01.05.T01-RS — Reflection Scorecard: Preventing Bitterness and Unforgiveness

Reflecting on How Bitterness and Unforgiveness Can Be Prevented

This Reflection Scorecard invites you to reflect on the examples and prevention practices explored in this chapter and consider how they relate to your own experiences and those of other people in your space.

1. Which of the prevention practices presented in this chapter challenged your thinking most strongly? Why?

2. Have you ever expected something from another person and subsequently become resentful when that person failed to meet your expectation?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, what had you expected and how did you respond when that expectation was not met?

3. What did you identify in Lameka's or Nakasi's expectations that could also occur in your own relationships?

4. Have you ever expected one person to behave in a particular way because of your previous experience with someone else?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, how did that previous experience influence the way you viewed or treated the person?

5. What did Mayengo and his colleagues fail to recognise when Mukiibi replaced Baliwo?

6. Have you ever found yourself expecting an offence to be repeated because of what happened previously?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, how has that expectation influenced your thoughts, behaviour or relationships?

7. Have you ever discussed an offence with someone who made you more resentful towards the offender?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, what did the person say or do that intensified your resentment?

8. What differences did you identify between the company Seranda kept and the kind of person the chapter recommends confiding in when you have been offended?

9. What did Nassimbwa fail to recognise about herself that contributed to her difficulties with other people?

10. Which kinds of offences or behaviours are most likely to provoke a strong reaction from you?

11. When you become aware that resentment is beginning to develop within you, how readily do you recognise what has triggered it?

12. What did Kusanira eventually change in his response to Sulemani's behaviour?

13. Is there a behaviour in another person that repeatedly provokes you even though you have come to expect it?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, how do you usually respond when it occurs?

14. Have you ever continued thinking about an offence until assumptions about another person's motives began to appear factual to you?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, what effect did those assumptions have on your response to the person?

15. Have you ever reacted to an offence immediately and later wished that you had given yourself more time before responding?

☐ Yes
☐ No

If yes, what consequences resulted from your immediate response?

16. Are there offences to which you now believe you have given more attention than they deserved?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, what made you continue giving them attention?

17. Have you observed bitterness or resentment in another person being reinforced by any of the tendencies discussed in this chapter?

☐ Yes
☐ No
☐ I am not sure

If yes, which tendency did you recognise and how was it expressed?

18. Which of the prevention practices discussed in this chapter do you think would have made the greatest difference in an occasion when you struggled to forgive an offender? Why?

19. After reading this chapter, what have you recognised about the way bitterness and unforgiveness can be prevented before they become firmly established?