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Three Steps of Forgiveness

September 19, 2018
Three Steps of Forgiveness
To break the cycle of abuse, victims need to go through a three-step process to achieve forgiveness. Understanding the true nature of forgiveness helps prevent victims from becoming perpetrators, in response to their trauma, or remaining trapped in the role of victim.
 
3 STEPS OF FORGIVENESS
 
  • Validation 
  • Cancellation
  • Empathy 
It's All About You: Validation
 
Forgiveness is for you, comes from you and is your responsibility to yourself. In other words, it's all about you! To forgive, one must first become aware of and acknowledge the offense that was committed and how it has devalued you. This process is called validation and without it, there is nothing to forgive.
 
One cannot cancel a debt they don’t know exists, which is why validation is the first step toward forgiveness. Everyone is different, and whether it takes moments or years to validate loss, it is essential that time not be a factor in the equation.
 
You Were Wronged: Cancellation
 
To cancel a debt means accepting that you are releasing your right to collect something which was unjustly taken. It's recognition that even if what was stolen is returned the emotional and personal cost cannot be fully restored.
 
For example, even if a thief returns money they stole, the experience cannot be undone (even if compensation or therapy happens). Cancellation is the acceptance that the psychological trauma cannot be unexperienced.
 
It's important to note, debt cancellation need not be communicated to the offender, because forgiveness is for your benefit not theirs. It's also crucial to understand that forgiveness doesn't automatically lead to reconcilliation between the victim and the perpetrator. Reconcilliation is a separate process, something only the wrongdoer has the responsibility to initiate. It is an obligation the wrongdoer should pursue and is never the victim's responsibility to strive for or accept.
 
Empathy Empowers You: Empathy
 
Empathy is the last step and is the ability to sense and understand emotions of another by imagining what they might be thinking or feeling. When applied to forgiveness of a perpetrator, the victim experiences the inherent injustice of forgiveness because they are expected to feel empathetic emotions for a person who showed no regard for them.
 
However, if one views empathy as compassion for the human condition, which we all suffer from, then it begins to seem plausible to achieve. Empathy is what frees a victim from the mental grip the perpetrator’s unjust actions have over them.
 
Be careful not to confuse empathy with sympathy. Sympathy is feeling sorry for the culprit and is often equated with pity. In the Greek, "sym" means together and "pathos" refers to the emotional experience of being "moved" or "affected." This shared emotional response can lead to emotional entanglement, becoming overwhelmed by another person's pain or brokeness. Sympathy is merging with the trespassers sorrow, often through pity, which keep you trapped in their emotional orbit. 
 
Empathy, by contrast, comes from the greek "em" (meaning "in") and "pathos." It is the ability to enter into someone else's emotional experience and not be overwhelmed by it but understand it from within. "Pathos" in empathy becomes a powerful tool for insight, not entanglement. It allows you to recognize the humanity of the one who harmed you without losing yourself in their pain. Empathy engages your emotional intelligence, your ability to hold space for another's story, while maintaining your own sense of wholeness.
 
Again differentiating between empathy and sympathy is crucial as sympathy blurs emotional boundaries and entangles you with the perpetrator through sorrow and guilt. Empathy, on the other hand, helps you understand the perpetrator's brokeness without excusing it, ultimately freeing yourself from their grip and allowing you to move forward. 
 
Makes You Whole: Forgiveness
 
Remember, forgiveness is for your benefit and is an issue of the heart, which means nothing needs to be communicated to the offender. Having empathy does not excuse the perpetrator's behavior, nor is it an act of victim blaming. Instead empathy empowers you to move fully through forgiveness, so you can live from a place of healing and peace rather than trauma.
 
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by Bonnie Penner
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