routine where they write at the same time each day, so they can think of it as their writing time. And it can help their concentration if they find a quiet place.
"He says the writing doesn't have to be very detailed; just giving the gist of things will do; and people don't have to go on till they've written what seems to be a respectable amount; people should just write what seems natural to them. But if they're sure they can keep their journal private, they can say just what they'd like to, although they can share it with whoever they like.
"He says that if writing does bring up feelings that seem too difficult to handle, it would be a good idea to get help from a therapist.
"He says it's best to start the forgiveness process with one person and one memorable offence, or pattern of offences, preferably the first memorable offence or series of offences that caused long-term anger, because sometimes, people can feel really angry with some people, but when they work on forgiving them, they're still angry, and realise they actually only got so angry with the people they're trying to forgive because things they did, or things about them, reminded them of people who made them suffer long before, and their anger with the people who offended them more recently was out of proportion because of the feelings that were stirred up because of the reminders that triggered them off, and it's the people who committed the first offences that they could get most healing from their anger by forgiving.
"For instance, there was a mother of five children who still had lots of hurt and anger about the way one of her teachers in primary school had belittled her badly in school. She'd often thought of how she'd like to get revenge on her. Whenever she met a teacher who reminded her of her in some way, feelings of the old humiliations would be stirred up in her, making her angry all over again, so little problems the teachers brought up with her children's behaviour or work would make her feel really defensive and angry, because she'd assume those teachers must be just the same as her old teacher; and she'd have a real go at them, because she was worried they would upset her children in the same way that her old teacher had upset her, and she wanted to put them off doing it. But then they'd feel provoked and get angry with her, and criticise her in ways that made her feel humiliated all over again. So she'd go away feeling even more angry. And that carried on and on, till she was encouraged to forgive the teachers.
"When she tried, and thought through what was going on, she realised she was getting more angry with them than they deserved, and that it was the teacher who'd belittled her badly when she was a child who she really needed to forgive first, so she'd then get her anger with her out of her system, so she wouldn't get so angry with her children's teachers any more, because their behaviour wouldn't automatically trigger off old anger about her old teacher any more. After that happened, she dealt with problems the teachers brought up with her children much more sensibly.
"A different problem, according to the author of this book, is that sometimes, people can actually feel attracted to people who will inevitably hurt them in the same way the original offender did. For instance, some people whose fathers mistreated them can be attracted to people with similar personalities, perhaps because they're subconsciously hoping they'll be like substitutes for their fathers in some way, but who'll provide what was missing in their relationships with their fathers. But because they're so similar, they don't, but they just hurt them in a similar way. So the people who were attracted to them might have a lot of anger towards them and think they're the ones they ought to forgive first, when really, forgiving their fathers first would be best, because then they might not be attracted to other men like their fathers in the subconscious hope of making up for what they missed out on, only to be hurt in a similar way in future.
"I don't know how often that really happens; but maybe it's a thing.
"The author recommends that before people start the forgiveness process, they write about the answers to several questions in their journals, which might take a while, because they might need to be thought through quite a bit:
"The first one he asks people to answer is who it was who hurt them and made them most angry. He says if they're not sure who they're most angry with, they might be able to work it out if they imagine each person who upset them sitting in a chair next to them, to see who their feelings get stirred up about most. Or they can think back to the earliest offence they can remember in childhood, and think of offences that were committed in turn as they grew up, to find out which individual's make them feel the most angry.
"Since that person's behaviour might have influenced their behaviour towards other people since then, such as with the woman who got angry very easily with her children's teachers, if they can forgive the original offender, so their anger with them dies down, their whole outlook on life might change, because they might realise their anger with other people has been partly just anger that came on because what they did reminded them of something in the past; so realising that might stop them getting so angry with others in future if they do things that instantly remind them of things the person in the past did, but they're not that bad in themselves. And angry feelings that come on because of things that happened in the past won't come on any more if their anger about those things has died down.
"The author recommends that after people have decided on an offence and an offender to try to forgive, they write about what they did in detail, even including such details as what time of day the offence they committed was, whereabouts the offence happened, whether it was outside or indoors, what the weather was like at the time, what the person who caused the suffering was wearing, and what their attitude was - whether they spoke in a harsh way, an uncaring one, one that tried to make out that they weren't doing anything wrong, or whatever. I don't think he explains why he thinks people ought to do that. It would be more helpful if he did. Maybe he thinks it would help people get emotion out of the system or something.
"He recommends that then, people can think about whether they themselves bear any part of the blame for what happened. He says it's best if people talk over that one with the person they've chosen to confide in about their forgiveness journey, who should ideally be someone honest enough to give their opinions, even if they're not always favourable, since it might be that some people are too angry to be able to analyse things well, so they think of a person as entirely to blame for something, when there were things both of them did that contributed to the problems, even if one contributed much more than the other, say if what they're trying to forgive is a series of bad arguments that they think were often started by the other person.
"Sometimes, a person can feel angry about things another person said to them, but then later realise that although the person was tactless, what they actually said wasn't altogether unfair, because they were being criticised for behaviour that in reality could have been better than it was; so they don't have to forgive them as much as they thought they did.
"For instance, a boss might criticise a person's work performance, and they might feel angry and hurt over it, but later realise that there really are things they could be doing better. All kinds of situations can happen where arguments or bad feelings can flare up because people assume others had worse intentions than they really did have, for instance if they're just expressing honest opinions about the way someone lives their life, but they all feel like put-downs to the person whose life it is.
"But sometimes, although the behaviour of someone thinking of forgiving someone else was bad, the other person reacted in a way that was way out of proportion to the offence, getting angrier than was really fair, sometimes even being aggressive when there was no need; so that person still can be forgiven for that.
"On the other hand, some people blame themselves for things when they weren't at fault, such as people who were abused as children, especially if they kept being told by their abusers that their own behaviour or things they said or even thought caused it, or children of divorced parents, who blame themselves for the divorce because they're sure their behaviour stressed their parents out, and they assume that must have been the reason for the divorce.
"Sometimes, people can blame themselves because their own behaviour sparked off the other person's bad behaviour, for instance if they insulted them and said harsh things that weren't really fair; but they can't be blamed for the other person's bad reaction, especially if it was way out of proportion to the offence, such as if they responded violently. Other people are responsible for their reactions.
"Sometimes, people can get an idea of how much or whether they were at fault for any of what happened by whether they feel any guilt for what happened.
"If a person realises they contributed to the problems more than they realised at the time, and they feel the need to ask for forgiveness for their part themselves, it might well be best if they wait a while till they've gone through the forgiveness process more before they do that, since otherwise, if they still feel angry with the other person, if they apologise, and then a conversation starts about what happened, it can turn into an angry argument, where they might feel the need to apologise again afterwards for what they said that time.
"The author says that some people don't feel very angry with people who've hurt them, but that it would actually be healthier for them if they did, because they're burying their anger, making excuses for the people they're angry with to stop themselves feeling it, or trying to convince themselves that what happened doesn't matter, because they'd lose something if they admitted their anger to themselves, such as a relationship they wouldn't feel as if they could tolerate staying in any more, or their quality of life, because they feel as if they wouldn't be able to control their emotions if they allowed themselves to feel them fully, or whatever. But burying anger can lead to depression or other mental health problems.
"Other people try to suppress their angry thoughts and upsetting memories of what's made them angry and upset so as to not feel and think about them, distracting themselves with other things to push them out of their minds. But a constant effort to do that will spoil people's quality of life. Dealing with the anger can help people move on with life.
"And other people take their anger out on people who don't deserve it, because they think it's too risky in some way or not worthwhile to get angry with the people who are upsetting them, so they take out their frustration on other people, such as if a husband often makes a wife angry, and she doesn't like confrontations with him, but she's got a lot of anger bottled up, and takes it out on her children, who in turn take it out on other children at school, or their own children when they grow up, because they know they won't get away with taking it out on her.
"Someone did a study of divorced women that found that the more they'd forgiven their former husbands for whatever they did, the less harshly or unkindly they disciplined their children.
"Another unhealthy way of dealing with anger is letting it all out in childish ways, like having big temper tantrums, or being passive-aggressive, such as supposedly 'accidentally' dropping and smashing something that belongs to someone they're secretly angry with, or inconveniencing someone and acting as if it was unintentional, such as by cancelling an arrangement that was made with them to go out with them just before the time when it was supposed to happen.
"The author of this book recommends that people have a good think about whether they've been using any of those techniques or one like them to cope with their emotions, and write about their tendency to use them in their journal, to help them think things through, trying to analyse the reasons why they might have been using them, and making a list of who's been hurt by them, describing how they've been hurt by them - whether that be themselves or others, and work out whether they've been getting in the way of their emotional healing.
"Once they're aware that they're in the habit of automatically using them, they can watch out for times when they might be upsetting other people by falling into the old habit of using some of them again, like taking anger out on people, so they can stop before a situation gets too bad and change what they're doing.
"But it's best not to try to change some ways of dealing with anger, such as trying to suppress it, till things have been done that make the anger and the feelings of hurt at what happened less severe, since otherwise dealing with it might be too upsetting.
"It's still worth people thinking about all the ways anger has harmed their mental well-being over the years though, as well as thinking about whether it's caused others around them to suffer, so they can come to a good understanding of how it's affected their mental well-being and quality of life or other people's over the years. When people come to recognise their anger for what it really is, they're in a better position to make efforts to reduce it bit by bit, which will often improve their quality of life and mental health over time.
"The author says it'll help if people share any insights they come up with about their anger and its effects on them with the person or people they've chosen to confide in about it, if they think they'll get some sympathy to help them on their way, or if they think it'll help to get their thoughts and feelings off their chest.
"He says there's no need to write in great detail about the things that caused the anger, since after all, it might become tedious to do that; but people can write an outline of what kinds of circumstances and which people have made them angry over time.
"Then they can focus on the person who made them the most angry again. The author advises people to re-read what they wrote about them at first, to see if they'd like to add anything.
"He advises that people rate the strength of their anger towards them and describe how strong it is, from mild annoyance to intense hatred. They could rate it on a scale from one to ten, where one is very little anger indeed, to ten being the most intense hatred they can imagine existing. They could highlight the number to make it easier to find later, so they can tell as they work through their forgiveness process if their rating's going down so things are improving, when they rate their anger later on.
"The author says that sometimes, people will feel angry with someone, but when they really think about what's going on, they realise their anger's out of proportion to the offence that was committed, and they realise that the reason they feel so angry is because the person or what they did reminds them of something and someone that made them angry much longer ago, and they're partly angry because of the way what the person who recently made them angry did unwittingly reminds them of what happened earlier.
"So if people aren't quite sure about whether the person they're angry with really deserves it, it can be helpful for them to imagine being an outside observer discussing things with their angry self, or else their most reasonable self discussing things with their angry self, asking them if the anger is really fair, or whether it's more intense than it needs to be, because of things such as that it's only as bad as it is because it's a reminder of something that happened before that caused anger, or else that it might be caused by things that have been misinterpreted, such as if a boss is very critical, and it's easy to put it down to just him being a nasty person, but it's possible that he's under a lot of stress because he himself might be under pressure from his own bosses to make sure he gets really good results, so he might have become impatient to get people to work harder.
"Or if someone feels really angry with their children for little things, they can ask themselves whether it's really the little things that are bothering them so much, or whether they're angry with someone else, and their angry mood's making them more angry with their children than they would be if they weren't angry because of things someone else or other people have done. So they can have an in-depth conversation with themselves, even writing what the two sides are saying down in their journal as the conversation goes on if they think it'll help.
"If the anger's causing other problems, such as anxiety about whether it's safe to be in the presence of men if it was a man who did the thing that originally caused the upset feelings, the angry person could ask themselves whether the feelings are really serving any good purpose, such as self-protection, or whether they're just ruining their quality of life, and making them too afraid to seek opportunities and friendships that might actually benefit them. It might help them to talk through the emotions with their forgiveness companion, or even with a therapist if they're really bad."
Becky noticed that a few of the students in the front rows seemed to be drifting off to sleep. She joked in a raised voice, "Hey! I notice that a few of you are falling asleep! Wake up! If you go to sleep, and especially if you start drowning me out by snoring, who knows - I might have to work through this forgiveness process myself to forgive you for disrupting my lecture! I didn't enjoy wading through this book to make notes on it for this lecture! So you could at least pay attention!"
The students who'd been feeling drowsy all sat up straight, looking sheepish.
Then Becky carried on, "Anyway, the author says it can help a person who's trying to forgive to get feelings out of the system if they write a short letter to the person who did the things that stirred up the anger, - one that isn't intended to be sent, but is just meant to help get feelings off the chest. The letter can explain why they're angry, just how angry they are, what exactly it was that made them as angry as they got, how the offences have affected their lives since then, and what they've learned since then about what they can do about their anger to calm it, as well as what other things they're learning that are helping them as they go through the forgiveness process. They could refresh their memories about what they've learned and other things they've thought by reading through what they've already written in their journals, before writing the letter they don't send.
"The author says that people ought to remember that not all anger's bad though; it can help protect people, such as if it motivates people to stay out of contact with paedophile fathers who might otherwise hurt their own children; or it can help people stand up for their rights, such as if a parent wants to control what they do, and their anger might give them the energy to stand up to them and tell them they've got no right to treat them that way, or to pluck up the courage to refuse their demands that they visit them, or whatever. It can help motivate people to fight against injustices committed against other people too.
"But anger becomes unhealthy if it can't be used to make life better, so it just festers in a person, for instance leading to thoughts of revenge that interfere with a person's quality of life, or if they have to make efforts to try to stop it interfering with their lives, such as by denying to themselves that what happened was that bad, when it was really.
"Sometimes, with things that aren't that bad, people might tell themselves they don't matter, and it's a good thing, because it can stop them stewing angrily over things till their anger gets worse and worse, till they think what happened was worse than it really was.
"But with major things, it can cause other problems when people try to convince themselves they don't matter, such as with a woman the author says was often bothered when she was a child because her father refused to put a lock on the bathroom door, and would often come in while she was having a bath and touch her inappropriately. For years she tried to brush it off as probably just normal, and not really sexual, especially since she loved her father, who would often praise her achievements, and made sacrifices to provide her with fashionable clothes and good educational opportunities. But for years after she grew up, she would sometimes find herself crying hysterically for no apparent reason.
"Things changed when she was thirty, when she finally managed to admit to herself how much his behaviour had upset her, and that it genuinely had been sexual. She hadn't wanted to admit it before, because she loved him and didn't want to lose the support he gave her, so she hadn't wanted to be put off him by admitting to herself that he had a sinister side. But when she did finally manage to admit to herself that he had abused her, she managed to forgive him, and that improved her mental health, getting her feelings out of her system.
"The author says that temporarily denying how bad things are can actually be healthy, because it protects people from the shock and despair they'd otherwise suffer if they let themselves feel the full horror of it, till they've mustered up enough psychological energy to cope with it better. But continually denying that something was bad can just cause emotional problems.
"But he says that for someone who's trying to confront the pain of what happened to them and it's really upsetting, and they can't get solace from the things other people they've chosen to confide in say, professional help might help more.
"And people should feel free to take a break from the analysis of their thoughts and feelings they're doing on their forgiveness journey whenever they like, especially if their memories are stirring up emotions that are hard to cope with. People shouldn't feel under pressure to forgive others in a rush. Willingness to forgive in itself can be a big step forward."
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