From the Archive: Why Forgive?

Or, listen on Spotify

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Is forgiveness a gift you give... yourself? Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, shares facts that will shift your perspective, and hear one incredible woman tell her true story of forgiving the unforgivable.

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Welcome to Commune, a global wellness community and online course platform featuring some of the world’s greatest teachers. We’re on a mission to inspire, heal, pass down wisdom, and bring the world closer together.

This is the Commune podcast, where each week we explore the ideas and practices that help us live healthy, connected and purpose-filled lives.

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The two year anniversary of this podcast is coming up next week. In a moment of melancholy and nostalgia, I went down memory lane and re-listened to one of the very first podcast episodes. It’s about Forgiveness. And since there are so many new listeners now, I thought this particular episode, from August 2018, deserved to be re-aired.

The voice we heard at the top of the show iis from Ashley Spence. Today, we hear her heart-wrenching story and her journey to forgiveness.

In church, in school, at home -- we’re taught to forgive. Forgive our sisters for stealing our Halloween candy, forgive our political leaders for their MANY indiscretions -- there is something almost American about giving people a second chance.

Forgiveness is a centerpiece of virtually every religion. It is baked into Catholicism on a weekly basis. We confess our sins and God will forgive us.

Wayne Dyer often said, “the angels we wish to attract into our lives will appear when they recognize themselves in us.” But … does this mean that in order to cultivate our divine nature we need to forgive everyone?

Including Hitler? Pinochet? Osama Bin Laden? Can we just kinda, “selectively forgive”?

And does forgiveness let people off the hook for their injustices?

Now Dr. Robert Enright is one of the world’s experts on forgiveness. He’s actually devoted his whole professional life to its study. He is a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is an author of many books including “Forgiveness is a Choice” and the “A Forgiving Life: A Path to Overcoming Resentment and a Legacy of Love”.

I asked Robert, “What is forgiveness?”