Compassionate Living Psychology

As a child, we were advised to forgive the sibling who accidentally broke our toy or the classmate who said mean words to us, because that is the right thing to do. When there is conflict, adults usually ask us to say sorry and explain that we should forgive others’ transgression.

Growing up, even the luckiest of us would face interpersonal transgression at some point. There might be times when our friend fails to keep a promise; when our partner tells a lie; when a customer makes a baseless complaint; when we are made to clean our colleagues’ mess; or when our boss shuns their responsibility and blames us instead. These unfair violations of our right are often bigger and hurt more than those we faced in childhood. Worse still, the perpetuator may never say sorry. The question is, can we still forgive them as we were taught to?

Forgiveness, like compassion, can sound weak that some may say “this is not my thing.” Nevertheless, forgiving can be motivated by self-interest. We have good reason to forgive because this could alleviate anxiety and depression. To be continuously angry at someone is also emotionally, physically, and mentally demanding.

Every time when we talk about the transgression as if we were experiencing it in real time again, it triggers our fight or flight system and our body react as if we are going to battle anytime. This ready-to-fight state comes at a cost of depleting our available energy and could eventually lead to fatigue. When we fail to let go of our grievances and continue to be preoccupied with others’ wrongdoings, we become soldiers fighting a battle in our own mind until exhausting ourselves.

To forgive could be a decision we make, where we decide to forgive someone and not to seek revenge, even before we could actually let go of the negative feelings we hold against the person. This is called decisional forgiveness. It does not mean that we condone what they did. The decision to forgive is made on a basis that we acknowledge they have done something wrong but we still commit to put what happened behind and move on.

Committing to forgive someone, we might try to ease our feelings of resentment, hatred, hostility, bitterness etc. when we talk about the transgressor – a stage also called emotional forgiveness in psychology terms. It is different from forgetting about the transgression. Instead, it means that when we recall about the transgressor and what they did, we try to actively transform our angry and indignant feelings to kindness, compassion, or simply tolerance.

1. By recalling a time when we were the one who was wrong yet we were forgiven, we can remind ourselves that wrongdoings are not always deliberate acts with the sole intention to harm someone.
2. We can also try to remind ourselves that these transgressors we despise could be valued beings in someone else’s eyes and attempt to see them as a person with their own stories instead of the wicked being who were all-bad and undeserving of understanding and sympathy.
3. Furthermore, we may learn to see forgiveness as an altruistic gift that can benefit both the transgressor and ourselves.
4. Differing from the childhood fight with other kids or our siblings, forgiveness in adulthood does not always involve rebuilding the relationship. We do not even need to meet with the transgressor or tell them that we have forgiven them.
5. Sometimes, deciding to forgive means we are ending the battle with them in our mind. We stop speaking ill of them or fantasizing the revenge we should have or could have taken in our mind. We stop wondering if karma had hit them yet or taking pleasure in seeing their misfortune. When someone mention the transgressor, we are calm and stop recounting their wrongdoings. At the very least, when we have forgiven, we can tolerate thinking of them without going through the angry reaction all over again.

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