Mitch Albom is a bestselling author, journalist, musician, dramatist, and broadcaster. His inspirational books about life and death, including Tuesdays with Morrie, have sold over forty million copies worldwide.
CLEAR ALL
People’s sense of self-worth is pivotal to their ability to look clearly at the hurt they’ve caused. The more solid one’s sense of self regard, the more likely that that person can feel empathy and compassion for the hurt party, and apologize from an authentic center.
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Empathetic listening is an awesome medication for the hurting heart.
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We must not confuse letting go of past injuries with feeling an obligation to let the injurers back into our life. The freedom of forgiveness often includes a firm boundary and loving distance from those who have harmed us.
If only our passion to understand others were as great as our passion to be understood. Were this so, all our apologies would be truly meaningful and healing.
Respect the fact that all you do and are now has evolved for a good reason and serves an important purpose.
When forgiveness experts talk in binary language (’You either forgive the wrongdoer or you are a prisoner of your own anger and hate’), they are collapsing the messy complexity of human emotions into a simplistic dichotomous equation.
When we do not put our primary emotional energy into solving our own problems, we take on other people’s problems as our own.
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Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.
Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world.
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Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.