Kingstown College Coaching Magazine vol.5 2019/2020

6 Coaching Magazine Vol.5
THE BEAUTY OF THE ‘F’ WORD !
Master Coach and Director of Kingstown College, Paula King, discusses the other
‘F’ word as she explains how working with forgiveness and self forgiveness are
powerful steps for a client to improve their happiness and even their health.
I was struck by a conversation I had with one
of my clients recently during our coaching
session. He was encountering a particularly
challenging time and our work together was
focused on how we could release some of
his time. An obvious resource would have
appeared to be one of his peers who had
both the expertise and experience to assist
my client prepare a complicated report.
When I questioned him on his rationale
for not engaging with him my client told
me that his colleague had upset him some
years before and he would never forgive
him. This decision, by my client, to retain
such negative emotions for such a long time
struck me deeply. The greatest gift we can
give to ourselves is the gift of forgiveness –
forgiving ourselves and others.
What is important about Forgiveness?
Negative life events, if significant enough,
can get encoded in memory and often
cause us to have physical reactions to
remembering the painful experience.
From the perspective of psychological
research holding a grudge is considered an
“imagined emotional response” (Witvliet, et
al., 2001).
This would suggest that one must fuel the
negative emotions in order to sustain them
over a long period of time. For example,
vengeful thoughts that embellish and
describe the event with contempt only
intensify the emotional imagery and
physiological experience.
There is research, however, that shows the
desire for revenge to be in some instances
stronger than empathic motivation,
especially in men. Participants in a
Singer and Lamm study did not respond
with empathy toward a person that was
suffering, especially when they felt the
person deserved punishment (2009).
“One moment of anger
can wipe out a lifetime
of merit”
Dalai Lama