Forgive for Good (book)

✒️ Note-Making

🔗Connect

⬆️Topic:: wellbeing (MOC)

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

1. Suffering is a choice - when we don't let go of the pain we were inflicted by others, we keep the pain alive, we give it too much space and attention. We hurt ourselves over and over again each time we relive the story. It lingers in our minds, in our identity, turning us into hatful, weak, helpless victims. We suffer needlessly when we:
   1. Take things too personally - we are not the world's scapegoat, we are not "unlucky", nor is our pain special. The universe or others are not "out to get us"
   2. Blame others - by blaming others we give them responsibility and power over our wellbeing, to the people who care the least about us, who can't and do nothing about it.
   3. Create a grievance story - when we retell the story of when we were hurt, we make it a part of our identity, we turn our worst moment into who we are, as helpless, resentful, bitter people, as nothing more than our pain, stuck at the past, without a future
2. Let go of unenforceable rules - the source of all suffering, to feel entitled for things we cannot control, to feel owed, despite having no way of enforcing these rules, which leads to disappointment and anger when they don't happen
3. How to forgive - forgiveness is how we heal. We hurt less, we take responsibility, and we become the hero in the story of our lives
4. Focus on positivity - turn unenforceable rules to "wishes" and hopes, find your positive intention, the good in life you are trying to create, and create a narrative focused on the future, on beauty, kindness and positivity. A life well lived is your revenge.

🗒️Relate

⛓ by following this method, what will happen? What is the goal of this book? We will let go of past resentments, change the narrative of our lives, and open a new chapter, one focused on growth, of wellbeing.

🔍Critique

✅ relevant research, metaphors or examples that helps to convey the argument

1. Grievance is like plains in the air - the hurtful story lingers in our minds, taking up space and energy
2. Unenforceable rules is a cop without a car - there's nothing you can do about it, so why get angry?
3. Life is like driving on a road - you might have a flat tire, but the important thing is to get back on the road, not being angry on the sidelines
4. Attention is like channels on the TV - we are what we focus on, so be tuned to positive news

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are...

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... This book is so repetitive, that the podcast episode is more interesting and covers everything you can get from this book. There's a lot of "I will show you that" or "I have shown you that" just to fill up the pages, with very little content.

The book is 90% stories with little content, or representing content as if we have forgot it by next chapter

🖼️Outline

📒 Notes

Introduction

blame and anger are like attention residue, they tend to linger in our hearts and minds, leading to stress and burnout.

When we have been wronged, negative thoughts can create a negative cycle, when we are drawn deeper and deeper into self consuming anger. We become a one-dimensional being, we become our resentment, it becomes our defining narrative, which is a sure way for depression. We let it take hold on us, we become helpless.

The solution is Forgivness. It doesn't mean we agree or forget what they've done to us, nor to deny our feelings, we just accept that we can't change the past, so we let go of it's control on us. We move forward, instead of drowning in the past. It's a step towards emotional resilience.

Introduction

• I define forgiveness as the experience of peace and understanding that can be felt in the present moment. You forgive by challenging the rigid rules you have for other people’s behavior and by focusing your attention on the good things in your life as opposed to the bad. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting or denying that painful things occurred. Forgiveness is the powerful assertion that bad things will not ruin your today even though they may have spoiled your past. (Location 126)

Creating a Grievance

Renting Too much Space to Disappointment

A grievance story is created when our expectations fail to meet reality. Either something good doesn't happen, or something bad does happen. We naively believe that we are entitled to some things, that good, predicable, calm life is guaranteed, yet we fail to manifest it because life is change, unpredictable, and we rarely control what happens to us.

When that bad thing happen, we rent too much space in our mind for it. We are drawn into negativity bias, which colors every aspect of our lives, even the ones unrelated to the incident in a negative light. It shifts our entire subjective reality.

What if instead we could focus the same amount of intensity on the good things in our lives gratitude.

Renting Too Much Space to Disappointment

• grievance begins when part of our life turns out radically different from what we expected. (Location 235)
• Grievances are formed when people are unable to deal successfully with not getting what they wanted and then they rent too much space in their minds to the injustice. (Location 285)
• Just because bad things happen does not mean you have to dwell on them. I regularly ask people why they do not dwell on their good fortune with the same energy that they invest in their bad fortune. (Location 309)

Taking Things Too Personally

Anger is never a good long term solution, at best it's a reminder that we have a problem that needs a solution. It should prompt us for action, not fixate us on the past, or on someone else's. It's our lives that needs fixing, our mindset that needs shifting.

To not take things too personally, we first need to remind ourselves that our pain isn't special. Many suffer in various ways, so despite the fact that it happens to us, we are not the unlucky miserable scapegoats of destiny, we were not chosen specifically to suffer.

The second step is to believe in Hanlon's Razor, that in most cases, people didn't mean to hurt us. They did it without intent.

Taking Things Too Personally

• Life may not be perfect, but you can learn to suffer less. You can learn to forgive, and you can learn to heal. (Location 375)
• Anger can be a wonderful short-term solution to your life’s difficulties, yet it is rarely a good long-term solution to painful events. Anger is simply our way of reminding ourselves that we have a problem that needs attention. Yet too often we get angry instead of taking constructive action, or we get angry because we do not know what else to do. (Location 385)
• The second way to uncover the impersonal dimension of hurt is to understand that most offenses are committed without the intention of hurting anyone personally. (Location 441)

The Blame Game

Playing the blame game means we give power to those who hurt us over our feelings. We outsource our well-being to them. By blaming them, we make them responsible for what happened, which hurts us and continues to hurt us. We are no longer responsible for our own wellbeing; it's our memory of them, of their act, that lives forever in our mind.

There is so much suffering when we give those who care little about it the power over our wellbeing. It gets worse when we consider that this connection, this Dependency stretches for years, often without the other side knowing how much you still hurt, and even after they are long gone (either moved on or dead)

When we blame others, we imagine them as the worst because We can't read minds we assume the worst, even though we are probably wrong.

The Blame Game

• When we blame someone for our troubles, we remain stuck in the past and extend the pain. (Location 541)
• When we blame another person for how we feel, we grant them the power to regulate our emotions. (Location 621)
• Think of the wasted suffering that emerges from staying tied through blame to people who did not care for you. This suffering is the bottomless pit that awaits those who play the blame game. (Location 655)
• Holding people accountable for their actions is not the same as blaming them for how you feel. (Location 663)

The Grievance Story

We are creatures of narratives, they help us add context to the situation, they color the story in a specific way. There's no such thing as a story without an angle, no one can be purely objective. The way we color our story matters, because when we paint our stories as grievance stories, they are tagged as cases where we experienced sadness and helplessness. Due to Cue based memorization, each time we remember these stories they become more saliant in our mind. Fixating the notion that most of our history, our past, our identity, is one of helplessness and pain.

It's okay to complain, but it's bad if we become a broken record. Not only that we fixate the idea that we are helpless victims, we also erode our relationships that we use for support. In the short run we will get sympathy, but in the long run they will be tired of hearing the same story, of our negativity and they will avoid us.

We choose our own story, we should choose one of gratitude, one that looks at the future, not the past, one in which we are the heroes, the actors, not the victims.

The Grievance Story

• The primary purpose of any story you tell is to help you place what happened in context. The secondary purpose is to describe what happened. (Location 701)
• The most harmful memory categories are those that remind you of when you were helpless or angry. Grievance stories do this by their nature. Due to the associative nature of memory, things that trigger these categories lead only to more and more painful feelings. (Location 757)
• Each of us chooses which kind of story we want to tell. Remember, we can either forgive and move on with our lives or be tied to things over which we have no control. (Location 866)

Rules Rules Rules

Unenforceable rules are when we expect a certain behavior from someone yet have no control over it.

For example, we can set a curfew for our kids, but we can't physically make them come back at that hour.

We can expect our boss to be nicer to us because we work hard, yet we have no control over their behavior.

Trying to control the uncontrollable is another way we bring ourselves pain and suffering. This is how every grievance story begins, it's root cause.

The problem with unenforceable rules is that instead of taking action, we focus on feeling hurt and desire to punish the other for breaking the rules. We store endless "tickets" that we never send.

Having the desire to be loved, seen, heard and respected is legitimate, but we should see it as nothing more than a desire, we are not owed this type of behavior from others, not even our partner, we can't force them to act this way. The only thing we control is how do we respond.

Rules, Rules, Rules

• The thinking process that leads to grievances is the process of trying to enforce unenforceable rules. (Location 902)
• Trying to change what cannot be changed or influence those who do not want to be influenced will meet with failure and cause us emotional distress. (Location 935)
• when something unpleasant happens, we have the choice of accepting it or not. The reason we do not accept what happens to us is we cling instead to our unenforceable rules. (Location 957)
• A rule is any expectation you have for how something should turn out or how someone should think or behave. (Location 961)
• An unenforceable rule is an expectation you have that you do not have the power to make happen. (Location 965)
• Each time we try to enforce an unenforceable rule, frustration and helplessness ensue. (Location 974)
• The grievance process begins when we want something and make an unenforceable rule about getting it. (Location 1071)

Forgiveness

To Forgive or not to Forgive: This is the Question

Forgiving is how we reverse the grievance process, end our suffering and embark on a journey to healing.

It doesn't happen naturally or by chance, it's a choice, one that we shouldn't rush or take lightly, it takes time to be ready to forgive. First we just: 4. Understand how we feel about what happened naming 5. Identity the action that has harmed us Self-awareness 6. Share our experience with a few people (having deep connections ) vulnerability

Forgiveness is not about agreeing with what's been done to you, nor to give up if justice, or forgetting. It's about healing, to stop hurting ourselves, and focus on the future

To Forgive or Not to Forgive: That Is the Question

• Forgiveness does not happen by accident. We have to make a decision to forgive. We will not forgive just because we think we should. Forgiveness cannot be forced. (Location 1104)
• When we realize our role in the grievance process, we can then decide to play the central role in our healing. The most powerful way to heal is through forgiveness. (Location 1122)
• Forgiveness is the experience of peacefulness in the present moment. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it changes the present. Forgiveness means that even though you are wounded you choose to hurt and suffer less. (Location 1192)
• We can forgive from strength only when we have made clear we are hurt and that we are not ashamed of being hurt. Our strength can be an example to others. (Location 1258)

The Science of Forgiveness

Science shows without a doubt that forgiveness is good for your mental and physical health, while anger leads to depression and heart diseases

Northern Ireland: the Ultimate Test

It works

Forgive for Good

Forgiveness Techniques for Healing

When often don't forgive others because:

1. We don't know how
2. We don't know the benefits of forgiving
3. We think that forgiveness is giving up
4. We mistakenly prefer methods that don't work (to try and force unenforceable rules)

Good and bad experiences tend to have a crowding out effect, the more room we give to negative memories, the less attention we have for good ones, and vice versa.

We need to fill our attention with gratitude, to responate with the beauty and good in our lives, such that the negative will have barely any time left.

The three steps of focusing on the positive:

1. Shift our attention towards experiences of gratitude, awe, love and forgiveness
2. Breath of thanks and heart focus - focusing on the breath and the rhythm of the body while saying what we are grateful for
3. Pert - positive emotional reinforcement therapy, focusing on the breath while thinking about positive memories

Forgiveness Techniques for Healing:

• The most critical component is the story we tell. When we tell a story of victimization we have already taken something too personally and are blaming the offender for how we feel. When you tell the story of your heroic overcoming of an injustice, you will naturally blame less and take things less personally. (Location 1835)
• We become helpless when we give the person who hurt us excessive power over how we feel. Our painful feelings will diminish only when we take that power back and show we are responsible for how we feel. (Location 1841)

From Unenforceable Rules to Wishes and Hopes

How to overcome unenforceable rules:

1. Recognize that you are hurt and angry in the present, even if the event is in the past
2. Remember that you feel bad because you try to enforce an unenforceable rule
3. Reaffirm your desire to challenge the unenforceable rule
4. Identity your unenforceable rule
5. Change the terminology from "demanding" to "hoping" or "wishing"
6. Be hopeful yet realistic as things might not go the way you hoped

From Unenforceable Rules to Wishes and Hopes

• when we feel helpless, angry, or upset, we know we are trying to enforce an unenforceable rule. And we know we can stop and suffer less. (Location 2170)

Your Positive Intention

The story we tell is how we wrap and deliver a part of our lives, our identity and communicate it to others.

It's a two way street, by changing the story we change who we are. Therefore practices mentioned in previous chapters will shift our story from one of helplessness to one where we are the hero, taking back control over our wellbeing.

The way to change the story is to focus on our positive intention, what was the thing we were trying to accomplish that the grievance hurt? For example a cheating partner might have high our intention of a loving relationship. To focus on the intention gives us a reason to move us, a goal to focus on, and turns us into a hero that tries to fulfill a goal, rather than a powerless victim.

Your Positive Intention

• A victim is one who often feels helpless to respond to painful circumstances or to control thoughts and feelings. A hero has worked hard to overcome adversity and refuses to be beaten by difficult life events. Forgiveness is the journey of moving from telling the story as a victim to telling the story as a hero. (Location 2267)
• Our story is the vehicle through which we communicate to others and ourselves a piece of our life. Our story is how we put events into perspective and assign meaning to what happened. (Location 2274)

The Heal Method

An advanced form of the PERT method. It contains:

1. Hopeful statements - similar to the positive intention. A specific, personal, positive statement that focused on what you were trying to achieve, like "I wanted to be treated with respect by my partner"
2. Educate - remember that you can't always get what you want. Life doesn't always go as planned. Life is filled with uncertainty, and there's little we control

The Heal Method part 2: Soothing the Hurt

1. Affirm - remind yourself your positive intention, believe in it
2. Long term commitment - make a commitment to stick with the HEAL method and the forgiveness process in general

The Four Stages of Becoming a Forgiving Person

1. Being hurt - when we are overwhelmed with anger and grief
2. Noticing - when we notice that being hurt doesn't do us good
3. Remembering - when we remember how good it felt last time we forgave someone
4. Forgiving - we understand the power of forgiveness and we look to forgive when and who we can

Forgive Yourself

Forgiving ourselves is very similar to forgiving others, the same mindset and techniques apply.

Although we are tempted to feel as if it is different because we have more control over our actions, we don't have complete control and we can always make a mistake. This just goes to show that even for ourselves we sometimes fail to act in the best way, so we need to be forgiven just as much as others do

Above and beyond

Nine steps of forgiveness:

1. Know exactly how you feel about what happened
2. Make a commitment to do what's necessary to heal
3. Search for peace, beauty and kindness, not blame or revenge
4. Zoom out of your hurt feelings
5. Practice pret
6. Let go of unenforceable rules
7. Find your positive intention
8. A life will lived is your best revenge. Don't give the other power over your well-being
9. Write a new story for yourself, one of growth

Above and Beyond

• Remember that a life well lived is your best revenge. Instead of focusing on your wounded feelings, and thereby giving the person who hurt you power over you, learn to look for the love, beauty, and kindness around you. (Location 3462)
• Forgiveness is above all a choice. It is a choice to find peace and live life fully. We can choose either to remain stuck in the pain and frustration of the past or to move on to the potential of the future. (Location 3550)