Mister Rogers: A Forgiveness Champion |
Fred Rogers was an American icon to millions of children who knew him as Mister Rogers--an educator, entertainer, and most famously as the creator and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood which aired nationally for more than 30 years on public television (1968-2001).
The series was aimed primarily at preschool children ages 2 to 5 but was loved by television viewers of all ages because of the messages of love and wisdom liberally administered by its host. Fred Rogers believed and conveyed his conviction that every child has importance, every child has potential, and every child is deserving of love.
The values he integrated into all his activities included the five moral qualities most important to forgiving another person– inherent worth, moral love, kindness, respect and generosity. He often reinforced that message with this epigram: “There’s no person in the whole world just like you, and I like you just the way you are.”
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A New Strategy for World Peace |
The Enright Group Forgiveness Inventory is a new tool that has dramatic potential for bringing world peace closer to reality.
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Dr. Robert Enright, designated "the forgiveness trailblazer" by TIME magazine back in 1999, is still living up to that title today. The trail he is blazing this time forges a path to Group Forgiveness. Together with a team of top-notch researchers from five countries, the founder of the International Forgiveness Institute has developed a group forgiveness measuring tool called The Enright Group Forgiveness Inventory along with a unique group forgiveness administration process.
The groundbreaking study was recently published as the lead article in the Peace and Conflict Studies Journal (Vol. 27, No. 1). As the article outlines, this area of intervention has dramatic implications for world peace initiatives because it can facilitate the work of peace advocates who are seeking the non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods.
Read more about how this forgiveness tool can enhance peace efforts:
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Forgiveness Therapy for the Homeless and Imprisoned
Few people would argue that traditional forms of rehabilitation are adequately serving the homeless and imprisoned. Just look at the abysmal statistics:
- The number of people who are imprisoned in the U.S. is approximately 2.2 million and worldwide approximately 10.35 million (International Center for Prison Studies). More than 55% of the individuals released from U.S. prisons this year will be back in prison within a year (Bureau of Justice Statistics).
- Recent estimates place the number of people without homes in the U.S. on any given night at more than 550,000 and worldwide at over 100 million (United Nations Human Rights).
According to Dr. Robert Enright, Forgiveness Therapy could be the antidote that brings those numbers down.
"Forgiveness Therapy asks the client to begin viewing offending people with a much wider perspective than defining those offenders primarily by their hurtful behavior," Dr. Enright outlines in a just-completed study. "The attempt to be good to those who are not good to you has the paradoxical consequence of reducing anger, anxiety, and depression in that individual."
Dr. Enright believes that by employing Forgiveness Therapy interventions, clinicians will have a new, empirically-verified approach for reducing the resentment that might keep people in a homeless situation or in a cycle of recidivism. As one maximum-security prison inmate professed, "Forgiveness saved my life."
Learn more about Dr. Enright's latest research:
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Notable Forgiveness Quotes
"By embracing forgiveness, you can also embrace peace, hope, gratitude and
joy. . . Forgiveness can lead you down the path of physical, emotional and spiritual well-being."
"Research shows that people who think about forgiving are not only happier—they are also healthier. That’s right, even thinking about forgiving helps to improve the nervous and cardiovascular systems in research subjects."
"The decision to forgive touches you to your very core, to who you are as a human being. It involves your sense of self-esteem, your personal worth, the worth of the person who's hurt you, and your relationship with that person and the larger world."
"Forgiveness is a powerful therapeutic intervention which frees people from their anger and from the guilt which is often a result of unconscious anger."
"Harboring anger and resentment is physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually unhealthy. People who are unable to forgive themselves or others have an increased incidence of depression, act with more callousness toward others, are less happy, and have higher mortality rates."
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Is Anger Ruining Your Life?
- Are you holding on to anger about a past injustice done to you?
- Do you have a desire for revenge?
- Do you resent the person who committed the injustice?
How’s that been working for you?
You can learn to leave the past in the past and lead a more robust, happier, healthier lifestyle.
LEARN HOW TO FORGIVE TODAY:
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Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, has teamed up with songwriter-performer Sam Ness to produce a “therapeutic music video” for adults who are struggling with the anguish created by the COVID-19 lockdown. The video production is available at no cost on YouTube.
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