(photo: Muhammad Abdullah Iftikhar, 2017)

How do I even start? What makes an effective forgiveness process different from one that doesn’t have good results is that an effective process has needed steps, in a needed sequence, with each step defined in the certain way that it needs to be defined. Fortunately, scientists have done a fair amount of research into what makes for an effective forgiveness process and have passed along the essentials to us in processes like the combined REACH Forgiveness Process and Guideposts for Forgiving that can be taught in Live and Forgive presentations, guided retreats, small group series, and wilderness walks. As research-based and effective processes for full and lasting forgiveness, both the REACH Forgiveness Process and the Guideposts for Forgiving process tell us what needs to happen in an initial first step toward forgiveness. In a very important way, the research also clarifies for us that the first step in forgiveness is the first step — not some other step somewhere. If you want to unburden yourself from the negative emotions of unforgiveness, and live your faith, you gotta take the right first step and none other.

In a first step toward forgiveness of a person for a hurtful event, or many hurtful events over time, we need to do essentially four things:

• narrow down our forgiveness to a specific event
• recall the specific event as clearly as we can
• engage thoughtfully with recalled circumstances of the event
• connect with our past and present emotions (embodied experiences) in response to the event

In doing these essential parts of the first step in forgiveness, each needs a full effort and completion with real engagement. Researchers consistently advise that each step and its parts need to be given the time that they need. Instead of minutes or hours, that could mean days or even weeks, I addition, writing your experience of each essential part in a journal gives form and structure to your experience in a way that helps make sure you really are engaged and completing each essential part in full.

The Guideposts for Forgiving process developed by researcher Robert Enwright, and integrated in Live and Forgive presentations, guided retreats, small group series and wilderness walks, structures a series of questions for a person to consider and respond to in writing in their journal, so that they can take the initial step for forgiveness. There are no right or wrong answers to each question, as only you can know the answer. What is important is answering each question as honestly and fully as you can. Here is my adaptation of the questions along with some additional thoughts that I want to share with you:

Who hurt you? You can begin your first engagement with a forgiveness process with anyone who hurt you. Most people choose the person who angers them the most or who has hurt them most, but sometimes it is easier to build up to that and use the process with someone else in mind who has not hurt you as much. If it helps and it’s not retraumatizing, imagine the person sitting in a chair next to you. You can also start using a forgiveness process by looking at the course of your life, and starting either with the first person you recall hurting you, and then moving forward in time, or starting with the most recent person who hurt you, and gradually making your way back to hurtful events many years ago or in your childhood. In any of these approaches, be sure to write in your journal, as accurately as possible, the identity of the person who hurt you and who you are going to focus on in your forgiveness process. Sometimes that includes the name of the person, sometimes not.

How deeply are you hurt? This is about recognizing how much hurt the person and event caused you. Was it a lot, or a little, or somewhere in between? As best as you can, think about how hurt you felt, and what that experience of hurt was like for you. It could be that you experienced the hurt in the event and experienced lingering hurt and suffering since the event as well. Both kinds of hurt may have impacted your life and relationships in different ways, causing secondary hurt or suffering in sort of a chain reaction. Consider that as well. Take time to go inside and take an honest look, and write in your journal your assessment of how much hurt you have experienced.

Which hurtful event will be your focus? Pick a single hurtful event to focus upon. Researcher Robert Enwright suggests that the first deeply hurtful event is the place to start. Clearly identify the event in your journal, giving the event a name of its own if that is helpful.

What are the specifics of the hurtful event? Forgiveness researcher Everett Worthington built recalling the event as the “R” in his REACH Forgiveness Process, in addition to it being in Robert Enwright’s Guideposts for Forgiving at this point. Both models include recalling the event because it is crucial to beginning the process of full and lasting forgiveness. In the REACH Forgiveness Process, it is recommended to begin this step with prayer, and the same foes for how I teach it in Live and Forgive. Prayer is a way of remembering that God is our constant companion, always present and always at our side, and especially to be our helper (Psalm 118). Pray also to enter into memory with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The specific words for your prayer are not important, just your setting of intention to remember that God is at your side and helping you, and that the Holy Spirit is your guide. After prayer, begin to remember the event as clearly as possible, every detail that you can remember. Create a complete picture in your mind’s eye. Be aware of your feelings in recalling the event, both how you felt at the time, and how you feel in the moment recalling the event. It may be helpful to keep a sense of calm by intentionally keeping your breathing slow and deep. If you are experiencing your feelings as being too much to manage. it is OK to take a break and try it again later. You may decide that you need some help to do this step from a friend or eve a therapist — and becoming aware of that is a good thing that you should follow up on. As much a as you can clearly recall the event, write as much detail as possible in your journal.

Who had a part in making the situation? Hurtful events can be complicated situations in which both the person who hurt you and yourself played a part in making the situation have potential for someone to get hurt. For example, heated arguments and fights where both people are angry and saying things to cut the other person down to size also create a situation where someone is probably going to get hurt. It doesn’t necessarily justify someone getting hurt, but it makes it more likely that it will happen. In recalling an event, we may be quick to focus just on the person who hurt us and not consider our own part in the event. If in recalling the event you see that you also had a part in making the situation likely for someone to get hurt (and it turned out to be you), be honest with yourself and own your part. It might be a difficult thing to admit, but it is important for the forgiveness process. If you had a part in making the situation more likely for someone to get hurt, include that in your journal in as much detail as you can.

Where else did the hurt come from? Sometimes we feel hurt clearly because someone else did something that was unjustified and used words or actions that the person intended to cause us to feel hurt, whether anger or sadness or other negative emotions. It is also possible that our feeling of being hurt also comes from sensitivities we keep with in ourselves. Someone can push our buttons even accidentally, without knowing it. Or, we may be walking around with a chip on our shoulder, ready to react angrily to even a possibility of a hurt or offense directed at us. A common example of this is plain ol’ everyday stress, and the way it makes us more sensitive and reactive Another possibility is that we hold certain expectations for the way people act, a “should” in our minds, that makes us more easily hurt or offended when people don’t live up to that expectation. Ideas and beliefs about fairness are an example of an expectation that we can carry with us and that might make us more vulnerable to disappointment and hurt when people do not act in accord with our idea of fairness. Like owning our part in making a situation more likely for someone to get hurt, it is important for us to own whether and how much of our own vulnerabilities and sensitivities (buttons and chips), or our own expectations of others and ideas about fairness, are part of the hurt that we feel. I want to be super clear that this step is not saying that you are wrong, or a bad person, or at fault for a hurt, because you have vulnerabilities and sensitivities, or expectations and ideas of fairness. That is not the intent and not true. You are human, and part of experiencing that is having vulnerabilities and sensitivities, as well as expectations of others and ideas about fairness. What we want to do in this step is just to make sure that if they are involved in our emotions about a hurtful event, we acknowledge that, explore it fully as something important involved in the situation, and have a better picture of everything that is involved in our experience of the hurtful event. Again, get the details written into your journal. as clearly and as fully as you are able.

So, now …

If you’ve given these questions a sincere and full effort, you have really done a good job of recalling a hurtful event as the first step in the forgiveness process. Whether it was a smaller even with not a lot of impact for you, or a hurtful event that had profound impact on you, you created a full picture of what was involved, including both the things outside of you that were involved, and the things within you that were involved and maybe are still involved. It may have taken a lot of work and self-care to work your way through the questions, and you should feel a sense of accomplishment for having done so. The questions require time, effort and energy, perhaps no small amount of courage, and leaning into your trust of God as your constant companion and helper. There is no way around the first step of forgiveness, no way under it and no way over it, only a way through it — and you did it! You may already have some inklings or stirrings of new ways to see the event, the person who hurt you, and importantly maybe some new ways to see yourself and your life. The next step in the forgiveness process will use these new ways of seeing as the basis for the next thing needed in the forgiveness process — empathy.

This text is an original work of its author Tom Delaney and was entirely composed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

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If your parish or faith community is seeking a deeper experience of healing, mercy, and spiritual renewal, Live and Forgive is here to help. To begin the conversation, email Live and Forgive presenter and facilitator Tom Delaney at tom@liveandforgive.com—Tom will be glad to connect with you in a spirit of welcome, respect, and shared faith.