“Christians
are particularly confused
when
they then 'take it out' on someone nearby
-a spouse or a child they love.
-a spouse or a child they love.
This,
in turn, fills them with remorse, guilt, and spiritual defeat.
They
are further bewildered because
they
can't figure out where it all comes from.
Most likely they unwittingly drilled into some ancient
and untapped river
of resentment
which,
like a sudden oil strike, 'blew' up.”
– David Seamands, Healing
of Memories (pp 91-2)
We've defined forgiveness as a journey,
sometimes a complicated one, involving grief concerning loss. We've
noted that it is not like walking a straight line on a path but can
be more like walking a circular labyrinth or like peeling the layers
off of an onion. Before delving any further into the discussion of
what forgiveness looks like, it is important to consider the overall
process. That opens right up into the pitfalls and problems of the
Path of Denial, already depicted in previous posts including this
one concerning denial in cheap, feigned forgiveness.
Stoop's Forgiveness Diagram
In Forgiving the Unforgivable, David Stoop has created a flow chart (adapted for our purposes) that describes the general process of offense and forgiveness including the options available to us in that process. I don't interpret this as a “how to” guide or as a “ten easy steps” kind of diagram, for the process of forgiveness is a complicated, ongoing one – a journey. It's only offered here as a general tool that will hopefully be worth a thousand words of insight.
The path of forgiveness, as Dr. Stoop
describes it, begins with the offense and leads to hurt. People
typically replay events for awhile as they realize how they've been
hurt and to what extent. They may also seek out the opinion of
others at this point, collecting more information about the event
leading to the offense. Once identified as such, a person must make
a choice about how to resolve the discord: through a process of
denial (leading to isolation), bitterness (leading to
isolation and possibly retaliation), or forgiveness (possibly
leading to reconciliation).
The Path of Denial
After an offense comes and is replayed
in the mind, a person must come to some place of self-awareness about
the fact they have actually been offended so that they can get on
with the work of forgiving. When faced with pain and grief resulting
from an offense or a sin against them, according to Stoop, a person
can choose to stop the process of going on to forgiveness by denying
that they felt offended (or that they were hurt), or they can try to
blame themselves for the event that created the offense. This
creates the illusion that there is no need to forgive. Nothing
really happened.
Considering Stoop's description of
denial of offense concept, I've expanded upon the forms it takes and
why a person may fall into this type of self-deception. (Through
personal experience, I've learned that I'm apparently something of an
expert at it. I hope my emotional self-vivisection proves helpful.)
Active Denial. Some
types of pain can feel so threatening to a person that they can deny
that what they experienced was offensive or that it hurt them. This
kind of denial brings to mind how we are willing to apologize
automatically for bumping into a total stranger when we're standing
in a crowded check out line, but it's not considered to be equally
socially acceptable to say, “Hey! Watch it! You just rammed me
with your elbow and it hurt.” And that bumping into a stranger
seems more grievous to us somehow than does insulting or taking
advantage of a family member which we might do chronically, offering
no apology.
A person might also like to think of
themselves as perfect and holy,. Perfect, holy people don't get
offended, so they deny to others and possibly themselves that they
feel offended. Of course, they feel the emotions associated with the
hurt, but they don't cope with the situation head on. These folks
are usually people who like to avoid conflict and confrontation, too.
Have you ever noticed a cold response from a family member, and you
then hear through the family grapevine that they have been
complaining about you? When you confront them, not only do they deny
that they have something against you, their response seems extra
sweet? Sometimes a fear of communicating and confronting compels an
avoidant person to deny offenses because dealing with the hurt they
feel threatens them less than expressing their feelings. They
realize that they're offended, but they bury their feelings.
Passive Denial. Stoop
notes that denial can occur when a person attempts to undo the
offense that they feel by taking the blame for the situation. Rather
than acknowledging that their pain originated with an action on
behalf of the other party, they reinterpret mistreatment and the
offense that they feel as a mistake they have made which resulted in
consequences that they believe they've brought on themselves. On the
surface, it doesn't seem like denial, but because it argues against a
true offense, it results in the same consequences. It just denies
conflict at a different phase in the process by shifting blame
inappropriately. (You can circumvent forgiveness if you can deny
that someone else made a mistake. If you feel emotional pain, you
brought that pain on yourself.)
Considering the Causes of Passive
Denial
As illustrated by both of my
experiences in previous posts (HERE
and HERE),
denial in personal, close relationships seems to be my path of least
resistance. This passive denial takes place for several reasons that
stem back to the deficits
in my own emotional development as a child that I've carried into
adulthood, working on them now in fear and trembling. Some also
result from the fact that people and situations are just complicated
and difficult. Sometimes manipulation within the relationship
hinders our ability to communicate our perspective, and keeping quiet
seems to us to be the best alternative. In my own experience, I'm
most frustrated that I do not readily recognize this
denial until after prolonged suffering, despite my devotion to the
understanding, learning, and practice of forgiveness. I am growing
and God is definitely at work in me, and I pray that my frustration
and contrition over this tendency will continue to motivate me to
overcome it.
Please Note: I present these
factors to help the reader understand why an individual might deny
offenses and how they developed the tendency so that they can avoid
unhealthy, unfruitful, or sinful behavior. It should not be
interpreted as a justification or to diminish personal
responsibility.
1.) Inappropriate
self-blame through perfectionism.
Plain and simple, many Christians believe that they should not ever
get offended, and their “internal critic” which demands
perfect behavior of them accuses them of wrongdoing when they do.
In my family of origin, my parents
operated under the false idea that “Life is fair,” and
that if you treated people well and did what you were supposed to do
in relationships, you wouldn't have any interpersonal conflicts. If
I suffered some mistreatment from another child, my parents always
assumed that I somehow solicited that mistreatment. Personal and
moral responsibility were also highly valued in my home, so this
intensified what I learned as a general rule about relationships: If
something went wrong, it was my fault.
I was taught that it was my duty to find the source of any
interpersonal conflict I experienced, and that source always had to
originate with me or something that I'd done wrong. I then had to
make amends. (Note:
Of the list
of my favorite resources on the topic of blame and shame, The
Lies We Believe by Chris
Thurman deals specifically with confronting unrealistic beliefs.)
In actuality, this is a very immature
view of reality that leads to much heartache. This view of how the
world works makes the assumption that individuals have much more
control over their environment and other people than they really do,
due
to a preoccupation with shame. Psychology calls this mindset an
“external locus of control.” Developing a healthy sense of
expectations and assumptions concerning control and conduct poses
major issue for people who struggle with addictions (including
religious addiction), perfectionism, and shame-based relationships.
If the reader here identifies with this kind of passive denial, I
highly suggest reading this
summary about the Locus of Control, especially if they've
suffered spiritual abuse. Living with this view makes a person an
eternal victim of circumstances, because well-being and worth are
always attached to performance and perfection for them. Since we are
not perfect and can and should still enjoy have worth and comfort,
this assumption about life creates more problems than it solves.
In the second example of my own denied
anger that I offered in
this post, the friend who withdrew from me offended me many times
by the way that they responded to the challenges we experienced
together. I made the very unhealthy and unrealistic assumption that,
through my own behavior somehow, I could have and should have done
something to avoid the challenges we faced. When the person
withdrew, I also assumed that must have sinned against this person,
too. I wanted to take full responsibility for everything.
For a person with a tendency to assume
an external locus of control, this situation created a triple
whammy. Not only did I assume fault for the challenges of life
and faltering relationship, my friend also rejected my attempts to
make amends and reconcile. God requires us to ask forgiveness and to
extend forgiveness, but when we do those things, we have no control
over how the other person will respond. (That will be another
post to come on this other vitally important topic.) People
may reject us and may never cooperate with us again, and we take that
risk when we follow the path of forgiveness. When my attempts to
reconnect with this person failed, my friend's rejections and denials
and complete withdrawal could only mean that I'd continued to fail at
every turn thereafter. I couldn't even manage to ask forgiveness
effectively, or the person would forgive and the relationship would
start back on a path to reconciliation. (Do the right thing and
you'll get the right result.) I expected perfection of myself,
forgetting that relationships can only work if the two parties
involved share the work and responsibility in love and trust.
2.) Denial
of personal rights and needs.
Another contributing factor to denial of offense which
thwarts the forgiveness process is the denial of one's right to feel
offended. If an individual lacks healthy and appropriate self-love
(Mark
12:31), they tend to have a very low view of what constitutes
good treatment from others. (Previous experience in
unhealthy relationships may have also created a very low standard of
what to expect as well.) Some people may believe that they are not
worthy of consideration, and when mistreated, they do not believe
that they have any right to expect or argue for anything better.
Some
religions like Gothardism
teach that individuals have no rights at all and that suffering
unjustly earns
humility points which turns into favor with God. Humble behavior
is said to imbue
a person with spiritual power – Gothard's own special version
of supererogation.
“Walking in Christian love” can also work against admission of a
felt offense, because I
Corinthians 13 states that love keeps no record of wrongs and is
not easily provoked. If you feel offended, a person might interpret
their offense as a lack of love to which they don't want to admit.
Many also find it confusing when they feel love and offense for a
person at the same time, so they ignore the offense rather than
resolving it.
At a young age, I learned and sang the
children's song that teaches the acronym that placing your needs
behind everyone else's resulted in “JOY” (Jesus,
Others, and You). That song is still
taught to children in churches that I consider very healthy and
non-aberrant in doctrine. I don't believe that Scripture strongly
supports this in all contexts, and it ends up confusing children when
they are not taught appropriate self love, balancing them against the
needs of others. Sacrifice must be a free and willing choice.
Requiring someone to always put their needs behind everyone else's
without the liberty, joy, and free choice to do so is a type
of slavery. Because I was so steeped in shame, I very naturally
interpreted Philippians
4:3 (with lowliness of mind, let
each esteem others better than self) to mean that
it was my duty to assume that I was always at fault.. It meant that
I should downgrade my own esteem which I really had no right “to
grasp” as well as deny my own needs at any expense, whether it was
appropriate to do so or not.
3.) Mixed
messages and dissonance.
As previously mentioned in the post, my situation with my friend
proved to be complicated. They had a very good talent of hiding
their true feelings by covering them in language that sounded tender,
loving, and kind while they were communicating a very different
message, backed by their behavior and withdrawal which also didn't
match the tone. Most of the people who use this technique in their
communication may not even realize that they utilize this as a means
of coping. They may also deny that this incongruent way of
communicating can create confusing
and disturbing cognitive dissonance for others, manipulating
others to deflect conflict away from themselves.
4.) Power
plays: The “sympathy card,” weaker brethren, and authority
figures. Frankly, some people are just difficult to
consider offensive! Twenty years ago, I attended a management
course, and I recall that they said that incompetent people who were
were pleasant, hapless, but desired to be responsible (had good
motives/attitudes) were among the most difficult people in the
workplace. People can also be immature and inexperienced in
relationships, not knowing how to relate to people in healthy ways.
If they're ignorant or incapable of better behavior, do you really
have a right to get upset? You have a right to be offended, but you
have a much more complicated job when you go to address the problem.
(The vital issue of expectations within the process of
forgiveness will also be addressed in a post to come!)
What if you know that a person happens
to be going through a very difficult personal situation? What if
they get so easily offended that you wonder if your breathing bothers
them, too? If they mistreat you, do you have a right to get offended
if they are actively wounded and suffering? Some people will
actually diffuse and deflect criticism, manipulating others, by
pulling all of these factors out as a “sympathy card.” What kind
of cruel and inhumane person gets offended by a person who doesn't
know any better, if they're suffering, or if they're “thin
skinned”? This factor also becomes a cause for denial of offense
if the offended person has lousy
boundaries. None of these characteristics absolve the offender
from their wrongs, and they don't undo the harm suffered by the
offended.
A person may also be reluctant to
challenge an authority figure, especially if they've been punished
for expressing their feelings and for their related behaviors. We
all know the expression that “Your father's always right.”
The offended party may believe that the effort will be futile, so
their hopelessness lulls them into believing that no offense really
occurred.
5.) Wishful
Thinking. I will defer to Cialdini's description of
“Liking”
as a potential factor for fostering denial of offense. People tend
to comply with the wishes of those whom they like and find
attractive, and people generally want people that they like to also
like them. It's a powerful influence and can become a potent reason
for many unhealthy ways of relating to others. In my own experience
with my friend, I also held on to the hope that I would have the
opportunity to work on the relationship, but this turned out to be an
unrealistic expectation. This goes back to the issue of fantasy as a
hindrance in the forgiveness process.
6.)
Fear
of Rejection. Though some people
may desire feedback, most people find it painful to realize that
they've hurt someone that's important to them. No one wants to hear
that they're the bad guy. In relationships that lack mutual trust
and a sense of emotional safety, confrontation about an offense may
be enough to destroy that relationship. There may also be factors
and concerns about secondary losses. If you lose the relationship,
you also very likely stand to lose all of the benefits that you get
from your association and friendship with this person. You can't
“bite the hand that feeds you.”
These are just some obvious reasons why
a person might choose to ignore and deny an offense. Unhealthy or
abusive relationships, bad past experiences, and our basic beliefs
influence our choices. In consideration of these factors, I am even
more in awe of the miracle of forgiveness and the work of the Holy
Spirit in us Who helps us overcome our deficiencies so that we can
move out of denial and into healing.
Consequences
As Stoop notes in his model, denying offenses results in several
consequences. Because the hurt cannot be expressed but does not
disappear, the offended party must shut down emotionally. We are
emotional creatures, and shutting down brings consequences as well.
According to Stoop, depression results. As my own personal account
bears out, denying offense or making excuses for it comes at a
terribly high price. I highly recommend avoiding this choice and
would rather see myself and everyone else always choose the path of
healing.
More
to come concerning
the
Paths of Bitterness and the Paths of Healing
in
the journey of forgiveness.
