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Community Corner

Don't Ask Me to Forgive You: A Radical Approach to Healing Interpersonal Wounds


Location: Westport 


 Date: 1/24/2013

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From: 7:00 pm - 8:15 pm



Forgiveness has been held up as the gold standard of recovery from interpersonal injuries. We have been taught that forgiveness is good for us and that good people forgive. In real life, however, hurt parties often find that they can’t or won’t forgive, particularly when the offender is unrepentant or dead. 

In this workshop, Genuine Forgiveness will be reframed as an intimate dance, a hard-won transaction, which asks as much of the offender as it does of the hurt party. You will learn to help offenders perform bold, humble, heartfelt acts of repair to earn forgiveness, such as bearing witness to the pain they caused, delivering a meaningful apology, and taking responsibility for their offense. You will also learn to help hurt parties release their obsessive preoccupation with the injury, accept a fair share of responsibility for what went wrong, and create opportunities for the offender to make good.

The presenter will propose a radical, new alternative to forgiveness – a profound, life-affirming, healing process called Acceptance. This can be accomplished by the hurt party alone, when the offender can’t or won’t make meaningful repairs for the damaged caused. Ten concrete steps for achieving Acceptance will be described. 

Everyone is struggling to forgive someone. This workshop invites you to participate – personally, or vicariously for your patients – in an experience designed to help you rise above a violation, repair the rupture within yourself, and consider forgiving the partner, parent, in-law, sibling, child, friend, or significant other who has hurt you. For those of you who have wronged someone else, it will offer you concrete steps for earning that person’s forgiveness – and your own.

Participants will learn:

* to debunk popular assumptions about what it means to forgive;
* to provide hurt parties with a radical, new alternative which allows them to become physically and spiritually healthy – without forgiving an unapologetic offender;
* to compare four different approaches to forgiveness and to identify what makes two of them dysfunctional and two of them healthy;
* to follow specific, concrete guidelines for helping offenders earn forgiveness and for helping hurt parties foster forgiveness.

About Janis
JANIS ABRAHMS SPRING, PH.D., is a nationally acclaimed expert on issues of trust, intimacy, and forgiveness. Her first book, After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful, has sold over a quarter of a million copies and is published in thirteen countries. Her recently released second book, How Can I Forgive You? The Courage to Forgive, The Freedom Not To, is a Books for a Better Life Award Finalist. She is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology, a recipient of the Connecticut Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Practice of Psychology, and has served as a clinical supervisor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. The originality and clinical richness of her work make her a popular media guest and prized presenter to both public and professional audiences. In private practice for close to three decades, Dr. Spring resides in Westport, Connecticut with her husband and has four sons. You’re invited to visit her Web site at: www.janisaspring.com

Cost of Attendance: $25 early/$35 after 01/17

Full payment is required to reserve a spot in the workshop.

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Refund policy: Cancellations made at least 15 days prior to the workshop date will receive a refund in the form of original payment, minus a $15 processing fee.


Cancellations made less than 15 days prior to the workshop will receive account credit only, minus a $15 processing fee.


Cancellations made 24 hours prior to the workshop, or failure to arrive for the workshop, will result in no refund or credit. No exceptions.


Kaia Yoga is not responsible for any and all costs incurred for travel arrangements or accommodations related to this event.


There are no refunds or credits issued due to inclement or other weather conditions, which prevent the student from attending class/workshop/training/etc, in the event that Kaia Yoga is open for business and the class/workshop/training/etc is still being held as originally scheduled.


In the event that Kaia Yoga is closed for business, or cancels the class/workshop/training/etc due to inclement or other weather conditions, Kaia Yoga will issue a credit.


 

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