Have you ever had someone apologize to you, and then afterwards get the sense thay they were not sincere? Or do you ever get pressured to forgive someone, when you know that they don't deserve it? When Sinead O'Connor sang about the Irish famine, she rapped about the philosophy of forgiveness, and here I take her words of wisdom, and formalize them into five steps.
The first step of forgiveness is an honest admission of guilt. Here, the offender knows exactly what they did wrong, and accepts the fact that their behaviour was unacceptable. This is a remarkable realization, because anyone can make a mistake, but only a developed person will come to terms with it. Just like the man who falls down, anyone can fall, but respect is given to the man or woman who picks themselves up. The next step is the apology. The person apologizing must not only utter the words, but also find a time and space to deliver the apology, and ensure that the offended person is ready to receive it. The apology needs to specific, and precisely address the behaviour. For example, if someone says to you that they apologize for 'anything that they might have done to you' - this is not a sincere apology, because it does not specify the exact behaviour. The third step in the process of forgiveness, is grieving. Humans are emotional beings, and after a transgression, there needs to be a time for recovery and healing. The fourth step is understanding. The offended needs to understand what has transpired, in order to make sense of the bigger picture. This is where learning from experience takes place. The person trespassed against needs to reassess their hierarchy of loyalties, and their arrangement of values, so to minimize the consequences of such a betrayal in the future. Once these first four steps take place, a sincere forgiveness can occur, when the offended person is ready.
