by: Christopher Oestmann & Connor Vincent

 

Themes Summary

Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. However forgiveness does not only mean forgiving others but forgiving yourself as well. Self forgiveness is also a very important part of life. Not only is self forgiveness good for its gratitude but also for the health reasons as well. In this Wiki, there are journals, books, videos, and websites that accurately depict the meaning of forgiveness for oneself as well as others. They also go into depth of the many benefits of forgiveness for the average person as well as others with different backgrounds from the average person. The benefits provided show a positive increase in physical, mental, emotional, and social health and wellness. With all of the given data provided below, one can come to realize that forgiveness is essential to living a healthy life. Without it, there is a much greater chance of someone developing disease, stress, rapid ageing, and more. Knowing all of these potential benefits and harms will hopefully make anyone who does not believe in forgiveness to soon reconsider. Who doesn't want to live a long, happy, and healthy life?

(Christopher Oestmann & Connor Vincent)

 

 

Articles

 

http://rsw.sagepub.com/content/18/5/465.full.pdf+html

The Dark Side of Forgiveness: The Tendency to Forgive Predicts Continued Psychological and Physical Aggression in Marriage

James K. McNulty University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin June 1, 2011 37: 770-783

 

This article goes over the fact that scholars know very little about the potential negative implications of forgiveness. Negative implications include offenders who have been forgiven feel as though they can offend again. This article goes to show that demonstrating forgiveness is not a fix all solution. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

 

http://irv.sagepub.com/content/19/3/235.full.pdf+html

'Forgiveness is a present to yourself as well': An intrapersonal model of forgiveness in victims of violent crime

Courtney Field, Jaimie Zander and Guy Hall

International Review of Victimology 2013 19: 235 originally published online 3 July 2013

 

The article covers victims of crime and how forgiveness does not accommodate much at all. The study that was done as a part of this article found that victims generally thought forgiveness was both positive and helpful in the recovery process. This article mentions forgiveness being comprised of four parts, being aware of the problem, letting go of the problem, changing ones perspective of the problem, and moving on from the problem. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

 

http://www.gelfand.umd.edu/FehrGelfand.pdf

The Road to Forgiveness: A Meta-Analytic Synthesis of Its Situational and Dispositional Correlates

Ryan Fehr, Michele J. Gelfand, and Monisha Nag

Psychological Bulletin © 2010 American Psychological Association 2010, Vol. 136, No. 5, 894–914

 

Analyzing results from one hundred and seventy five studies and over twenty thousand participants in order to examine the correlation between personal relationships and forgiveness pertaining to forgiveness of the offender by the victim. Many factors where taken into account such as the participants age, gender, and characteristics. Methodology was shown to have the most effect. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

 

Process-Based Forgiveness Interventions: A Meta-Analytic Review (2008) 

http://rsw.sagepub.com/content/18/5/465.short 

 

In this article, a test was done to investigate the impact of forgiveness with people who had suffered because of betrayals, offenses, or victimization. In the end, it shows that the people given the forgiveness therapy had increases in hope and positive emotions and relief from negative emotions, cognition's, and behaviors. (Connor Vincent)

 

 

Self-Forgiveness in the Recovery of Israeli Drug-Addicted Mothers (2013) 

http://jod.sagepub.com/content/43/4/450.abstract

 

This article suggests that self-forgiveness can play an important role for the recovery of a drug addicted mother. It is said that getting rid of guilt is also an important part to rejuvenating a mothers self identity. (Connor Vincent)

 

 

Forgiveness Is a Present to Yourself As Well (2013)

 http://irv.sagepub.com/content/19/3/235.abstract

 

 This article gives the meaning of forgiveness from the perspective of victims of crime. It showed that these victims thought of forgiveness to be positive and beneficial. Forgiveness was comprised of four parts: self-awareness, letting go, perspective-taking and moving on. Each of these were then examined and contrasted with existing data. (Connor Vincent)

 

 

Books

 

Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve by Lewis B. Smedes

 

This book covers being able to recover and moving beyond ones feelings of hurt and anger. Smedes shows that it is possible to heal our pain and find room in our hearts to forgive. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

Forgiveness Is a Choice by Robert D. Enright  

This book for helping people who have been deeply hurt by another and gets caught in these negative feelings of anger and hate. Enright shows how forgiveness can reduce anxiety and depression with his how to guide. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

Total Forgiveness by R. T. Kendall

This book shows a Christian alternative of finding forgiveness for those around you who might have hurt by searching the word of God and finding what the gospel has to say on forgiveness. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

 

Forgiveness/ Loving the Inner Child by Louise L. Hay

 

 

Louise Hay relaxes you with the book she has written enabling you to learn to forgive others resulting in being able to love yourself. She explains that it is important to love yourself because your inner child depends on it. It depends on you for love and approval. Being able to love and forgive brings many positive changes to the quality of your life. (Connor Vincent)

 

 

Forgiving Yourself by Beverly Flanigan

Beverly Flanigan gives a step-by-step guide to making peace with your mistakes and getting on with your life. It explains that forgiving yourself eliminates self-defeating behavior. She teaches how to forgive our mistakes which can help us to heal our relationships, and get on with becoming the best we can be.(Connor Vincent)

 

 

Forgiving the Unforgivable: Overcoming the Bitter Legacy of Intimate Wounds by Beverly Flanigan

 

In this book, Beverly Flanigan defines what unforgivable injuries are, explains the terrible effects they can cause, and then guides you out of the unforgiving anger and resentment. After many years of teaching, researching, and conducting professional workshops and seminars, Flanigan has come up with unique six-stage program, which this book is built upon. This book is a very practical and a comforting guide to recovery and healing. (Connor Vincent)

 

Media Elements

 

In this passionate talk, Jennifer Rawlings shares her life lessons and experiences from doing stand-up for soldiers in war zones and areas of political tension around the globe. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

 

In this video, Libby Hoffman shows how her work focuses on finding ways to help the world engage with the lessons of justice, forgiveness, and community restoration embodied by Fambul Tok. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

 

Coming from my hometown of Sedona, Lori Rubenstein shares some life stories and how she has learned to forgive the unforgivable. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

 

 

Lisabeth Medlock is a healthy life coach that talks to viewers about living healthy and feeling good about oneself. In this video, she talks about the practice of forgiving. She explains how it is a very hard task to do especially when thinking about someone who really hurt you and how it seems to be impossible to ever forgive them. Holding back leads to negative emotions and energy ultimate meaning that others are controlling your life because of your resentment. It was a good video because she is a very knowledgeable person. (Connor Vincent)

 

  

 

In this video, Noah Elkrief gives very helpful information on how to immediately forgive oneself. He starts off saying how people do in fact want to forgive themselves because they feel angry, sad, and/or bad about what happened. The 2 questions he focuses on are:

Will what I did end up bad? It could be good in the long run for whatever reason.

Am I to blame for what happened?

He goes into depth of how to turn a negative situation into positive. (Connor Vincent)

 

 

 

In this short video, Dr. Gary Daniel explains that forgiveness is not about saying that what someone did is okay but rather to let it go out of your life and to not put anymore negative energy towards it. He explains that everyone is doing the best that they can in life and maybe what they did then was the best that they could do. By not giving anymore negative energy towards something, you are able to live a healthier life. (Connor Vincent)

 

Websites

 

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/adult-health/in-depth/forgiveness/art-20047692 - This website is a good way to see how to let things go and forgive those who have done you wrong. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/forgiveness - This website gives about ten links to articles on either forgiving yourself or forgiving others. It is a great way to find general information on forgiveness overall. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

http://theforgivenessproject.com/ - The Forgiveness Project is a charity focused on conflict resolution and reconciliation. (Christopher Oestmann)

 

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/adult-health/in-depth/forgiveness/art-20047692 - This page gives a good idea of what forgiveness is and how to achieve it. It an easy to understand definition of what forgiveness is. It also gives the benefits for forgiving someone along with why it is so easy to hold a grudge against that person and what that grudge can cause. Lastly, it gives you a way to reach that state of forgiveness. It is a good source because it is short and straight to the point. (Connor Vincent)

 

http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/emotional-intelligence/self-forgiveness?5509 - This page is good for understanding the judgment on yourself as to why you feel that you are unable to forgive yourself. It is a good way of showing what needs to be done in order to forgive yourself. In a way, it is like the appetizer to forgiveness. It gets you on the right track. (Connor Vincent)

 

 http://www.oprah.com/spirit/8-Ways-to-Forgive-and-Forget -   Karen Salmansohn gives a variety of ways that will help someone to forgive and forget. It isn’t necessary to use all 8 of these steps in order to forgive however, the more you do, the better you’ll be. Also, at the beginning of the page she has a very short story of someone who immediately forgives for someone’s wrongdoing and when asked why she says, a happy man wouldn't have thoughtlessly done that. The story is very true! (Connor Vincent)

 

Original Creations

 

Diamond Poem on Forgiveness (Christopher Oestmann)

Resentment

Anger, Hatred

Fighting, Crying, Suffering

If you do not find Forgiveness, Resentment is all you will have.

Hugging, Smiling, Healing

Happiness, Justice

Forgiveness

 

 

Practicing Foregiveness by connor.pptx (Connor Vincent)