Think back to a time you felt wronged by someone. Does the memory of the injury still make you upset or cause you stress?
Considering the amount of minor and major trauma we sustain throughout our lives, we are given surprisingly little information about how to process these unpleasant experiences to help minimize long-term negative effects.
This hour, we will learn about the psychological study of forgiveness, which promotes the idea that forgiveness can empower victims and help them move forward with their life. Forgiveness can be defined as the act of letting go of anger. It is not forgetting, condoning, excusing, or reconciling with your offender.
We will talk with Scarlett Lewis, a Newtown mother who lost her six-year-old son Jesse in the Sandy Hook shooting. After going through her own journey to forgive Adam Lanza and his mother, she created the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation and now works to promote social and emotional learning in Connecticut schools. Lewis will be joined by two experts in the field to discuss how one can develop their forgiveness muscle and where the practice is currently being used to help individuals, communities, and countries heal.
GUESTS:
- Dr. Robert Enright - Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin Madison and a founder of the International Forgiveness Institute in Madison, Wisconsin
- Dr. Ruth Henderson - Author, educator and researcher who has taught forgiveness courses and workshops on college campuses and in prisons and presented her work before the commissioners of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and in Germany
- Scarlett Lewis - Founder of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation, created in honor of her six-year-old son Jesse who was a victim of Sandy Hook shooting
MUSIC:
- “Forgiveness” by Matthew West
- “Forgiveness” by Patty Griffin
- “Saludos/Come Thou Almighty King” by Jimmy Greene
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Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show.