Reflection by Aya Caspi
Word Watch: Forgiveness
“Friends, Friends forever, enemies—never!”
When I was little and had a fight with a friend, the adults would wrap our pinkies together and have us repeat these words. It was meant to be a simple and effective path to forgiveness and peace.
It didn’t really work. Being made to forgive doesn’t mean trust has been restored.
In our culture, forgiveness can carry an unspoken promise: I will forgive, but I won’t forget. Beneath those words remains the belief that the other person did something wrong, is responsible for my pain, and therefore deserves some measure of resentment, mistrust, or distance.
But is it really possible for us to heal and restore connection, if we hold grudges...?
In public life, we see this tension everywhere. After violence, war, political corruption, or hateful speech, calls for forgiveness and peace can be experienced as pressure to move on before impact has been fully acknowledged, responsibility taken, or trust restored. At the same time, refusing forgiveness and reconciliation can keep us trapped in cycles of blame, punishment, and dehumanization.
Political language often reinforces this divide. We label people as “evil,” “bigot,” “extremist,” or “the enemy,” reducing complex human beings to a single identity or action. Once someone becomes the enemy, understanding and compassion can be mistaken for weakness or betrayal, rather than recognized as a path toward humanizing everyone without denying or dismissing responsibility.
Nonviolent Communication offers a different way of understanding forgiveness. Instead of seeing forgiveness as something we are supposed to do, it can be understood as a natural healing that emerges from a process of repair—a process that restores trust and togetherness.
Repair begins with fully hearing, understanding, and acknowledging impact without defending our intentions or excusing the circumstances. It means taking responsibility for how our words and actions contributed to the impact, and mourning what was lost without collapsing into shame or guilt—even when others are demanding that we feel them.
It also means sharing what we were trying to care for—not to justify ourselves, but to support transformation of enemy images through understanding. And finally, it means making requests and agreements about how we can care for everyone moving forward, in ways that specifically address the impacts of what happened.
Forgiveness, then, is not forgetting, excusing, or erasing responsibility. Nor is it blaming, judging, or punishing.
Instead of moving on, or moving away, it is moving toward.
The Shift: What might shift if, instead of saying “I forgive you,” we said:
I believe you understand and mourn the impact of your actions. I understand what led to your actions. And I want us to find a way forward together.
Forgiveness then is not something we do to someone else. It is what becomes possible when understanding, mourning, responsibility, and repair have created enough space for trust and connection to return.
