134: The 5 Steps To Forgiveness

To forgive is not easy, it is a practice that must be repeated like anything else. It starts with realizing that negative emotions have a direct impact on our health and that by hanging on to them we literally kill ourselves over time. By practicing the 5 steps to Forgiveness and ending with Gratitude, however, we can regain our freedom and find power from the suffering that is part of life.

Transcript

This is episode 134,

The five steps to forgiveness.

My name is Tudor Alexander and this is the Dance of Life podcast.

Every week,

My goal is to inspire you to take action towards what you love,

Live a transformed life,

And enjoy the journey there.

Are you ready?

Let's go.

What's up?

What's up,

Everybody?

Thank you so much for joining me.

I'm super excited to have you on the show today.

We're going to talk about something that you probably don't get to talk about too often,

Which is forgiveness.

You know,

Forgiveness is a huge,

Huge part of life and it is probably one of the most difficult things to do.

So I thought I'd put an episode together of some really important steps,

You know,

A five-step process.

I mean,

It sounds kind of cheesy,

Sounds kind of corny,

But really take it into your own life and see if you can apply it because we all have things in our life that require forgiveness.

The situations,

People,

Things that we experience,

We're all carrying around those kind of things.

You know,

I'm certainly not free of that myself and learning to forgive,

Getting in tune with the things that have happened in my life that have been trauma or traumatic,

That have been betrayals,

Things that I've lost or things that didn't happen,

You know,

Happen in the way that I want them to be.

That's been a huge part of,

You know,

We talk about,

This show talks about entrepreneurs and talks about taking action towards what you love,

Taking action and creating a life that you love,

All these kinds of things.

And a lot of the times,

You know,

We look at strategies on,

Let's say business or,

You know,

What things you have to know or what tools you can use.

And those are all really super valuable and very,

Very important.

But what about things like gratitude?

What about things like forgiveness?

You know,

You can't be a great entrepreneur.

You can't be a great leader.

You can't be a great parent.

You can't be a great artist and be creative if you've got resentment or worry or anger,

You know,

These heavy emotions that we have,

Depression in your heart,

You know,

At least you can't be 100%,

You know,

And that's what this whole show is about.

It's really about inspiring you to be 100%.

And a big part of that is letting go of the things that hold us down.

And,

You know,

The way you do that is through forgiveness.

So I have an awesome,

Awesome quote for you to kind of set the mood for this episode.

And that's from the Buddha,

You know,

Who better else,

Right?

And that quote is this,

Holding on to anger is like drinking a poison and expecting it to kill the other person.

You know,

That's a very profound metaphor.

And I love metaphor.

I love metaphors because again,

They get you present to something physical that you can relate to,

You know,

Forgiveness is,

It's a very heady topic in some sense.

It's very mental,

Philosophical.

And I love the Buddha and his quotes because ultimately he really puts it in a very simple the way,

Understand like literally if you drank a cup of poison and you're drinking that cup and you are doing it out of like spite,

Like you really want to hurt somebody and you want them to die,

That kind of thing.

Like it makes no sense for you to drink the poison,

Right?

It literally,

You can visualize that,

Like you can experience that in your mind and it makes absolutely no sense.

So that is the same way,

You know,

With these different steps,

You know,

We're about to get right into it,

But with forgiveness,

It's the same thing.

You know,

Ultimately with the emotions that you carry around,

Carrying them around doesn't do you any good.

It really doesn't.

Even if you feel that you're justified and by the way,

You're always going to feel that you're justified.

You know,

That's something that I learned personally is that first off emotions are very real,

Right?

When you're experiencing an emotion,

It's very real to you.

It has to be,

That's why they're there.

You know,

You don't feel something and then it doesn't feel real.

I mean,

Sometimes we get things that we feel and we kind of know,

Okay,

Wait a minute,

I'm not shooting right here,

But in reality,

Emotions are very powerful.

They sway our experience and they're designed to be real.

So when you feel something,

You're always going to be justified.

You're always going to,

Your mind is always going to find a reason why you're justified or why you feel that way because it's a very powerful experience.

So the mind needs to put it in a box somehow.

So the point is,

Is that even if you're justified,

It doesn't matter.

You know,

And that takes us to our first,

You know,

This episode is the five steps to forgiveness.

And,

You know,

I thought about,

Okay,

I've had to,

You know,

My own life,

I've had to really practice this in a number of very powerful situations that really challenged my life,

You know,

In this sense.

And,

You know,

There was very big betrayals I experienced,

Very traumatic experiences in some sense.

And,

You know,

You can't hang on to that stuff and be productive.

You can't hang on to that stuff and be creative,

Loving,

Create space for other people in your life,

That kind of thing.

So ultimately,

You know,

I've had to really address this many times.

And recently something happened that made me think like,

Okay,

You know,

What is my process?

What is my process to,

What is a way that I could communicate this to somebody else to really make them,

You know,

To help them employ it in their own life,

You know,

Because forgiveness is so important,

But it's so hard to do.

And I think the reason it's hard to do is because we tend to jump to some of the assumptions that I'll break down for you in this episode.

But we tend to jump to some erroneous conclusions about forgiveness.

And what happens is when we get to those erroneous conclusions,

We put a wall,

We say,

Ah,

You know,

It's too hard or no,

That doesn't make sense,

You know,

So we stop,

You know,

Like we do with anything.

As soon as you encounter resistance,

The natural instinct is to stop.

So the first part with forgiveness,

The number one thing that's going to help you begin this process,

It doesn't matter how difficult the situation is,

It really doesn't.

The first step is you have to acknowledge the impact on your health.

So there's been numerous,

Numerous,

And I'm not going to cite them here,

But you can look it up.

There's more and more information every day on the impact of negative emotions on your health.

We are not just a physical body,

We are a very,

Very,

Very complicated machine that stores information.

You know,

They found that you can store 700 terabytes of memory into a gram of DNA.

Now just let that sink in for a second,

700 terabytes,

That's like,

I don't even know how many hard drives these days,

I mean,

They're changing so fast,

But still it's several dozen hard drives in a gram of DNA.

So now think about how much memory we have in our bodies through DNA,

Through muscle memory,

Through the imprinting in our brain,

All these neurons,

We're constantly recording everything that happens,

You know,

And our emotions are a powerful way that that happens.

Your emotions record,

You know,

The events that happen in your life so that you can remember them and move on and pass that information forward,

But that's not always productive,

Right?

You know,

The things that we remember aren't often necessarily,

Let's say,

Useful,

That they were just very impactful in our life,

So that means the emotions were present.

So the things that you remember that are negative,

They tend to be negative,

That's another thing,

Is that they tend to be negative.

So when you look at the things that you tend to remember,

We tend to remember negative things.

So we're all carrying these negative emotions with us,

And believe it or not,

They affect your health.

You know,

There's cancer cells constantly growing and dying every minute in your body,

Every minute.

The immune system finds it and eradicates them,

But you know,

When that process,

When that balance shifts and it goes in the opposite direction,

In the bad direction,

That's when you start to get cancer or you start to get some kind of disease.

You know,

It's this constant balance between the white and the black,

The light and the dark,

The negative forces and the positive forces.

So your emotions,

What you think and feel,

That vibration through your body,

Is what affects this balance,

And if you carry anger,

If you carry resentment,

Worry,

Panic,

Chronic stress,

I mean,

These things are what really kill you.

So forget about the other person,

Forget about,

You know,

Any kind of abstract idea with forgiveness.

You need to find a very selfish reason to get your mind primed to the importance of why forgiveness should be happening in your life,

And the first reason is it's,

You know,

Carrying around these negative emotions is literally killing you.

Again,

It doesn't matter if you're justified,

You could be totally right and it could be totally justified for being angry,

Being worried,

Being panicked,

You're absolutely right.

You may not be,

But let's say you're absolutely right.

Let's just say you're absolutely right in what you feel.

It still doesn't change the fact that if you allow yourself to keep feeling that anger,

That heavy emotion,

That you're killing yourself.

So,

Number one is look at the impact on your health,

And when you can start to see that,

When you get present to,

Holy smokes,

I'm killing myself with these negative emotions,

Then it starts to kind of start breaking down that process.

It starts to break down the barrier of why,

You know,

Forgiveness is so important,

Because ultimately without forgiveness you get stuck,

And when you get stuck,

You know,

There's the law of movement of things that move.

Anything that is stagnant develops disease.

It's like a pond of water,

Of still water.

You know,

Running water is fine,

But stagnant water creates disease.

So,

That's the same thing with your mind.

Anything that's stagnant creates disease,

You know,

And it creates disease in your body too.

Now,

The second step,

Once you start to see that,

It starts to crack,

You know,

This is why this five-step process,

You got to start with the most selfish first,

Which is your very,

Your health,

That's primal.

You know,

That's it,

Like don't kill yourself.

Then you start cracking away at the shell nice and easy.

You start to break away at the resistance,

Which is natural when it comes to forgiveness.

And the second step,

Once you look at how the impact on your health is with these negative emotions,

You also have to see and accept the world,

Yourself,

And other people,

You know,

And this is a bigger umbrella,

So we're going to break it down.

So,

I have talked about these before,

But I'll mention them again.

It's a concept from,

You know,

The Hindu traditions,

The yoga traditions,

Called the five kleshas.

That's a fancy word,

But the concept is very simple,

You know,

And particularly I want to focus on just one of them.

They're five afflictions that humanity has,

You know,

Like attachment,

Ego,

You know,

All these kind of things.

But the first affliction and the root of all suffering is ignorance.

That's the first klesha.

It's ignorance basically at the,

Not realizing the ultimate truth,

Which is,

You know,

Universal consciousness,

You know,

Purpose,

All of these,

Unity,

All these types of things,

And getting caught up in some level of ignorance,

Meaning I'm thinking that the world is out to get me,

That everything's bad,

I don't have any purpose,

All these kinds of negative limiting beliefs,

Right?

So,

Ultimately,

If you have that ignorance,

And if you're in a space of that level of ignorance,

And we're not talking stupidity here,

It's not,

There's nothing to do with intelligence,

It's just ignorance,

It's not being able to see correctly,

Then you suffer.

And if you think about any situation where we have suffering,

It is because there is something called cognitive dissonance.

You know,

Cognitive dissonance is the idea that your mind is having a particular reality,

It expects something,

Right?

And then something happens differently,

Right?

So now there's a mismatch.

Now,

This happens all the time,

It doesn't have to be just serious situations.

You know,

We may,

Whatever,

Expect,

Let's say you put something in the toaster,

And,

You know,

You've got a setting on it,

And you put it in there,

You're like,

Ah,

It's gonna be so crispy,

I can't wait to get it,

You know,

And it pops out,

And it didn't even work,

Or maybe the toaster wasn't even on,

Or something like that,

Who knows?

So now there's a dissonance,

There's a cognitive dissonance between that beautiful picture in your mind that you expected of this toasty little bagel that's gonna come out,

And,

You know,

It came out and it wasn't very toasty,

Or maybe it wasn't even toasted at all.

So now,

You know,

Let's say you're tired in the morning,

You're already cranky,

You were expecting that,

You're late for work,

So now suddenly,

You know,

You get angry,

Right?

That's our response to that mismatch,

And that's what's gonna make it right,

Is just being angry.

And,

You know,

This is a silly example,

But it happens all the time,

And I use that example because it also happens,

You know,

It's good to see that in a simpler way,

And apply it to something more serious,

You know,

Like you,

With people,

With relationships,

When something doesn't work out,

We expect something to go a certain way,

This is normal human behavior,

And when it doesn't,

You know,

We have this,

We have this profound experience of mismatch,

And that mismatch drives us nuts.

As human beings,

We,

We need to have resolution,

We do not like mismatches,

And so the mind will do all kinds of things to create that resolution,

You know,

Because it can't operate when there's two opposing truths or realities,

You know,

So how it does those things,

It gets angry,

It gets,

It experiences an emotion,

Emotions give us some some level of certainty or comfort or,

Or direction,

You know,

If I'm angry,

And that person is wrong,

So we blame,

That's another thing,

Right,

We blame that situation,

So then I blame,

I get angry,

All these things give me some level of explanation,

Even though it didn't fully explain it,

Gives me a comforting sense,

Some level of,

Okay,

I,

I'm right,

At least,

You know,

Then,

Then,

Then living in that sort of dissonance,

That cognitive dissonance,

So you have to look at that,

You have to look at that process,

That cognitive dissonance,

That whenever something that's a mismatch happens,

We want resolution,

And that's important because,

You know,

There's three steps to acceptance that you'll have to come to terms with,

So this is the second step,

First one is with your health,

Second level is practicing acceptance,

And with acceptance,

There's three,

Three stages or three levels,

I would say,

So the first level is accepting the world,

The second level is accepting other people,

And the third level is accepting yourself,

Now these aren't necessarily in order,

You can change them around how you want,

But those are the three components of any situation,

You got the world outside,

You got other people that you relate to,

And you have yourself,

You know,

So why I mentioned this whole thing with cognitive dissonance and the five clashes and ignorance is the root of suffering,

All this stuff,

Ultimately,

You know,

If you look at the world,

Right,

Let's take the world as the first one,

The world is constantly happening in a way that we can't control it,

Anything outside of you,

You cannot control,

And,

You know,

This is just a fundamental aspect of life,

Like,

That's it,

There's nothing to do,

You just accept that,

Now it doesn't mean you give up to that,

But you accept it,

And this is,

This is also important to note in that acceptance doesn't mean,

It doesn't mean surrender,

It doesn't mean like surrender in a,

Well even surrender,

I like surrender as a word,

So we're gonna use a different word,

It doesn't mean giving up,

It doesn't mean like rolling over,

You know,

Being a victim or anything like that,

You know,

That that's a false idea of acceptance,

When something happens,

You know,

Imagine your two hands and put your palms together,

But your fingers facing in opposite directions,

It's like one situation happened this way,

And in my mind it happened another way,

And there's this mismatch,

The fingers aren't aligned,

When we accept something,

Remember ignorance is the the root of all suffering,

So when we accept something,

It's not about surrendering and giving up and all that stuff,

It's about realigning yourself to what actually happened,

And realigning yourself to proper seeing,

And getting rid of that ignorance so that you don't suffer,

So part of getting rid of that ignorance,

There's three parts,

The first one is accepting the world and impermanence in the sense that things are constantly changing,

There's never anything that's the same,

Meaning that you'll never be able to control everything,

So that's just a fundamental aspect of life,

And when you can wrap your mind around that,

Especially in the situation that you're dealing with,

That starts to dissolve this desire to have had it in a different way,

Or to be able to control it,

Or to be able to do anything,

There's factors beyond your control,

There's things that no matter what good of a person you were,

Or however you did it,

That there's nothing you could have done,

So that's something to wrap your mind around,

You know,

And the second part,

Again there's three to this,

To kind of getting rid of that ignorance,

The second part is accepting other people,

And what that is,

Is that,

You know,

The more you learn about human behavior,

The more you start to paint a picture of what ordinary is,

What human nature is,

I call it inherent nature,

Meaning the inherent qualities of human beings,

And of anything,

And you know,

The more you start to paint that picture,

And it's,

It's,

You know,

First it's going to sound depressing,

You know,

But really it's just for context,

You know,

We are,

Naturally we tend to remember the negative,

Naturally we tend to complain,

Naturally we don't have integrity,

And we don't follow through on what we say,

Naturally we,

You know,

We're emotional creatures,

And we,

You know,

We take the low road,

We go with what's comfortable,

We don't take accountability,

I mean these things are normal human behavior,

And the problem is that,

Especially with people who are close to us,

And this is usually where forgiveness,

You know,

Where we need to practice it most,

Is with the people that are close to us,

We expect so much out of them,

You know,

We expect so much out of the people who are close to us,

And,

And that's like a false expectation,

So then you set yourself up for that cognitive dissonance,

And then you,

Then you suffer because you're ignorant of human nature,

Right,

So it's,

It's a self-defeating paradigm,

So you have to come to terms with ordinary,

And the fact that,

You know what,

It's absolutely ordinary for people to act like trash,

And that sucks,

But that's just normal human behavior that's based in survival,

That doesn't mean you condone it,

Accepting it does not mean,

This is going to be one of the parts later that we'll talk about forgiveness,

But accepting it doesn't mean you condone it,

It just means that you come to terms with it,

You see it,

And that it is what it is,

And the final part of that is accepting yourself,

You know,

When you can come to terms with human nature in general,

And other people's behavior,

Default behavior,

Let's say,

Then you can look back at yourself and say,

Okay,

You know,

I tend to do those things too,

You know,

You don't have to be Christian,

But if you recall in the Bible,

There's,

There's a verse or a statement,

You know,

About Jesus,

Basically,

When he was preventing the,

The people from stoning the woman,

He says,

You know,

If you go ahead and throw the stone,

If you don't have any sin yourself,

You know,

So I'm totally butchering it,

But you get the point,

You know,

Ultimately,

You start to see within yourself that you have moments where you're out of integrity,

Where you have moments where you tend to remember only the negative,

Or complain,

Or,

You know,

Not take accountability,

And that's just human nature,

And one of those things,

Particularly very important with forgiveness,

That's human nature,

When you look at yourself,

That you need to accept,

Is that we also make meaning out of everything that happens to us,

That's emotional,

So when you get that you're making a meaning out of the situation in question,

That you put a meaning on that,

And again,

You could be totally justified in that meaning,

It is still a meaning that you created,

And that's part of our makeup,

It's part of how we be as human beings,

And there's nothing wrong with that,

But noticing that,

Being able to notice that,

And separate yourself from that process,

You start to crack the shell a little further,

So first step is look at your health,

Look at the impact of these negative emotions on your health,

You've got to see that,

And you start cracking the shell,

And then you start looking at human nature,

You look at the world around you,

You look at your own nature,

And you start to see,

Okay,

Well,

If that's how things are,

Maybe my judgment shouldn't be so harsh,

You know,

Maybe part of the suffering that I'm experiencing is the fact that I'm judging the situation in a particular way,

Again,

You could be justified,

But the big suffering is that I've judged something,

And again,

We don't know the truth,

We never know the full truth,

So ignorance is the source of suffering,

So when you judge,

You inadvertently create suffering for yourself in some way or fashion,

So the third part of this five-step process is no pardoning,

Remember,

There's no pardoning,

So what does that mean?

So pardoning happens because there's a judgment,

They arise mutually,

You wouldn't have pardoning if you didn't have judgments,

So what this means is that,

And this was the thing I was talking about earlier,

Is that ultimately,

One of the biggest blocks to forgiveness is that we feel that we are absolving or pardoning,

We use pardoning,

That we are pardoning somebody's sins or mistakes when we forgive,

You know,

Like if I forgive,

Then somehow it makes it okay that that person did what they did or that whatever happened,

Happened,

And you know,

So here's the problem with that,

And this is something that feels very real,

But if we look at it further,

And we take the time to look at it quietly,

It's not the case,

It's an illusion,

So the reason you feel that you're pardoning somebody is because there's a judgment,

Right?

Somewhere down the road,

Let's say somebody did something to you,

You judged it as a certain way,

Negative,

Bad,

Stupid,

Whatever,

So where does that judgment exist?

That's the question to ask yourself,

Where does that judgment exist?

There's a ledger somewhere,

There's a history ledger of everything that happened and exactly all the details,

At least in the way that you remembered it,

Where is that ledger?

And this is where the distinction is very important,

Because the ledger isn't out in the world somewhere,

It's not like there's a building somewhere that has,

You know,

This book of life and says,

Oh,

You know,

Keith over at Starbucks,

You know,

Gave you a dirty look,

So you know,

What that means is that was wrong or bad,

And you know,

There is no such thing,

The ledger is in our mind,

The ledger is in our mind,

It's privatized,

It's in there,

It's in our mind,

It's nowhere else,

Now it may also be another people's minds,

Because you've convinced them and,

You know,

Talked to them about your situation and now they hold your side,

But ultimately it was first in your mind,

That's where the ledger occurred,

So when you pardon somebody,

You know,

With forgiveness,

When you are creating forgiveness,

You're not pardoning them out there in the world,

And somehow the society agrees that now they're free of their sins and that they shouldn't have any accountability,

No,

That's not what happens,

When you're pardoning,

When you're forgiving,

You're letting go of the ledger in your mind,

Because that's the only place that exists,

It's in your mind,

You know,

That doesn't make it any less real,

But that's where it exists,

So you're working on what's happening in your mind,

So you're looking at that situation,

At that ledger from the perspective of your mind,

It's nowhere else,

And so when you let go of that,

You know,

That's that third step,

And what that creates is a space,

You know,

When you realize that forgiveness has nothing to do with the person out there,

Okay,

Has nothing to do with anything that they did,

It's about your own mind and setting yourself free,

It's clearing your own mind,

It's clearing that ledger that's hanging on and labeling that label and creating that emotion that's so detrimental to your health,

When you can clear that,

You know,

It's about setting yourself free,

So you're pardoning yourself,

If anything,

But you're not pardoning anybody else,

Has nothing to do with anybody else,

It is about clearing the ledger in your mind,

So step one,

You know,

Look at your health,

Step two,

Practice acceptance of the world,

Other people,

Yourself,

Number three,

Realize that your action of forgiveness doesn't have anything to do with any external things,

It doesn't pardon anybody,

But it erases the ledger in your own mind,

So that you can think clearly,

The next step is to realize that the action itself is not required with forgiveness,

You know,

That's the other thing,

So we,

And this is tied to the previous one,

Which is the assumption that when you forgive somebody,

You absolve them of their sense,

There's also an assumption that when you forgive somebody,

You're obligated to act in some way,

Like,

You know,

Forgiveness means I gotta buy you a box of chocolates,

Or I gotta meet with you,

And we have to have some serious talk,

And then hug it out,

Or that I have to do,

Like,

You don't have to do anything,

Because again,

Forgiveness is not an external situation,

It's not something that happens out there for somebody,

To somebody,

It is something that happens in here,

Within,

And the only person it's for,

Quote-unquote,

Is you,

It's your own mind,

You know,

So there's no action that's required after you forgive,

Now,

When you do forgive,

And you get to that point,

You are going to create a space,

You're going to create a space,

Because you're erasing that ledger in your mind,

You're erasing that ledger,

So you're creating a space,

And when you create a space,

What that does is it does free you up for action,

So you can,

You can act,

I mean,

Certainly when we forgive,

Especially somebody that we love,

Right,

Like,

If you're in a relationship,

Right,

You know,

And you get in an argument,

Okay,

Boom,

You know,

You,

You forgive each other,

And now it's like you love each other even more,

Right,

But that doesn't mean that you needed to do that,

You know,

That doesn't mean that all situations where forgiveness is needed,

That it's going to mandate that you do something,

Or be necessary that you do something afterward,

That's certainly the case,

It can happen,

Because there's the space now for that love to occur,

That wasn't there before,

If you know,

Before the forgiveness,

When the ledger was there,

And we,

I had my ledger of you,

And you had your ledger of me,

There's no room for anything else,

Because there's that judgment there,

But as soon as you erase the judgment,

There's an empty space,

Then you can write something new in there,

But you don't have to,

And that's the distinction,

That's the fourth step,

That you,

Fourth realization,

You got to realize that there's no action required,

It's,

It's a self-sustaining thing,

So when you take the pressure of being obligated away,

When you take the pressure of feeling that you're absolving the other person,

Now,

You know,

When you look at the impact on your health,

When you practice acceptance,

You do these four things,

I can guarantee you that you're going to find some level of acceptance and freedom and forgiveness in whatever situation it is,

Now look,

I'm not going to tell you that if you've been through something very serious,

That it's going to happen,

Just practice these five steps,

And then in 20 minutes you'll feel great,

You may,

I don't know,

You know,

Or you may not,

You know,

It's,

It's a,

It's a layered thing,

And in my own experience,

Certainly,

I've told you I've been through a lot of things,

They don't matter,

I'm not going to give you my whole life story in this episode,

But the point is that even in my own experience,

It's been a layered process,

You know,

It's taking these five things and continually reminding yourself,

Because you're going to come to this fifth step,

Which is going to be gratitude,

I'll talk about in a second,

You're going to come to this fifth step,

And you'll be there,

And then something else will happen,

And you'll get pulled back in,

And then you'll practice acceptance again,

And look at the impact on your health,

You know,

So it's,

It's a cycle,

That's really important,

It's a cycle,

So with that in mind,

You know,

The final step is gratitude,

But before I say that,

I mentioned something really briefly,

Which is that there's that space,

Right,

When you finally forgive,

You create a space,

That's what really forgiveness is about,

It's creating space in your mind,

Emptiness,

And you got to realize one fundamental thing,

Is that wherever there is space,

It tends to fill up,

Space invites things to fill it up,

Action,

You know,

Material,

Whatever,

So what that means is that if,

If you come to that point of forgiveness,

Right,

And you know,

You don't have to take action,

It's a tough situation,

You're trying to keep your healthy boundaries up,

You don't want to meet the person again,

Or whatever,

You know,

If you don't do anything,

And you try to just leave it neutrally,

Especially if it's a serious situation,

You have history with that person,

And you can't really proceed into a new loving action from there,

Then you have a very big danger,

And that danger is that you go back to your old resentment,

Your old anger,

Your old depression,

Your old sadness,

So this is very important,

Because this is where that fifth step is,

Is the key,

So when you have that space,

Then the action that you can take,

That has nothing to do with the other person,

Again,

Action is not the problem,

But sometimes when we tie it to an external situation,

Like another person,

Then we run into more trouble,

So there is action that you can take,

That I think you must take,

Once you create that space,

And that's gratitude,

So you got the space,

And now when you have a space,

You can reframe and fill it with something positive,

Everything in your life that's happened,

And you got to believe this to be successful,

This is one of my main beliefs,

But everything in your life that's happened,

That's negative,

Is a resource to you,

It is a resource that's helped you be more creative,

That's helped you be stronger,

That's helped you learn about forgiveness and trust,

And generosity,

And productivity,

And all this kind of stuff,

It wouldn't have happened if you didn't fail,

If you didn't have a betrayal,

If you didn't,

You know,

Lose something or someone,

But you got to see that there is a purpose in that,

And you got to see what you can be grateful for,

And sometimes that's difficult,

That's not easy,

Especially if it's an emotionally charged situation,

That's why we do these first four steps,

So the first four are designed to whittle away at all your resistance to forgiveness,

First off you got to see that your health is in danger,

Second off you got to see that you can't control the world,

That people are scummy by nature,

And that's fine,

There's nothing,

There's no meaning to that,

You know,

It's difficult to be enlightened,

To be accountable,

To be loving all the time,

That's difficult,

It's not natural,

It takes training,

So you got to accept that that's the default,

And you got to accept that you have the default too,

That you make judgments,

You know,

That you,

You know,

Don't stone other people when you also could get stoned in a sense,

Right,

When you look at,

Also when you absolve and you dissolve the obligation of thinking that you have to act if you forgive,

When you dissolve the idea that you're pardoning somebody else by forgiving,

When you do all those four steps you clear away a space and you can forgive,

And in that space you have to fill it with gratitude,

Because if you don't fill it with gratitude,

You don't find something to be grateful for from that situation,

Whether it gave you more purpose,

It gave you an insight into something,

It set you up for a different life path,

Whatever it is,

You got to find something to be grateful for in that situation,

Because I guarantee you history is going to come back knocking on your door,

You may see that person again,

Somebody may mention something that will trigger you in a similar way,

Whatever it is,

It will come up again,

And if you don't have a space of gratitude,

You know,

That space,

That empty space that you thought you forgave will get very easily filled with BS,

I can guarantee you that,

It's happened to me so many times,

And that's why,

Like I said,

I've had to deal with this a lot in my life,

And these five steps that I'm giving you,

They're absolutely critical,

You know,

Use them in any situation in life,

I'm really curious,

You know,

You can email me,

It's tutor at dance of life dot com,

How any of this works for you,

Check out my Facebook page too,

You can comment there,

But,

You know,

Let me know how it works for you,

Because I truly think that if you follow these five steps,

It'll give you some insight,

You know,

And gratitude is that final step,

It's super important,

Because it gives you an anchor into withstanding that natural pull back to negativity that's just there,

With history,

With baggage,

With having to see the person,

Or experience a similar trigger in the future,

Like,

You need to have a sense of gratitude,

But that's that final step,

You can only get there when you clear away the charge and the emotional baggage through those other four steps,

So we know with gratitude,

I've been writing and speaking about gratitude a lot,

Especially with my book,

The gratitude map,

And that's something that I think,

If you get a chance,

Check it out,

You know,

Look,

At the end of the day,

Gratitude is a huge part of my life,

It's a huge part of this podcast,

And if you can employ it in your life,

If you understand how to do it,

How to come to a space of gratitude,

It is the key for a happy life,

It is a key for a sustained productive marriage,

A productive business,

A productive,

You know,

Career,

Whatever it is,

You got to be having a clear state of mind,

And a big part of that is being grateful,

Being back to present moment,

Being back to yourself,

You know,

Letting go of judgments,

Forgiving,

All these things,

They're all related,

It's all one area,

So,

You know,

Check it out,

You know,

The book is,

It's a full program,

It's got a,

You know,

Book,

It's got a course,

Online course,

Guided meditations,

Video modules,

It's really cool,

And some of the stuff,

You know,

I talk about forgiveness in there,

And as well as techniques on how to find gratitude,

How to be reframing situations,

How to build a daily gratitude practice,

So when you get to that fifth step,

You know,

We left it generalized for today,

Because,

You know,

It's just the five steps,

But when you get to that fifth step of gratitude,

How do you implement that gratitude in your life,

Specifically,

That's what the book is for,

That's what the program is for,

You can check it out,

Thegratitudemap.

Com,

It's really cool,

You know,

I've put together a lot of awesome things in there,

I really,

I really think it'll make a difference,

You know,

Or if you know anybody in your own life that is struggling with something that we talked about in this episode,

Share it with them,

You know,

At the end of the day,

You never know who it's going to impact,

Or who's going to get the message,

You know,

So I hope this episode has been something you've enjoyed,

It's given value into your life,

It's something that I'm really passionate about,

Because it's made a big difference in my life,

You know,

I can't be creative,

I'm up to a lot of stuff in my life,

And I'm sure you are too,

And you can't be creative,

You can't be walking your path,

Unless you are clear,

Clear of mind and clear of heart,

And to do that is through forgiveness,

So here's my takeaway for this episode.

Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things to do in life,

And yet it is also one of the most important for our health,

Our sanity,

And our happiness.

To forgive is not easy,

It is a practice that must be repeated like anything else.

It starts with realizing that negative emotions have a direct impact on our health,

And by hanging on to them,

We literally kill ourselves over time.

By practicing the five steps to forgiveness and ending it with gratitude,

We can regain our freedom and find power from the suffering that is part of life.

In the end,

Remember that forgiveness is not about some external act or person,

But truly about you and your own freedom.

It is,

At its core,

Something we do within.

For more episodes and weekly content,

Stay connected at DanceOfLife.

Com

Reviews

This could be a very important part of what I’ve been searching for recently. My journey coming to terms with a childhood i now understand was abusive has stalled. I’ve been stuck on this issue of acceptance and forgiveness. Intellectually, I get the need, pragmatically I’ve had no process or method to let go and forgive those who wronged me, both loving and dead. Thank you. I’m going to need to repeat this and chat to my therapist about it. Thank you for this simple guide, simple, but it’s going to be tough. 🙏🏻

What a fantastic informative talk about forgiveness. I didn't want it to end lol. His words flowed together beautifully. Before this talk I thought of forgiveness as freeing your heart from pain. After listening I can see it's much more than that. thank you for sharing your beautiful work and knowledge with us.

I knew intuitively, that forgivness is important, and did it few times in my life. This talk about it gives the reason, the justification why you have to do it, as well as finding the gratitude, to replace the emptiness left behind.Thank you! 💜

Listen. Do. Well done.
Neil 😀☯️

Very helpful♥️🙏♥️

Great reminder that forgiveness doesn’t excuse other people’s actions and that it’s all about freeing ourselves from the negative emotions and judgments that we often carry

I loved this so much. I will listen to this over and over until I can practice the 5 steps. Thank You so much.

What a great podcast. Thank you

I needed to hear this today! So thank-you universe for presenting Tudor’s podcast! 🙌

Very interesting and helpful! Thank you!

Thank you, this was very nice to hear🙏

What excellent insight. Very useful steps. I agree that forgiveness is paramount, and to replace grievences with gratitude is such a wonderful suggestion. Thank you Tudor, much love to you dear soul 💜 x

Thank you, I found that very helpful🌀💙🙏🙏🙏

Thank you so much for sharing the steps to forgiveness. I have been trying to forgive the toxic people that were once in my life. You have gave me the tools to achieve forgiveness and emotional freedom in a way. For that I am sincerely grateful. Namaste 😊💚🙏