The Forgiveness Process

My Personal Story of Forgiveness

As I sat on a cold and unforgiving wooden bench in a crowded courtroom I saw him: my daughter’s murderer.

His slight build looked almost pitiful as he stood facing the judge. As my anger lay buried beneath my pain, waves of nausea overwhelmed my body.

My two daughters sat beside me. I squeezed the leg of my eldest daughter as we listened to the judge read the criminal charges and the sentencing.

The district attorney’s office informed us of the charge beforehand. But after hearing the judge read the charge, my heart still questioned why. Wasn’t my daughter’s life worth more than an “involuntary manslaughter” charge? Would the DA’s office have given that charge if it was their child?

With broken hearts and tears falling, we exited the courtroom. The disconcerting thoughts that swirled in my head screamed out at the injustice. As I tried to digest the awful and unjust reality, all I could think was: that’s it; that’s all? The person who took my daughter’s life will only spend six months in jail and some time on probation. Don’t they care that he killed my girl?

After learning from the police detectives that the driver intentionally wrecked the car, I knew forgiveness would take time. Forgiveness would be a process—and possibly a long one at that. Since giving my life over to the care of God, I have experienced forgiving others.

God helped me walk through the process of forgiveness in my early walk with Him. Forgiving family who had hurt me in my childhood proved to be an integral part of my spiritual growth. But forgiving my family members was different. Those hurts and offenses were against me—not my child.  

Forgiveness, true forgiveness, of the young man responsible for the death of my daughter would have to be more than a profession of what I hoped to do. True forgiveness of the young man would have to come from my heart—not just spoken words.

Step 1: Matters of the Heart

I forgive you! These three words are beautiful words. And they are especially meaningful when they come from a genuine attitude of the heart. This is the first step toward forgiveness. This means we acknowledge that a change in our heart is necessary for true forgiveness to happen. This is an important first step toward forgiveness. 

God tells us to, “Forgive your brother from the heart.” But for forgiveness to become a reality in our hearts—especially if the offense committed against us is great (as in my case), we proceed forward with intentionality in our choice to forgive. This is the key next step toward forgiveness—intentionality.

Step 2: Intentionality

Forgiving someone is always a choice, though not necessarily an easy one. In this next step we acknowledge that no one can force us to forgive, but forgiveness will not happen by osmosis. Forgiving a person is always an intentional act. We either choose to forgive, or we choose not to forgive. It’s honestly that straight forward. And once we make the choice to be intentional about our choice to forgive, we begin the process. But before we begin the process of forgiveness, we need to be honest with ourselves about where we are and where we intend to go.

Initial Assessment

Intentionality starts with an honest evaluation of where we are. This assessment of our starting point is not meant to be a time of guilt, shame, and beating ourselves up. God already knows our hearts, and He loves us. But it’s most important to be honest with ourselves and not to pretend to not have feelings that are clearly there. Once we acknowledge where we are, we are ready to begin the process. We begin with our thought life. 

Addressing Thoughts

Addressing our thoughts is part of our intentionality with forgiveness. We begin with exploring our thoughts about the person(s) who caused us pain and suffering. Again, we don’t want to pretend here. Honesty with ourselves is the only way we win. Once we are honest about where we are in our thought process, we can go about the business of changing our thoughts.

We change the way we think about the person we are angry at by metacognition. Metacognition simply means to think about how we are thinking. And the best way to take notice of our thinking is to notice it and then write it down. We have thousands of automatic thoughts every day. In fact, the average person has about 48.6 thoughts per minute and approximately 70, 000 thoughts per day. That’s a lot of thoughts happening in our brains.

Our goal with metacognition is to notice what we are thinking about, and the best way to do this is to slow down and be present in the moment. This is an intentional behavior, and it takes practice. Again, we see intentionality play out here. We must choose to slow down and think about our thoughts.

Initially, we may experience angry thoughts—even rageful thoughts. But we need to understand that angry thoughts can express themselves as angry emotions. I want to point out, however, that it is very important we allow ourselves to experience this emotion—especially when wrong is committed against us or our loved ones. We are not bad because we experience angry thoughts and angry emotions. It simply means we are human. But of course, we don’t want to stay in the angry place; we choose to move forward.

Changing our thoughts is not an easy task—but we can do it if we choose to do it. Intentionality! Honestly, this is where the battlefield is: our thought life. But if we can conquer negative and angry thoughts, we can move in the direction of forgiveness. Remember, we begin by paying attention to how we are thinking—then we can go from there. And I truly believe with God’s help we can forgive the greatest of offenses. With God’s help I have forgiven the young man responsible for my daughter’s death.

Choosing to see as God Sees

Another intentional act in the process of forgiveness is choosing to see the situation and our offender as God sees. If we can have the eyes of God for people, we could experience a whole different level of living. And if we could see people how God sees them, we could let go of offenses, hurts, and pain much more easily.

In truth, this is how I have been able to forgive many people over the years: seeing them as God sees them. And if I have trouble doing this then I ask for His help—and He helps me. And I have found that if I pray for them, God helps my heart along in the process of forgiveness. 

Step 3: Acceptance of the Time to Process

In this next step of forgiveness, we acknowledge forgiveness is a process, and sometimes it can be a long one. But other times forgiving may not take much time at all. The length of time to process hurt and pain needs to be understood with acceptance.

As we intentionally, and patiently, work through offenses, hurt, and pain we need to track our process. 

Step 4: Tracking our Progress

As with the process of grief or any other growth area in our lives, we can get stuck if we don’t monitor our growth. And because it’s difficult to keep track of our day-to-day progress, we need a way to record our movement forward.

The best way to track our progress is by keeping a journal. For instance, when I have my patients do this, I ask them to write down their thoughts and emotions in a log or journal. I also encourage them to try to be consistent with their journal entries. If a daily entry can be achieved—this is ideal. But if not, one should strive for several entries within a one-week period. Also, each entry will vary in its length and content.

Early in our forgiveness process, our journal entries may be lengthier and with greater intensity in language (and intense emotions felt during the writing process). And the entries most likely will be entered with greater frequency. In my work with individuals going through the process of forgiveness, I encourage both length and frequency. Applying these two principles helps get the process moving along.

The beauty of the journal is how it works to keep track of our thoughts and emotions—and we can monitor if our thoughts and emotions change or stay the same over time. If our thoughts and emotions remain the same months or years from the beginning of our forgiveness process—then we have a problem.

When we keep track of our progress, we can easily assess if we get stuck. And if we find we are not progressing in the forgiveness process we slow down, or stop, and we evaluate our thoughts. But if we see that we are moving forward in a positive direction of forgiveness, then we keep doing what we are doing—even if our movement forward is slow.

Renewal Day-By-Day 

Today, nearly 13 years since I walked out of that courtroom, I have found renewal day by day as I continue to make the choice to walk in the steps of forgiveness. Forgiveness is an intentional choice. It’s always an intentional and willful choice.

You also can be renewed day by day as you make the intentional choices that will lead you down the road to true, authentic forgiveness. And trust me, my friend, you will be glad you did. 

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Dr. Tammy is an inspirational speaker, author, and clinical psychologist. She is the creator and founder of the National Organization, Sisters Supporting Sisters.   Dr. Tammy is also the creator, producer, and host of “A New Day” with Dr. Tammy—a program dedicated to offering hope, resources, and insight for her viewing audiences. “A New Day” With Dr. Tammy airs on Smart Lifestyle Television with the Loma Linda Broadcasting Network.