A shared universe › Blog › Apologising and forgiving · Español
Forgiving means no longer wishing harm on the person who hurt you and letting go of resentment little by little; it is not forgetting, or justifying, or getting back together with them. When apologising, what counts most, according to the studies, is clearly acknowledging what you did and offering to repair the harm. Resentment weighs on the person who carries it. But you don’t manage to forgive by deciding to one afternoon, and nobody is obliged to do it.
The psychologist Everett Worthington, of Virginia Commonwealth University, has studied forgiveness for decades and sets it apart from several things it gets confused with. Forgiving is not forgetting, or justifying what happened, or reconciling, or giving up on justice. It is no longer wishing harm on the person who hurt us and letting go, little by little, of the resentment. You can forgive someone and never see them again.
Nor is it pretending nothing happened. To forgive for real, we need to acknowledge the harm and what we feel about it, not cover it up.
Worthington proposes a path in five steps, whose initials spell the word REACH:
It is not a one-day thing, and anger that returns does not mean you have not forgiven. It means the wound can still be felt.
In 2014, Nathaniel Wade, Worthington and other authors brought together, in a meta-analysis, the studies on interventions to help people forgive, with more than two thousand participants. Those who took part forgave more than those who received no help, and they also improved in depression, anxiety and hope. And the longer the work lasted, the further people got.
In 2024, a trial with more than four and a half thousand people in Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Africa and Ukraine tested a workbook based on these five steps, taking about two or three hours, which each person did on their own. Two weeks later, those who had done it held less resentment and had slightly fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety than those waiting their turn. The effects on mood were small, but in people without therapy and with a short effort.
Apologies, too, can be done better or worse. In 2016, Roy Lewicki and his team at Ohio State University studied, with 755 people, which parts of an apology matter most. The most important was acknowledging your own responsibility, and next, offering to repair the harm. What added least was explicitly asking to be forgiven.
Some harm is very serious, and some people never apologise. Nobody is obliged to forgive, and there is no deadline. Sometimes the only thing possible, and it is already a lot, is for it to stop taking up so much room.
If what happened was abuse or violence, being safe comes first, and forgiving does not oblige you to stay in contact or to keep quiet. If the memory keeps taking away your sleep or your peace, talking it over with a psychologist can help. Asking for help when it is hard has ideas for taking that step.
Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Acknowledging what you did, repairing what you can and treating yourself with some understanding is not playing it down: it is what allows you to go on. Self-compassion has more on how to begin.
In A shared universe you can light a star with that apology you don’t know how to make, or with the forgiveness you can’t yet give. No names. Sometimes writing it down is the first step.
You can choose “What weighs on me” and have it shine “For me”, “For someone” or “For someone who is gone”. Other people will read it and keep it company, without knowing who you are.