Forgiveness & Humility Workbook

Repentance & Forgiveness

Repentance and forgiveness are special topics. There are many varied ideas and definitions of repentance and forgiveness. To many, these concepts are unclear—and even to those of us who have managed to learn a clear “how” of repentance, the questions of “why?” and “what will happen afterwards?” persist, making repenting and forgiving challenging propositions.

Repentance describes a very specific process of maturation and self-improvement. This process is a learned behavior, necessary for human happiness and growth. Repentance can also be quite challenging to engage, especially if done with incomplete understanding of its purpose and outcomes. This course will describe the process from beginning to end, in several steps, with examples and illustrations of each step. You will be invited to apply each step as you learn it.

Also in the course, we will discuss the specific steps in the process of forgiveness, along with many reasons why forgiveness is vital to your happiness. You’ll learn that forgiveness is for yourself, not for others. The course also discusses common misconceptions about forgiveness, and will help you avoid common pitfalls. As you learn about and apply forgiveness, you will begin to have more powerful reasons to forgive.

The goal is to become very proficient at the skills of repentance and forgiveness, primarily for your own good, as well as for the uplifting of those around you. This course is an opportunity to learn and apply the foundational skills that underlie repentance and forgiveness. As you practice these skills, you will increase your capacity to love yourself and to connect to others in healthy, loving and happy ways.

When we repent and forgive, we engage several steps:

1. We feel badly / remorseful for our actions
2. We recognize and can articulate what we’ve done
3. We feel motivated to rectify the behavior or action within ourselves and the other person(s).
4. We humble ourselves and engage in a change process
   1. Acknowledge (recognize sins)
   2. Articulate to others (confess)
   3. Feel empathy & sorrow for the offended and for self
   4. Restitution
   5. Make a plan to not repeat the behavior
   6. Create history with the plan
   7. Say sorry
5. Ask for forgiveness
6. Surrender – let go of the outcome

This section includes:

• 10 “sessions” (46 pages):
  1. Repentance & Shame
  2. Recognize, Articulate, Empathize
  3. Restitution & Planning
  4. Action & Apology
  5. The Positive Power of Guilt & Remorse
  6. Forgiving Self & Gaining Freedom
  7. Forgiving & Repenting: A Two-Way Street
  8. A Complete Process of Change
  9. Myths & Truths About Forgiveness
  10. A Process of Forgiveness
• 16 homework activities (138 pages)
• 2 personal journals (13 pages)
• Supplemental diagrams (8 pages)
• Total (this section): 206 pages

In this section, you’ll learn:

• Why repentance is vital
• How to engage the process of repentance
• Details about each step of repentance
• Why planning and restitution are necessary
• How repentance leads to safety, trust, and trustworthiness
• How to repent completely and move on
• Why forgiveness is vitally important
• How forgiveness and repentance are related
• Several myths about forgiveness
• How to engage the process of forgiveness
• How forgiveness deepens love

Humility vs. Pride

Why is humility so important? What does humility have to do with shame? Many of us understand that humility is desirable, yet it may seem like a nebulous or vapid concept. Actually, humility is a requirement for overcoming shame and finding peace. This course is an opportunity to understand how shame drives pride, and how to apply humility to overcome shame. As you take a close look inside yourself, you’ll be enabled to find your shame and begin to heal it. Looking for pride is yet another way to find shame.

Pride involves a distortion of reality—a false understanding of self and others. It would have us believe that we do not need others, that we are better than others, etc. Pride has been around as long as there have been people, and everybody must experience it. Feelings of pride are not bad—they are human; left unchecked, however, they drive us to behave in destructive ways. Paradoxically, pride is a teacher of humility for those willing to humble themselves.

Pride is an emotional reaction to fear, shame, insecurities, faulty core beliefs, sadness, grief, or other confusion or emotional pain. When we understand what pride is and why it shows up in our lives, we gain the understanding to deal with it in very constructive and uplifting ways. We can use our pride as an “alert” to help us humble ourselves. The process of moving from pride to humility is a tremendously rewarding one, resulting is wisdom and peace.

This section includes:

• 5 “sessions” (24 pages):
  1. Humility
  2. Humility Examples
  3. Pride
  4. Characteristics & Effects of Pride
  5. The Power of Choice
• 8 homework activities (78 pages)
• Supplemental diagrams (8 pages)
• Total (this section): 110 pages

In this section, you’ll learn:

• What humility is, and why it is necessary for healing shame
• Where pride comes from
• How shame drives pride
• Why pride distorts our perceptions of reality
• The characteristics of pride – how it looks and behaves. This will help you identify it in yourself
• Why pride is destructive
• How to respond to pride and move into humility
• The role of choice in humility