Interdisciplinary Psychology:

Karen Jones

Forgiveness Intervention

Positive Psychology

Right now when I think about forgiveness I can’t think of anyone I need to forgive. I know that there have been people in the past who have hurt me, but I’m not sure I want to bring back past hurts right now. Since that’s the first element of REACH, I’m not ready to continue with this part of the process just yet.

            I know that there have been times when people have done wrongs to me, and that it is more important to focus on how to fix what has happened than it is to just think about how it feels. Empathy is one of the hardest parts of that, because I normally don’t want to think about how someone feels when they have done something hurtful to me. Committing to forgive someone sometimes means that you have to remember that you have forgiven them later. That comes up in holding on to forgiveness, too.

I remember when a friend of mine hurt my feelings by saying that she did not want to be my friend any more. About a year later, when we saw each other again, I had gotten over my hurt feelings and was ready to be her friend again. Any time something like that happens you have to work on trust as well as forgiveness, and remember why you were friends with that person in the first place.