Heroes Not Zombies

In “Sens et Santé” magazine there’s a special feature on Forgiveness, or, in French, “Pardon”.

Psychologists, philosophers and spiritual guides often teach about the power of gratitude. Keeping a gratitude diary, for example, where you note down a list of things you are grateful for each day is a powerful way to fix your attention on the positives in your life, and to break free from the negative loops of rumination and despair.
Forgiveness, is a related, but different skill. Somehow, or at least so it seems to me, it’s not talked about as much as gratitude is. Maybe because forgiveness is more deeply connected to religious teaching? I don’t know.
Whatever the reasons, I think this feature in “Sens et Santé” is very welcome, and timely, given the depth and breadth of feelings of anger, resentment and hatred which we are witnessing at this time in the world.

The article is primarily based on the works of Thomas Baumgartner, a researcher in neuroscience at the University of Berne, in Switzerland, and Robert Enright, Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, in the United States.

I took two main points of learning from my reading of it.
One is the connection between forgiveness and the brain’s capacity for “theory of mind”. It seems the same network of areas in the brain is active when either forgiveness or “theory of mind” is taking place. Theory of mind is the ability to imagine another’s experience, their thoughts and feelings. It develops in human beings around the age of four years old. Before that we think that whatever we know everyone else knows. There’s no understanding that someone else might have different knowledge from our own. There’s a clue in this neurological association, because forgiveness involves the ability to step outside of our own circuits of rumination and self-focus.
That’s the second point of learning for me, actually, and it takes up much of the article.
Robert Enright says it is important not to confound forgiveness with reconciliation. Reconciliation is the bringing together of two people to help them to rebuild confidence in each other. Forgiveness, he says, in contrast, doesn’t require us to have confidence in the other person. He also points out that forgiveness is not about excusing someone, it’s not about saying what they did was fine, nor is it about forgetting. It’s not about saying “I don’t care”, or “I’ll let go and just not think about this any more”
Instead he describes forgiveness in three steps.

1. First, recognise the wound, or the hurt.
2. Second, decide to stop nourishing the negative feelings of resentment.
3. Third, and he says, this is the hardest part, feel compassion for the perpetrator.

Helpfully, he unpacks both steps two and three to show how they are both powerfully linked and actually work together in a kind of positive feedback loop. The one, enhancing the other.
We can only shift our attention, if we direct it somewhere else. That’s a beginning. Deciding, I’m going to interrupt the negative loop. When I become aware of thoughts of resentment and rumination, that I decide at that point to focus on something else.
What else?
Well, towards the other person. Think about both their differences from you, and their commonalities with you, and, if you can, learn about their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses. Once you understand what you have in common with the other, as well as what’s different about them, and focus on their weaknesses, then it is easier to feel compassion for them. It’s easier to even build feelings of good intention towards them, suspending your legitimate claims to vengeance and anger, and choosing instead wish them well.
Oh, that sounds easy in a sentence of two doesn’t it? But he accepts that this, third step is by far and away the hardest. It’s not a magic wand he says. It takes willpower, continued effort, and time. It’s not a quick fix.

The article comes with a nice little set of references at the end, and despite the fact it’s a French language article, the references are all English language ones. Here they are –