1 00:00:00,789 --> 00:00:05,410 Anyone familiar with Italian opera or the plays of Shakespeare knows the terrible price 2 00:00:05,410 --> 00:00:11,580 paid for grudges, vendetta, and revenge. Under the sway of these emotions painful incidents 3 00:00:11,580 --> 00:00:16,400 linger in the mind, sapping our ability to find peace and happiness. 4 00:00:16,500 --> 00:00:23,440 The 18th century English poet, Alexander Pope, gave us the antidote: " to err is human, to forgive divine." 5 00:00:23,450 --> 00:00:28,970 But finding a way to forgive without giving up our principles is often no easy task. 6 00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:34,520 In this course, I am going to address what forgiveness is and how to implement it. 7 00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:38,840 I'll be speaking here about forgiveness where it most often is needed -- in the context 8 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:45,420 of your every day personal life with family members, friends, co-workers, and business associates. 9 00:00:45,580 --> 00:00:50,260 One of our challenges in understanding this process is that the word -- forgiveness -- 10 00:00:50,340 --> 00:00:56,820 is inadequate to explain a very complex concept. Forgiveness actually embodies three different things, 11 00:00:56,820 --> 00:01:02,190 each of which applies to different situations and provides different results. 12 00:01:02,190 --> 00:01:04,990 The three types of forgiveness are: 13 00:01:05,060 --> 00:01:07,580 Exoneration Forbearance 14 00:01:07,580 --> 00:01:09,060 and Release 15 00:01:09,060 --> 00:01:11,140 Let's take each in turn. 16 00:01:11,300 --> 00:01:16,720 Exoneration is the closest to what we usually think of when we say "forgiveness". 17 00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:23,380 Exoneration is wiping the slate entirely clean and restoring a relationship to the full state of innocence 18 00:01:23,390 --> 00:01:31,310 it had before the harmful actions took place. There are three common situations in which exoneration applies. 19 00:01:31,500 --> 00:01:35,670 The first takes place when you realize that the harmful action was a genuine accident 20 00:01:35,670 --> 00:01:38,820 for which no fault can be assigned. 21 00:01:38,820 --> 00:01:43,740 The second is when the offender is a child or someone else who, for whatever reason, 22 00:01:43,740 --> 00:01:49,820 simply didn't understand the hurt they were inflicting, and toward whom you have loving feelings. 23 00:01:49,900 --> 00:01:53,340 The third situation occurs when the person who hurt you is 24 00:01:53,340 --> 00:01:58,640 • Truly sorry, • Takes full responsibility (without excuses) 25 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:01,950 for what they did, • Asks forgiveness, 26 00:02:01,950 --> 00:02:07,530 • And gives you confidence that they will not knowingly repeat their bad action in the future. 27 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:12,800 In all such situations it is essential to accept their apology and offer them the complete 28 00:02:12,810 --> 00:02:19,209 forgiveness of exoneration. You'll feel better and so will the person who hurt you. In fact, 29 00:02:19,209 --> 00:02:24,069 not to offer forgiveness in these circumstances would be harmful to your own well-being. 30 00:02:24,220 --> 00:02:27,380 It might even suggest that there is something more wrong with you 31 00:02:27,420 --> 00:02:30,880 than with the person who caused you pain. 32 00:02:30,889 --> 00:02:37,669 The second type of forgiveness I call "forbearance." And here things get a little more complicated. 33 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:42,820 Forbearance applies when the offender makes a partial apology or mingles their expression 34 00:02:42,829 --> 00:02:48,689 of sorrow with blame that you somehow caused them to behave badly. An apology is offered 35 00:02:48,689 --> 00:02:54,260 but it's not what you had hoped for and may not even be fully authentic. While you should 36 00:02:54,260 --> 00:03:00,430 always reflect on whether there was a provocation on your part, even when you bear no responsibility 37 00:03:00,430 --> 00:03:07,390 you should exercise forbearance if the relationship matters to you. Cease dwelling on the particular offense, 38 00:03:07,460 --> 00:03:13,239 do away with grudges and fantasies of revenge, but retain a degree of watchfulness. 39 00:03:13,239 --> 00:03:20,639 This is similar to "forgive but not forget" or "trust but verify." By using forbearance 40 00:03:20,689 --> 00:03:27,909 you are able to maintain ties to people who, while far from perfect, are still important to you. 41 00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:31,760 Furthermore, in some cases after a sufficient period of good behavior,rise 42 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:36,819 forbearance can to exoneration and full forgiveness. 43 00:03:36,819 --> 00:03:40,269 But what do you do when the person who hurt you doesn't even acknowledge that they've 44 00:03:40,269 --> 00:03:48,169 done anything wrong or gives an obviously insincere apology, making no reparations whatsoever? 45 00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:53,139 These are the cases of forgiveness that are the most challenging. In my practice, I find 46 00:03:53,139 --> 00:03:58,010 this in such examples as adult survivors of child abuse, business people who have been 47 00:03:58,010 --> 00:04:03,150 cheated by their partners, or friends or relatives who have betrayed one another. 48 00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:10,520 Still, even here there still is a solution. I call it "release" -- the third type of forgiveness. 49 00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:15,240 Release does not exonerate the offender. Nor does it require forbearance. 50 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:21,080 It doesn't even demand that you continue the relationship. But it does ask that you, instead of continuing 51 00:04:21,090 --> 00:04:26,090 to define much of your life in terms of the hurt done, allows you to release bad feelings 52 00:04:26,090 --> 00:04:30,070 and your preoccupation with the negative things that may have happened to you. 53 00:04:30,140 --> 00:04:35,240 Release does something that is critically important: it allows you to let go of the burden, 54 00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:40,160 the "silent tax" that is weighing you down and eating away at your chance for happiness. 55 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:44,720 If you do not release the pain and anger and move past dwelling on old hurts and betrayals, 56 00:04:44,730 --> 00:04:50,030 you will be allowing the ones who hurt you to live, rent free, in your mind, 57 00:04:50,100 --> 00:04:55,460 reliving forever the persecution that the original incident started. 58 00:04:55,560 --> 00:05:00,340 Whether you get there through your own efforts, through psychotherapy, through religion 59 00:05:00,440 --> 00:05:06,300 or some other method, release liberates you from the tyranny of living in the traumatic past 60 00:05:06,300 --> 00:05:12,580 even when the other forms of forgiveness, exoneration and forebearance, are not possible. 61 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:14,000 Exoneration 62 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:15,200 Forbearance 63 00:05:15,250 --> 00:05:17,390 Release 64 00:05:17,390 --> 00:05:25,010 To forgive may be divine, but when we understand its dimensions we find that it is within our ability to do it. 65 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:30,400 I'm Dr. Stephen Marmer of UCLA Medical School, for Prager University.