Transcription:
Doing the Work of Forgiveness

Melanie:  Welcome to Stoughton Health Talk. I'm Melanie Cole. And in this series today, we're discussing doing the work of forgiveness. Joining me is Tim Markle. He's the founder of Forgiveness Factor and an instructor at Stoughton Health and a contributor to the International Forgiveness Institute. Tim, it's a pleasure to have you on for this very important series on forgiveness that we're doing.

So we've talked about various aspects of it, preparing, getting ready. Now we're time to talk about doing the work of forgiveness. So what can you do? What do you do once you've decided to forgive?

Tim Markle: So one of the things that you're going to find, Melanie, if you look around is there are different models of forgiveness. And a lot of these models these days are backed with scientific studies. One of the models that I'd like to use is from Dr. Robert Enright who's with the International Forgiveness Institute and he breaks forgiving into four different phases.

So first I'd just like to introduce the phase and then we can dig into a little bit about whichever phase that you think would be the most interesting today. But first there's an uncovering phase where we try to figure out why is it that we're feeling this way. A decision phase, what are we going to do about it? Then there's the work phase where we start to put our mind and our body and our emotions toward healing. And then there's the deepening phase, which happens at the end of the forgiveness journey. So is one of those hitting you today that you'd like to talk about?

Melanie: Well, I mean, I like them all because these are all things that all of us are going through. Is there a way you can hit all three of them?

Tim Markle: Absolutely. So in the uncovering phase, what we're looking for is a realization, one, that I had been hurt, that I had been unjustly hurt. And so it's identifying the offender. This is important because it's really hard to just forgive globally. It helps if you forgive a person. And so we want to focus on that one person that you're working on forgiving. And so we look back say, "Okay, how was I hurt? How much did that hurt affect me? How much did it change the way that I feel? And then, you know, how am I going to move on from this? How is it affecting me today?"

So then in the decision phase, what we do is we look at what we've been trying to do, which some people deal with this resentment and this hurt and this anger through drinking, through distancing themselves, through anger. There's a lot of different ways. And usually it's very defensive, is we're just trying to fend ourselves. In the decision phase, we come to a point where we say, "What I've been doing isn't working. I still have all this anger. I have all this resentment. It's affecting my life and I hate it. I'm going to try something different. I'm willing to try forgiveness." And that's when they enter into the work phase.

One of the first things in the work phase is trying to take a better look, a different look at who the person is. So this is where we talk about rehumanizing the offender. Are they more than just their actions? We start to work toward laying out their humanity. Are they similar to us? Are they worthy of respect? And we start talking about how everybody has inherent worth. And hopefully through this discovering this work, they are feeling more empathy and compassion toward the offender.

And so if we can get to the point where somebody is feeling the person that hurt them is no longer a monster, they're human being, they have inherent worth, I can start to feel something other than anger, maybe a little compassionate and empathy. And then the next part of work phase is "Well, how can we react differently to the person?" And this is where we encourage people to, "Is there a way that you can show mercy or love towards the person that you offended?" Because these days, what we're used to is, "If you hurt me, I'm going to hurt you worse." And then we get to the point of, "I'm going to hurt you first, just so you don't hurt me." And so by offering this gift of goodness to someone who has hurt us, we are totally flipping the tables on that relationship. We know we're giving them what they don't deserve, because we're not letting them off the hook, but we're returning mercy in place of that pain.

And then the fourth part of the work phase is the pain. Sometimes I talk about how we're leaky people, how our pain that other people have inflicted on us just starts to spread across our life and people that have no reason to be in the way of our anger, they get hurt by our anger. We leak all over them. And so we make a choice to look at how is the pain that I have been inflicted, "How can I keep that to me? How can I deal with it? How can I get better for it? How can I stop spreading it?" And that's all we talk about when we talk about bearing the pain. And so that's where a lot of the work takes place while obviously in the work phase.

Melanie: Wow. You know, it's so interesting to hear you say humanizing, because some people definitely are not ready to, as you say, humanize the person or forgive. Now, when we're talking about actually forgiving someone, what if, and you say we're not letting them off the hook, but what if they are not worthy of our forgiveness or they are not going to forgive us for what they deem, because right now, Tim, certainly half the country is at war with the other and nobody's willing to forgive anyone and both sides think they're wrong or the other side is wrong. So how do you forgive someone who also thinks you are wrong?

Tim Markle: Well, usually the person that hurt us didn't hurt us because they were having a great day. There's a phrase out there called hurt people hurt people. And so understanding that when somebody is inflicting harm on us, they are probably not being their best self. They are probably not being who they are, but there are those circumstances where people are just mean where there are some mean people out there and there's people that are going to disagree with us and we're going to disagree with.

But can we come to -- Can I come, no we -- Can I come to an understanding that no matter what that person says or does, they have inherent worth. That they are worthy of respect, not because of what they've done or what they haven't done, but because they are human, because they share humanity with me. Forgiveness doesn't depend on the other person coming forth and saying I'm sorry. We can forgive even without them saying they're sorry. We can forgive without them even knowing that we're forgiving them, is it's a work that we do that is for them. It's a gift to them, but it really affects our life in major ways when we take that step.

So it's a disagreement going on. I think everybody needs to step back, take a deep breath and say, "Yeah, we're divided. We have all these different camps. We have all these different tribes. We have all these different parties," but what are we at the core? At the core, we share this humanity. At the core, we get rained on and we get sunshined on. At the core, we all get hungry. At the core, we all get sad. At the core, we've all been disappointed. We have all these common things that we share.

And so we have this common humanity that we go back to. We say, "Yes, that person has done wrong," but that wrong does not take away their human card. It does not mean I get to kick them off the planet, I get to decide they're less than human. They retain that basic humanity and that inherent worth no matter their actions.

Melanie: That's so hard to do. I can tell you from personal experience, Tim, but I'm listening to you and I'm going to play these podcasts in this whole forgiveness series that we're doing for a lot of people I know. So before we wrap up and using Dr. Enright's forgiveness model that you've mentioned in previous podcasts, talk about the path you take, the actions that you make to forgive.

Tim Markle: So I can tell you what I did on my personal path, sort of with the Enright model. And that said, I had to come to realization. I had a lot of trouble with my dad. He was an alcoholic. He wasn't really around when I was growing up. And so I had a lot of resentment toward him and I hated him. Let's just be blunt about it. I really hated my dad.

The first thing I had to do was come to a realization that his life growing up wasn't easy either. I knew his dad, his dad was not a great person at times. He struggled with alcohol or was he choosing that? Or by the time that I was born, did the alcohol already have control over him and it was running his life. Could I find any redeeming qualities in him? Did he do anything good? And I gradually started to look at him in a new way, is I decided that I couldn't just sit back and say, "You're an evil person. You're you smell like a brewery. You smell like a smoke stack, blah, blah, blah. You're horrible." I had to change my point of view of who he was. And I had to think that he could be more than what my image of him is.

And so by opening up my eyes and looking at him in a new way, I discovered that I could have a relationship with them. It was not the relationship that I thought I wanted growing up, because that was already gone, but could I start a new relationship with him? And eventually, we moved from forgiveness to reconciliation, which is when both parties admit that there was wrong done, and they want to restart that relationship.

Melanie: Wow. That is an incredible story you just shared with us today, Tim. I want to thank you so much for that. And we're going to continue this series in other podcasts. So listeners, you know, keep listening to this whole series and share these shows with your friends and family, because I think right now of all of the times, we all need to learn a little forgiveness and that doesn't matter what your situation is. I'm sure we can all learn from these podcasts. So thank you so much, Tim, for sharing that with us today. And you can head over to our website at stoughtonhealth.com and forgivenessfactor.org for more information. Always remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast and all the other Stoughton Hospital podcasts. I'm Melanie Cole.