Guest: Everette Worthington
It’s no secret that people who have been betrayed often have a hard time forgiving the person who betrayed them. Resistance to “letting them off the hook” is understandable. In this illuminative conversation with Professor Everette Worthington, we learn the science and research behind forgiveness – what it is, how to do it, and why it matters for our health and wellbeing.
Everett Worthington is Commonwealth Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University. Ev (which he prefers to be called) notes that his salary is retired but he isn’t. He still maintains a license as a Clinical Psychologist in Virginia, and he has published over 45 books and 500 scholarly publications. Currently, he is completing a couple of books (self-forgiveness and couple therapy), and he usually publishes about 20 articles a year, mostly related to forgiveness, humility, and other positive psychology topics. He says that his life mission is “to do all I can to promote forgiveness in every willing heart, home, and homeland.”
Website: evworthington-forgiveness.com
Free workbooks: reach.discoverforgiveness.org
A really interesting podcast thanks – leaves a lot to think about around the subject of forgiveness.
After over 12 years, a long absence and then a reconciliation as friends, I feel I’ve gone a long way along this route. I find I’ve forgiven the 16 year old who entered into a relationship with me, especially as we had for the most part a very happy marriage and four lovely children. I found it helpful to think of the boy rather than the man when it came to forgiving him and understanding his dilemma.
I like that he says that this is a process, and there are many things that have to be dealt with before you get to a place of forgiveness. I am about two years out from disclosure, and I struggle with this. I try to have some compassion for him and for the closet that my ex lived in for most of his life, but I still feel that the way he went about things was so wrong and hurtful. The lies, dishonesty, and betrayal still sting. But I’m a work in progress, and I see forgiveness as not for him, but for me. To me, forgiveness means letting go of all that pain and anger and not letting it affect me anymore. I’m not there yet, and probably won’t be anytime soon. But my goal is freedom, and I don’t think I will ever be completely free until I forgive him.
I found this a fascinating listen and am recommending it to all my friends! I am both psychologically minded, and a Christian. I picked up on several points from Ev that crystallize my own beliefs around forgiveness, and I also learnt lots! Even though forgiveness is really at the heart of the Christian gospel, I had lots to learn about it in practice over the last few years.
For context, my gay ex-husband and I now have a good relationship (14 years married, 2 kids, 1 year separated, and now 1 year divorced). It has certainly taken lots of work for us both to reach this reconciliation- and certainly it is a work in progress. The secular relationships counsellor we saw when we first separated did not understand at all! But I’m so grateful that my faith has given me the resources to be able to forgive- both for his sake and for mine.