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Forgiveness: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Get on With Your Life
Based on their popular "Forgiveness" seminar, the author of Getting Unstuck and his wifem designed to help readers let go of their pain and get on with their lives.
241 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 8, 2016
Forgive Forgive Forgive. This is the only way we can release ourselves from past bad experiences and let the light of happiness shine in our hearts and lives.
The most important and special matter in this book is: having the process step by step and it does not just talk about the good benefits of forgiveness. It confirms and accepts the pain which we had to tolerate and then tries to give some points so help us to recover from those pains.
The most important and special matter in this book is: having the process step by step and it does not just talk about the good benefits of forgiveness. It confirms and accepts the pain which we had to tolerate and then tries to give some points so help us to recover from those pains.
July 20, 2021
A straightforward, authoritative guide to the path of self-healing--which we all need more than we think.
This book, published in 1990, is the product of a husband-wife team; the Simons led seminars in forgiveness and healing throughout the United States in the 1980s. Indeed, it comes out in the book that it was at one of these seminars, then led only by Sidney Simon, that the pair met: for Suzanne had suffered sexual abuse as a little girl, and had finally taken definite steps to heal herself. She went on to marry the seminar's facilitator and to coteach the seminar with him.
Suzanne's story becomes the central case study in the book. There are also about half a dozen others: the stories of men and women who suffered emotional wounding and went on to heal it and live more fully. Not all the wounds are necessarily inflicted in childhood; one woman was traumatized to learn of her husband's affair. The authors point out that we can be hurt by spouses, lovers, siblings, and employers as much as by our parents--although our early caregivers are in a position to do the most harm, since at that time of life we are small and helpless and at their mercy. Certainly this was the case with Suzanne, who was molested by her own father.
The notion of people being wounded or damaged, and working with their "inner child" and haunting support groups, has been in popular culture for some time. Beavis and Butthead made taunts about each other's inner child, and the popular writer on healing, Caroline Myss, is critical of the phenomenon of "woundology"--of people identifying with their wounds and thereby never getting past them. She sees support groups as being, at least sometimes, enablers of this kind of thinking. But I got a sense from reading the Simons' book that this getting stuck at a stage in the healing process is normal and inevitable. And, true, a person can stay stuck there a long time, maybe his whole life, but the problem is one of being stuck, and not of paying attention to one's woundedness. For we must pay attention to it if we are to heal. But we need to pay attention to it in the right way.
This is where the Simons' book comes in. They clearly outline the healing process and how to proceed with it. For each of us, it unfolds as a series of 6 stages, which they name:
1. Denial
2. Self-Blame
3. Victim
4. Indignation
5. Survivor
6. Integration
We all start in the Denial stage, and we may linger there a good long time, since it's not something that naturally goes away by itself. The authors describe it thus:
It's easy to see why this creates a "stuck" situation, since, when confronted with evidence of a problem, we respond: "Problem? What problem? I'm okay, that's all ancient history. Heck, it's made me stronger!" But the evidence of unhealed wounds lies in our lives and how we manage them. Do we engage in self-defeating or self-destructive behaviors? Do we repeatedly find ourselves enacting similar unpleasant dramas in our lives? Do we feel unfulfilled or dead inside? Do we feel that life is just something to be got through--and maybe got over with as soon as possible?
One of the most striking things for me in reading this book was to see how the behaviors associated with unhealed wounds describe so much of human life around me--as well as my own life. To some extent, we are all, each of us, the walking wounded. For, as the Simons observe, everybody gets hurt. We don't all get hurt equally badly, but it's not a contest; and if our wounds are causing unpleasant symptoms to appear in our lives, then this is a problem we need to deal with.
The book is called Forgiveness, but the path they describe is one of healing. I don't know whether I've ever associated those things before. But, according to these authors, forgiveness happens spontaneously as a byproduct of healing. We cannot forgive by an act of will; the words "I forgive" have no magic power to bring about the mental and emotional closure that true forgiveness brings. According to the Simons, we must go through all the steps of healing--every one of them--in order for the magic of forgiveness to take place. The level of our actual forgiveness is revealed in how we live and behave: if we are living fully, enjoying our lives, and actualizing ourselves, then we have forgiven.
The authors are at pains to make clear that forgiveness is not the same thing as condoning or excusing cruelty or injustice. Our ignorance of this point can be a serious obstacle to progressing on the path of healing. Forgiveness means putting things in perspective, and seeing that life is more than just the harms that have been done to us, and that those who have done the harming are more than just their worst moments.
Each step of the process is discussed in detail, but the book moves along briskly. The authors give us exercises to do to help bring us along, and illustrate each phase with their handful of case studies. I bought this book in order to do research for one of my fictional characters, but found that I was learning about myself and my own life. Now I would recommend this book to just about everyone: both those who are limping from day to day on "painkillers and emptiness-fillers," and those who are mostly happy, unaware that their unhealed wounds are keeping the true riches of life out of reach.
This book, published in 1990, is the product of a husband-wife team; the Simons led seminars in forgiveness and healing throughout the United States in the 1980s. Indeed, it comes out in the book that it was at one of these seminars, then led only by Sidney Simon, that the pair met: for Suzanne had suffered sexual abuse as a little girl, and had finally taken definite steps to heal herself. She went on to marry the seminar's facilitator and to coteach the seminar with him.
Suzanne's story becomes the central case study in the book. There are also about half a dozen others: the stories of men and women who suffered emotional wounding and went on to heal it and live more fully. Not all the wounds are necessarily inflicted in childhood; one woman was traumatized to learn of her husband's affair. The authors point out that we can be hurt by spouses, lovers, siblings, and employers as much as by our parents--although our early caregivers are in a position to do the most harm, since at that time of life we are small and helpless and at their mercy. Certainly this was the case with Suzanne, who was molested by her own father.
The notion of people being wounded or damaged, and working with their "inner child" and haunting support groups, has been in popular culture for some time. Beavis and Butthead made taunts about each other's inner child, and the popular writer on healing, Caroline Myss, is critical of the phenomenon of "woundology"--of people identifying with their wounds and thereby never getting past them. She sees support groups as being, at least sometimes, enablers of this kind of thinking. But I got a sense from reading the Simons' book that this getting stuck at a stage in the healing process is normal and inevitable. And, true, a person can stay stuck there a long time, maybe his whole life, but the problem is one of being stuck, and not of paying attention to one's woundedness. For we must pay attention to it if we are to heal. But we need to pay attention to it in the right way.
This is where the Simons' book comes in. They clearly outline the healing process and how to proceed with it. For each of us, it unfolds as a series of 6 stages, which they name:
1. Denial
2. Self-Blame
3. Victim
4. Indignation
5. Survivor
6. Integration
We all start in the Denial stage, and we may linger there a good long time, since it's not something that naturally goes away by itself. The authors describe it thus:
This is the stage in which we attempt to play down the impact or importance of painful past experiences and bury our thoughts and feelings about those experiences.
It's easy to see why this creates a "stuck" situation, since, when confronted with evidence of a problem, we respond: "Problem? What problem? I'm okay, that's all ancient history. Heck, it's made me stronger!" But the evidence of unhealed wounds lies in our lives and how we manage them. Do we engage in self-defeating or self-destructive behaviors? Do we repeatedly find ourselves enacting similar unpleasant dramas in our lives? Do we feel unfulfilled or dead inside? Do we feel that life is just something to be got through--and maybe got over with as soon as possible?
One of the most striking things for me in reading this book was to see how the behaviors associated with unhealed wounds describe so much of human life around me--as well as my own life. To some extent, we are all, each of us, the walking wounded. For, as the Simons observe, everybody gets hurt. We don't all get hurt equally badly, but it's not a contest; and if our wounds are causing unpleasant symptoms to appear in our lives, then this is a problem we need to deal with.
The book is called Forgiveness, but the path they describe is one of healing. I don't know whether I've ever associated those things before. But, according to these authors, forgiveness happens spontaneously as a byproduct of healing. We cannot forgive by an act of will; the words "I forgive" have no magic power to bring about the mental and emotional closure that true forgiveness brings. According to the Simons, we must go through all the steps of healing--every one of them--in order for the magic of forgiveness to take place. The level of our actual forgiveness is revealed in how we live and behave: if we are living fully, enjoying our lives, and actualizing ourselves, then we have forgiven.
The authors are at pains to make clear that forgiveness is not the same thing as condoning or excusing cruelty or injustice. Our ignorance of this point can be a serious obstacle to progressing on the path of healing. Forgiveness means putting things in perspective, and seeing that life is more than just the harms that have been done to us, and that those who have done the harming are more than just their worst moments.
Each step of the process is discussed in detail, but the book moves along briskly. The authors give us exercises to do to help bring us along, and illustrate each phase with their handful of case studies. I bought this book in order to do research for one of my fictional characters, but found that I was learning about myself and my own life. Now I would recommend this book to just about everyone: both those who are limping from day to day on "painkillers and emptiness-fillers," and those who are mostly happy, unaware that their unhealed wounds are keeping the true riches of life out of reach.
July 15, 2018
درباره ی بخشیدن زیاد گفته میشه ببخش تا خودت به آرامش برسی، ببخش چون کسی که تو رو آزار داده خودش هم درد کشیده... اما به نظرم نمیشه به کسی گفت ببخش و منتظر موند تا طرف بگه بخشیدم. فرایند بخشیدن یک چیز درونی و طولانیه که حتی ممکنه سالها طول بکشه. راستش این کتاب انتخاب من نبود من میخواستم بخشودن اثر ایو گارارد رو بخرم اما خب این کتاب اومد پیشم و من هم پسش ندادم چون به نظرم ما کتابها رو انتخاب نمیکنیم اونها ما رو انتخاب میکنن. خوندنش درونم رو کمی آرام کرد میدونم که به چیزهایی که در این کتاب نوشته شده تا مدت طولانی ای فکر خواهم کرد. اصلا به جای گفتن ببخش بهتره این کتاب رو هدیه داد.
January 24, 2010
I was giving this book away unread when i decided to read part of it, then had to read the whole thing, and then changed my mind about giving it away, but the other person REALLY wanted it so gave it to them anyhow, and then had to mooch a second copy because I didn't want to admit I wanted to keep it. Very well done examination of a very difficult subject.
August 31, 2011
Nonfiction is traditionally harder for me to get through but this book is full of good information. If you are struggling to forgive someone, I would highly recommend picking it up.
January 29, 2016
Fabulously helpful in outlining the different psychological stages of forgiveness, but too many long, convoluted case studies were given as examples
July 14, 2025
Apparently on Audible the audiobook is much shorter than the actual book. Still kinda useful - it describes what forgiveness is and what isn’t, lays out six stages of forgiveness and gives some concrete advice for a first couple of stages. How effective the advice is remains to be seen with time and practice.
September 19, 2017
As I rarely read self-help books, I have little to compare this book with. However, Dr. & Mrs. Simon give sound advice based on the 12-step programs that have been much hailed over the past 35+ years and with good reason. The ideas and suggestions for working through issues, to get to a place of peace and resolution that are laid out in Forgiveness, are not easy, and not supposed to be followed like a new diet plan, but rather in conjunction with therapy, counseling or other forms of psychological healing.
I believe that many people can get to the Survivor stage, but to get to the actual Integration stage requires a lot of work and a real desire to get to true forgiveness of self. Ultimately, getting through the stages delineated in this text means growing up emotionally to your full adult potential.
I will continue to strive toward my own goals and will use the steps I learned from Forgiveness to help me in my personal journey of emotional fulfillment and forgiveness.
I believe that many people can get to the Survivor stage, but to get to the actual Integration stage requires a lot of work and a real desire to get to true forgiveness of self. Ultimately, getting through the stages delineated in this text means growing up emotionally to your full adult potential.
I will continue to strive toward my own goals and will use the steps I learned from Forgiveness to help me in my personal journey of emotional fulfillment and forgiveness.
August 14, 2016
Forgiveness: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Get on With Your Life (Hardcover)
This book was purchased as gift for my son. He embodies much anger with the loss of his youngest son in Iraq. I am hoping the content of this book will help him to forgive ... himself and those he harbors aggression against.
This book was purchased as gift for my son. He embodies much anger with the loss of his youngest son in Iraq. I am hoping the content of this book will help him to forgive ... himself and those he harbors aggression against.
February 24, 2021
The book is eloquently written with concise and easy to read diction.
It uses real world experiences and uses them as examples to great effect. It goes into the basic psychology of forgiveness with the stages clearly explained and goes through several exercises to achieve it.
I found the book helpful and would recommend it to others.
It uses real world experiences and uses them as examples to great effect. It goes into the basic psychology of forgiveness with the stages clearly explained and goes through several exercises to achieve it.
I found the book helpful and would recommend it to others.
February 15, 2018
This is an excellent book! I will read this one again. I have read this with a friend, she will read it again too. I gifted it to my adult daughters, hoping they will enjoy a lifetime of experiencing the joy of forgiveness -forgiving others and themselves.
June 3, 2012
I'm reading through this the second time, now. Very good exercises and advice on forgiving. Completely secular approach, which is also refreshing.
July 19, 2018
Beautiful book that could help anyone in life... recommended
November 1, 2025
Dr. Sydney B. Simon and Suzanne Simon's Forgiveness: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Get on With Your Life offers a step-by-step guide to healing through forgiveness, empowering readers to move beyond anger and resentment, even without an apology. Using a framework inspired by 12-step programs, the book identifies six universal stages of healing—denial, self-blame, victimhood, indignation, survival, and integration—helping readers acknowledge and progress through each one. With its compassionate tone and practical tools, the guide validates feelings of loss while encouraging personal growth, making it applicable to a wide range of life challenges and grief sources.
August 6, 2023
Really well written. Full of actionable insights. Highly recommend.
January 30, 2024
I recommend this everyone and anyone. I wish I had done this 25 years ago when it was first suggested to me.
September 28, 2025
اگر تو هر مرحله از روان درمانی هستید بهترین کتابیه که میتونه بگه تو چه مرحله ایی گیر کردید
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