Reflexive encounters with embodied resistance to relational forgiveness

Abstract

Troubling relationships with our parents may raise unanswered questions and anxieties. Over time, our bodies harbor these sensations in ways that often may go unrecognized. In this autoethnographic account, I examine memories of my childhood and recent past to understand emotionally disturbing episodes tainting my relationship with my father. Interrogating my reflective habits, I probe meanings left undetected by my preconceived sense-making routines. At the same time, I notice and voice the embodied resistance I encounter when opening up and deconstructing intimate layers of deeply rooted pains associated with my father. In doing so, I demonstrate how reflective practices summon a dialogue between embodied emotions and re-engagements with past understandings. Such dialogue generates potential for reimagining relational meanings and apprehending possibilities for forgiveness.

Keywords:

• Critical reflexivity
• embodiment
• forgiveness
• interpersonal relationships
• emotion

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for colleagues, Anne Gerbensky-Kerber, Steve Phalen, William K. Rawlins, Mary Tuominen, and Vincent R. Waldron, for their generous mentorship. Moreover, I thank friends, family and students who shared many thought-provoking conversations with me throughout this reflective experience.