For someone who has led a charmed life, my eight-year-old
can hold a serious grudge. Out of the blue, he recently brought up “that bad
pencil thing that happened.” It took me a while to divine that he was talking
about the classmate who nabbed one of his writing utensils … nearly two years
ago.
اضافة اعلان
I thought about my son’s inability to let go of The Great
Pencil Incident of First Grade when I learned recently about new research that
suggests forgiveness improves mental well-being — and offers a road map for
getting there.
In the study, which was presented recently at an
interdisciplinary conference on forgiveness at Harvard University and is
currently under review for publication, researchers randomly assigned 4,598
participants from five countries into groups. One set received a forgiveness
workbook with exercises they completed on their own. (An example: Write the
story of a specific hurt you want to forgive. Then write it again as more of an
observer, without emphasizing how bad the wrongdoer was or how you felt
victimized. Look for at least three differences between the two versions.)
Those in the control group waited for two weeks before receiving the workbook.
When the two weeks were up, researchers found that those
participants who had completed the workbook felt more forgiving than those in
the control group — and had reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. These
findings jibe with other studies on forgiveness, which have found it can be a
boon to mental health, helping to do things like lower stress and improve
sleep.
“What forgiveness does is sort of free the victim from the
offender,” said Tyler VanderWeele, the director of the Human Flourishing
Program at Harvard and one of the co-authors of the study. “I would never say
‘Once you’ve forgiven, everything’s fine.’” But it is a better alternative to
rumination or suppression, he said. And that is likely why it can improve
overall mental well-being.
As my son shows, it can be hard to forgive even minor
transgressions — and I am not dunking on him here. I could easily prattle off a
list of perceived offenses I have been holding onto for years. But VanderWeele
believes forgiveness is a skill that can be practiced. I spoke to him about how
to get started.
Questions and answers have been edited and condensed for
clarity.
What does it mean to forgive someone?My working definition is just to replace ill will toward the
offender with good will. Forgiveness is not forgetting the action or pretending
it did not happen; it is not excusing or condoning the action, and it’s not the
same as reconciling or forgoing justice. One can forgive while still pursuing a
just outcome.
The workbook in the study relies heavily on the work of one
of your study co-authors, Everett Worthington, who has a remarkable forgiveness
story himself: His mother was murdered in the mid-1990s, and he forgave the
perpetrator. What are some of the core strategies?
One is to recall the hurt, do not try to suppress it.
Another is to try and empathize with the offender — without condoning them or
invalidating your own feelings.
Easier said than done!One exercise is to set up two chairs and pretend the
offender is in one of them. After describing what happened from your
perspective, you sit in the chair of the offender and describe what happened
from theirs. It can be a bit unsettling, but it is a very powerful experience.
Do you think people can get better at forgiveness over
time?It is possible to move to a more forgiving disposition — to
think, How do I want to interact with the world more generally? This is most
certainly not going to be the last time I am hurt or offended by others, so
when this happens again, might I be in a better position to forgive?
In a society like the one we are living in, with increasing
polarization and animosity, that disposition to forgive is potentially very
much needed.
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