Resumo de Forgiveness Is A Choice ( A Step-by-step Process For Resolving Anger & Restoring Hope)

In the life of many persons, relations between some members of the family get strained. This may be due to bad habits like alcoholism or drugs or smoking, unreasonable abuse, display of sudden spurts of anger, selfish behaviour, unmerited punishment received or some such injustice. This leads to feelings of hurt, anger, resentment & breaking of dialogue, which may last for several years. It may also be due to misunderstanding or the anger may be disproportionate to the injustice meted out. This book in its fifteen Chapters contained in three parts, deals with its various aspects. The author, has examined the literature of various religions, & devoted a major part of his life & work to this subject. He makes the readers aware that forgiving is a sensible choice, for avoiding our painful living, reducing tension & depression, & restarting dialogue, relationship & a peaceful normal life, by gradual change. It is not a sign of weakness. But it is also not, a once in a life time affair. Forgiveness is a skill, a virtue, an attitude & only creates good will. It has a lot of therapeutic value. From the various definitions of forgiving, it is apparent that, it begins with our feelings of pain (for which we have a right), & that the incident or reaction was, & will always remain unfair. Also, other persons have no right to hurt us, we have the right to get respect & anger, & in forgiving, we have a right to give up our anger as an act of mercy to him, even though he may not deserve mercy. The one who forgives, benefits more than the one who is forgiven.
The guidelines given by the author for forgiving, consist of four phases viz. uncovering our anger; deciding to forgive; working on forgiveness; discovery & release from emotional prison. The steps mentioned in these phases are to be taken in sequence. The time of healing may vary from person to person & from case to case, with more time required for greater hurt & injustice. We should not feel discouraged, if anger & hurt resurface again. The motivation for forgiving is that, we should feel better, by healing of our suffering. Our view for forgiving may come from our family culture, religion, beliefs, ideas or our gurus. The process of forgiveness should not be tried alone, but with the help of a companion experienced in forgiveness. The author advises us to keep a journal for recording the progress of our work, right from the start, giving the brief details of the persons, conflicts, contexts, complexities & solving of the same. The author has given ten principles of writing journal, starting with one person & one incident or pattern of injustice. For the process of forgiving, we have to prepare ourselves, ask some questions (& write in the journal being written by us) viz. which particular individual is the cause of anger & we may begin with that person who has hurt us most or from the incidents which started from childhood; what is the depth of our feelings of getting hurt (e.g. older people get hurt by their own family members, close relatives & friends etc.); we should focus on one incident which caused this hurt; may be the root cause was long time back & it continued later also, the specific details of the incident should be recorded. We should think as to who exactly (& whether by any chance we ourselves) started & contributed to & is responsible for the incident. We have to assess as to whether that person was really unfair. Is there any misunderstanding or are we jumping to some conclusion, are our expectations too high, whether there were any other reasons for that type of behaviour from that person. If we feel & decide that forgiving is in order, we can start this process of forgiving.
In a nut shell, this self-help book is of relevance for everyone, irrespective of his country or religion. It will be of help to all those persons, who are having feelings of anger or hurt,against persons of their own family, or some others. They can choose forgiveness, get rid of these painful feelings, arrive at peace & hope, & in the process also take this message all around to other people.

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