Recalling the Hurt

Goal

To recall and release the hurt

Experience of Grief (Worthington, 2011, p. 41)

When we are hurt, we might lose many things-our peace, our sense of safety and security, our close friendship, material things, our belief in a just world. We grieve those losses. Grieving comes in stages. We are at first upset and emotional. Later, we replay those events again and again, both to others and in our own minds. Eventually, most of the events are accepted and we move on with life. If the period of time in which we are replaying the events in our minds and in conversations to others tells a story of victimization or hatred, it can program that view into our worldviews. If, on the other hand, our story is one of forgiveness, we program into our worldview a story of reconciliation, mercy, and often forgiveness.

Introduction to REACH (Worthington, 2011, p. 35)

Hopefully you now feel that you’ve made a sincere decision to forgive regarding this transgression. Making a decision to be more forgiving is far different than actually experiencing forgiveness in your life. Otherwise, all we would have to do is make a New Year’s resolution and not have to actually live out the love of forgiveness.

Although making a decision is necessary, it is not sufficient to really change. You need to REACH forgiveness to change. The REACH forgiveness model has 5 steps:

Take some deep breaths before continuing. We are about to really start working toward forgiveness. Quiet yourself, relax. Then, picture the person who hurt you. Picture the experiences you had during and before and after the hurtful incident. Remember conversations and other experiences surrounding the event.

Recall the Hurt (Worthington, 2011, p. 36)

Instructions (part 1): Write about your story. Try to create a vivid picture of event.

Instructions (part 2): Write your story again, but this time without emphasizing the perpetrator’s badness or your own victimization or the consequences this has had. Then, reflect on the differences between the first and second versions of your story.

Tip: We aren’t going to get anywhere if we keep telling the original story repeatedly. We need another, more objective story. Visualize the experience as a 3^rd party observer to get more distance between yourself and what happened.

Giving Away the Hurt Exercise (Worthington, 2011, p. 37)

Instructions (part 1): This is an exercise to give you an opportunity to give away your hurt in a symbolic way. Follow these steps:

1. Stand up.
2. Imagine you are holding the hurt in your hands.
3. Hold your arms out and imagine that you are trying to keep the hurt contained inside your hands-trying to keep it at arm’s length from you.

If you stand and hold your arms out for a while, after about a minute, your arms will get tired and feel heavy and burdensome. Can you see how this is a metaphor for holding onto grudges?

Instructions (part 2): Now, if you’ve done this, imagine yourself making a decision to release the hurt. To symbolize this-regardless of whether you feel like really forgiving at this moment-open your hands and suddenly let your arms fall to your sides. You may choose to do this exercise with actually holding an object that represents the hurt.

Tip: Remember that in decisional forgiveness, you make a decision to act differently toward the person. You agree with yourself to stop holding a grudge and start trying to treat the person as a valuable person.

Instructions (part 3): Evaluate which of the following statements is true of you:

• Yes, I have decided to forgive (and I’ll try to act like it in the future)
• No, I have not yet decided to forgive; maybe later in this course
• Right now, it seems that I’ll never be able to forgive even though I want to
• Right now, I can’t see that forgiveness is going to happen

Later, after trying to change your emotions toward the person, you can come back to this. If you haven’t been able to make a decision to forgive right now, you might find it easier later.

Next Step (Worthington, 2011, pp. 39-40)

We all do things for what we believe at the time to be good reasons. Since we have all had this experience of hurting others even with the best of intentions, we can understand that the person who hurt us (in our target transgression) probably had what they believed to be good reasons.

Make a list of 5 times in your life-thinking back to early childhood, adolescence, and more recently-that someone significantly betrayed, hurt, offended, or disappointed you. Attempt to recall each hurt objectively and empathize with the offender. Reflect on how that makes you feel.