Forgiveness Part 1 of 2

How does holding onto bad feelings affect our lives? Why is forgiveness more about ourselves than those who have wronged us? What are the benefits of forgiving?

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello,

Welcome to the podcast.

Apparently we're recording now and this is Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose.

Is it me?

Have I thrown everything off because I'm back now?

The last two episodes were with Dave and now you're thrown off.

We have no chemistry anymore.

No,

It's all dead.

Wow.

Let's just go all the way there.

This is horrible.

This is really unfortunate.

No,

It's fine.

Would you rather,

I mean,

Would you rather have Dave back from now on?

I think this is wonderful,

Ben.

We're happy to have you back.

Thank you.

I was a big fan of those two episodes.

Yeah,

They came out really good.

I enjoyed them.

Maybe we'll have him back soon.

Anyway,

I'm so sorry that you think that our relationship is dead.

No,

It's not dead.

But maybe after we have a little conversation today,

I'll find a way to forgive you.

Yes.

Yeah,

Seeing how our conversation is about forgiveness,

That would be good.

So that's what we're talking about today,

Everyone,

Forgiveness.

And that's Ben Barber,

By the way.

Hey,

Everybody.

And of course,

Dave D'Angeles is here helping.

That was a hand wave for all you in audio world.

So yesterday,

We're talking about forgiveness.

So forgiveness,

Just to get us rolling is,

You know,

The first mistake that we make is we think it's about forgiving the other person,

Like it's about them or allowing them to get off the hook for something they did.

And actually,

This is for us.

It's not has nothing really to do with the other person.

It doesn't mean that we're condemning them.

Geez,

I just lost the word.

It doesn't mean that we're accepting their behavior,

Or that we think that what they did was okay.

It has nothing to do with that.

It has to do with the energy that's going on inside of us and letting go of the anger attached to the situation.

So the benefits are strictly for us.

It has nothing to do with the other person.

That's that's what I think that a lot of people,

I always did thought that forgiveness like forgiveness seems to inherently be,

I guess,

People that don't want to forgive would use the term letting other people off the hook for things.

That's what it does.

It feels,

You know,

From a from first glance,

That's what it seems like.

It's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

Forgiveness feels all about them.

Right.

And it's not it's all about us.

And that's that's why I opened with it,

Because we have to start chipping away at the old belief system,

And trying to accept a new one,

Get a new understanding around forgiveness.

Otherwise,

We're not going to be able to make any ground.

Because as long as we're upset with somebody else's behavior,

And we think forgiveness is letting them off the hook,

Then we're not going to want to forgive and who would I wouldn't want to forgive somebody like that.

You know,

If somebody did something to hurt me,

And I need to go to them and say,

Oh,

What you did was fine.

Well,

I wouldn't do it.

But yeah,

I've been able to find a way to forgive many things in my life.

Once I really understood that,

You know,

I've touched on this on other podcasts,

All work is inside work.

So once I found out that the work I needed to do to make peace with the situation was all internal work,

And the forgiveness was about me,

Then I was then I was able to do it.

Because like I said,

I mean,

If I had to say,

Yes,

What they did was right,

Then well,

I don't feel that what they did was right.

So so why would I forgive?

You know,

So where does forgiveness begin?

Well,

It really does begin us getting a new understanding of what it is.

And understanding that forgiveness is all about us.

And it's what I mean by that is it's making peace with our with ourselves.

The fact is,

Is if somebody did something to us,

Then it happened.

It's over.

It's done.

If there's action you need to take to correct the situation,

Then you take that action.

But other than that,

The situation is over.

So when we're walking around with anger about that situation towards somebody else,

We're reliving that experience,

You know,

And they've proven through all kinds of testing that what we what runs through our mind is just like us re experiencing something.

So we're just punishing ourselves over and over by reliving the experience every time we think it over every time we express it to somebody,

You know,

That they've they've even seen that type of thing.

And Olympic athletes,

When they when they have them visualize somebody is doing a specific sport or event that that they do,

You know,

They've monitored their brainwaves and their muscles and and they all fire out in the same sequences as if they're actually doing it.

You know,

Your body releases the same toxins when we're thinking about a negative situation as it does when it's actually happening.

So we're releasing these negative toxins every time we're thinking about things,

Just like we're experiencing them for the first time.

So all that negativity that you're bringing into your world and your life is just punishing you.

You know,

The other person,

They might be at home feeling bad about it.

They might be at home not thinking about it at all.

Who knows?

It doesn't really matter what matters is what's going on inside of your world,

Because that's all you have control over.

You know,

So it's the what we're trying to do is stop the negativity and the negative consequences from continuing to go on within yourself by working through this forgiveness.

You know,

You we need to see a benefit.

If we're like,

You know,

If there's no benefit in forgiveness,

Then why bother doing it?

You know,

So the benefit that we're trying to get is to release ourselves of all that negative energy and that that feeling of anger walking around feeling angry doesn't do anything positive for us.

You know?

And it doesn't really most of the time not forgiving someone isn't really going to do anything to them.

No,

It doesn't.

Doesn't affect them.

If they're either going to feel bad about what they did,

Or they're not going to feel bad about what they did.

You walking around,

You know,

Telling your friends or driving down the road going,

I can't believe they did that.

They do not know that that's happening.

They don't.

And and even if you were to tell them,

It's really not going to change the situation.

You know,

That's not going to fix the situation.

I mean,

Like I said in the beginning,

If there's action that needs to be taken,

Then you can take that action.

But it's to to to right the situation if it's possible,

Or to let somebody know that what they did hurt you in some way.

So they cannot do it again.

You know,

That's all positive action to that can help correct the situation.

Which if this on you can do to correct the situation,

Then you do something to correct the situation.

Well,

You know,

So I'm not saying that we don't take any action,

We don't do anything of it,

We don't talk about it,

We don't I'm not saying that what I'm saying is just the act of carrying around a resentment inside of us about somebody else.

That's that's the part that we need to not do.

What is that quote?

I can't think of it right now at all.

Like,

It's like revenge or anger or hatred or something.

Oh,

Yeah.

It's both of like,

Yeah.

Well,

There's there's several of them.

And one of them is,

I believe it's one of them is a Buddhist quote.

And it's about says,

Resentment is like picking up a hot stone and tending the throat at the other person.

You know,

You're just burning yourself.

Right.

You know,

And another one is is about,

You know,

Walking around.

That's along the lines of this anyway.

Walking around with a resentment towards somebody is like drinking poison yourself and expecting it to kill the other person.

Yes,

That was that was what I was thinking of.

Yeah,

It's it's just poison flowing through you.

Yeah.

The negativity and the anger and the talks,

Negative toxins and all that stuff.

All the bad stuff is happening to you when you're walking around without forgiving.

So what is the difference between like forgiving and the idea of just moving on or is that there's no such thing as moving on or moving past something without forgiveness?

Right.

Because if because if you have something to forgive somebody for,

Then it's like there's an emotional charge to it.

Yeah.

So until you release that emotional charge through forgiveness,

Then you can't just move on.

And people try to do that quite often.

It's called stuffing.

And some of that sometimes in obvious situations,

They go,

Oh,

Yeah,

I stuffed my feelings on that.

But we do it very often with things.

And we say,

Well,

I heard I was just supposed to let it go and accept it.

And so that's what I did.

And then,

You know,

A year later,

I find that I'm still very angry with them.

Well,

That's because you didn't truly accept it.

You didn't truly let it go.

Why didn't you accept and let it go?

Because you didn't forgive.

So it still had that emotional charge that was dwelling inside of you.

Yeah,

Because I think that a lot of people rather than forgive stuff,

There was a comma there.

You couldn't hear rather than forgive.

They stuff there.

They hide.

They suppress,

Suppress is a better word.

They suppress those feelings and that anger and that resentment.

And but you distract yourself so you don't realize it's there.

Does that make sense?

Is that?

Yeah.

Like,

And we're taught that at a very early age to stuff.

You know,

If if if I use this example all the time,

If a baby's crying,

What's the first thing we do is we try to get it to stop like there's something wrong with feeling bad.

You know,

So it's stopped out,

We have to make it stop.

So don't just don't feel if you have sadness going through,

You don't feel that stop feeling bad.

And it's,

You know,

One of the things that I teach my my life coaching clients a lot is that we need to allow ourselves to feel things sometimes.

You know,

Somebody hurt you,

And you feel hurt.

Well,

Then feel hurt.

Like allow yourself to sit there and go,

Oh,

That really hurt my feelings.

What does that feel like if it feels like a tightness in my chest,

It feels,

You know,

I feel sadness flowing through me,

Okay,

Then you then you feel that and you feel a little bit of sadness.

And then then a sadness releases because you were you allowed yourself to feel it.

You know,

Generally feeling an emotion lasts about 20 or 30 seconds.

When it comes to a specific situation,

You know,

Like huge situations like in a relationship breakup,

But a death in the family,

Things like that can have multiple layers.

So you might have to feel things several times on bigger issues.

But just an everyday issue that can hurt your feelings.

Generally,

If you allow yourself to feel that you'll feel the hurt for 20 or 30 seconds,

And then then it's done its job,

It's been felt so it can be released.

You know,

What we get into the the habit of is when we're feeling those when with if we do allow ourselves to feel those that sadness,

What we do is we replay the story in our head over and over.

So as we're releasing the sadness from the hurt,

We're actually building up more sadness.

So it's like a dog chasing its tail,

We never get anywhere.

And then and then we go tell somebody else about how it hurt us because we need to get it off our chest.

Yeah.

Now talking things out can be a beneficial thing.

Getting them off your chest can be a beneficial thing.

But what happens is a lot of times we'll get caught in a cycle of purging.

You know,

Like,

If you're sick,

And you throw up,

Generally you feel better.

Right.

It's the same thing with your feelings.

If you're stuffing negative emotions,

And you go purge it out all over somebody,

Then you get a sense of relief,

Because you've released something.

Right.

So you feel that relief,

And you go,

Oh,

I feel better.

But what you've done is two things.

One,

You've built more negativity because you're reliving the story.

Yeah.

And two,

You just felt justified,

Because probably the person next to you is going,

Oh,

Yes,

You have every right to be angry.

And,

You know,

They are so wrong.

And you are so right.

And how could they do that to you?

So then,

You know,

Then you get the relief of the ego stroke to you're better than the person that hurts you.

So you feel better than and that makes you feel a little bit better.

So those are the types of things that we've kind of learned to live on.

Unfortunately,

We've learned to live by never really dealing with anything,

Never really forgiving and moving past and moving on with things.

What we do is we self medicate with band aids on broken legs.

So you know,

We've got this hurt inside of us that needs to be dealt with.

And instead of dealing with it,

What we do is we purge a little and that gives us a little bit of relief,

But then we create more.

And then we,

As well as purging,

We're also complaining.

So but as we complain,

We make ourselves feel better than and that gives us a little relief.

So those are little,

Little ego strokes that we get.

And it's just enough to settle us down and have us not walking around in a ball of pain.

Yeah,

You know,

So then so then we can kind of function around and we've never actually dealt with the problem.

You know,

We've just self medicated enough to make us feel sane again.

And then we go on and you know,

And if you do that for years and years and years,

Which a lot of us do,

Right,

Everybody,

Like it feels like everybody does that all the time.

For the most part.

I mean,

You know,

It's this.

There's people that I've been around that have lived a spiritual life for a long period of time,

That have done a lot of work on themselves and have lived this way for a long period of time,

That man,

You're just in their presence and you can tell that you can tell that that they're not like that.

They just,

They're so much lighter and freer and loving and and they're not defensive,

You know,

So many people walk around so defensive because we're harboring all this pain inside of us.

So,

Yeah,

I mean,

There's and it's getting more and more because more and more people are learning to see things differently.

You know,

There's a huge change in society right now.

So we've talked about how people suppress it,

How people get release and kind of the instant satisfaction or at least the gratification of like being told they were right by sharing it with someone and commiserating.

Right.

And that that kind of replaces the need for forgiveness in their heads at the moment.

Right.

You know,

Like this is justified.

I'm right.

Why would I forgive?

What are some of the like?

What are some of the consequences of not forgiving?

Like what what kind of things can happen to someone if they don't if they don't open up and they don't forgive and they don't move on and,

You know,

Well,

Nothing much just the life of misery.

You know,

I mean,

Seriously,

It's it's I know it sounds so dramatic,

You know,

But I mean,

Really,

Unless unless we learn to forgive,

We're not.

How can you walk around happy when you're angry at everybody that's ever done anything to you?

I mean,

I know,

I know I was kind of laughing inside when I said that because it sounds like,

You know,

It's so it's such a all encompassing statement.

But I mean,

Really,

If we expect to be happy,

We can't walk around filled with anger.

Right.

I mean,

You know,

So what's the opposite of happy?

That's what you'll be walking around in,

You know,

Either I guess either unconsciously angry or consciously angry.

Right.

Those are the two options,

You know,

Because when I was younger,

I was unconsciously angry because I didn't know that there was another way.

And I didn't know the extent of my anger.

You know,

I wasn't aware of that.

I didn't know.

We don't know what we don't know.

So if there's another way,

Like we have to find out about it before we can actually want it.

You know,

So it's when I walked around with kind of that unconscious anger,

Like if somebody to work would have had this conversation with me and been like,

Well,

Glenn,

You know,

If you forgive,

Then you can be happy.

Would have been like,

Yeah,

I don't know what you're talking about.

You obviously don't understand the situation.

They did this to me.

You know,

I was stuck in that,

That,

That mind system that told me that if I forgave somebody,

Then that was like me saying that it was okay that they did it.

I was stuck there and nothing was going to get me out.

That's why I know that,

You know,

Some people that listen to this are going to be ready.

And some people are not going to be ready to hear this.

You know,

It's just,

It depends on where you are.

There's been times in my life where people have come up to me and said,

Um,

Especially like when I was younger and really nowhere near happiness,

People would come up and say wonderful things to me.

And I would just be like,

You're out of your mind.

And it would end right there.

Like in my mind,

It would end there.

I don't know what went on in their heads,

But it would just,

It would be like,

You're out of your mind.

See ya.

So because you were unhappy,

You couldn't accept the nice things that they were saying to you.

Well,

I couldn't accept that there was another way to be.

Okay.

You know,

I couldn't accept that,

That forgiveness.

I wasn't open to the theory that forgiveness was about me.

What were you like?

You don't have to give us specifics,

But like,

What are you?

Cause we think of,

When we think of forgiveness,

We think of like,

Boom,

This happened.

This was the wrong thing that happened to me.

And I'm not,

You know,

I'm not happy about it.

This is,

I'm not going to forgive them.

This is,

I'm right.

They were wrong.

End of story moving on.

Then for you to be in a completely different situation with other people saying nice things.

How,

How is the,

Like,

How is the connection there?

What is the connection of something else happening to you that you didn't forgive?

And then later you not being able to be happy in a different scenario.

Does that make sense?

No.

Well,

I mean,

Are you talking about like what happened?

I've both these situations when kind of,

When I was still living in an unhappy state or is one 20 years ago and one now,

I guess that's what I'm not following.

Okay.

Yes.

When you were still in an unhappy state.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um,

Something happened to you that you didn't forgive,

Say at like,

I don't know when 15,

Sure.

10.

Okay.

Then young Glenn,

Early 20s,

Glenn unhappy years after the things that he's not forgiving.

Okay.

Still unhappy.

And as you said,

Someone comes up to you,

They say nice things.

You can't accept them.

What,

What is the correlation?

Like how do you get from one to the other?

For example,

If my,

If my friend,

You know,

When I was little did something to me and I was,

I didn't forgive him.

And then I'm like harboring onto this and really hold onto it.

And then other people later in high school say nice things to me,

But I'm not happy.

I don't accept it.

I,

I'm still miserable.

Like,

Is there a connection there or are we talking specifically like if person A does this and you don't forgive them,

You're going to always be unhappy with person A or is it that if person A does this and you don't forgive them,

You're not going to be able to accept the person B.

Well,

It's,

I think what I was talking about was a little bit different,

But to address that,

Then yeah,

If,

If you're,

If somebody does something to you and you don't forgive them and you're walking around harboring that and you know,

Keeping in mind that that one person isn't the only thing that you're harboring because if you're in a state of non-forgiveness and you can't forgive one,

Generally you can't forgive many others,

You know,

So it's accruing and stacking on it,

On each other.

So then you're generally walking around in an unhappy space then yeah,

If somebody,

You're going to be less likely to be able to receive anything positive from other people because your defenses are up,

Because you're in a negative space,

Because you're shut down to more positive food or more positive energy coming into you,

You know,

So I mean,

The,

The,

That's one of the things that we live in such a defensive society.

We have such defensive interactions with Pete,

With each other that that and that's because we're,

We're stuffing a lot of things.

You know,

If you were walking around without any animosity towards anyone,

Then you wouldn't really need to,

You wouldn't be walking around feeling like you needed to defend yourself against others,

You know,

So then that positive food would be able to,

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

I see what you mean though.

So let's go into some specifics.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's a good idea.

All right.

So I'm going to give you a scenario.

Okay.

You tell me where the forgiveness comes in.

All right.

All right.

I hope I pass two little boys,

Best friends all through kindergarten,

Middle school,

Elementary school,

First day of high school,

One kid thinks,

You know what?

I'm not going to be friends with him anymore because I'm going to go hang out with the cool kids.

Boom.

How do you forgive that person?

Wow.

Boom.

Pow.

By the way,

Random scenario.

It didn't really happen to me.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Kyle.

I've never had a friend named Kyle.

Uh,

That,

You know,

As you're saying that I'm flashing back to things that,

That,

Uh,

That happened in my life that I can identify with,

You know,

So therefore bring the solution through that door.

And,

Um,

You know,

It's funny,

Like my best friend growing up,

We actually remained very close through high school,

Which was,

Was weird because we went to different schools up until high school.

Oh.

And then we,

We met at the same school in high school and we ended up hanging out with the same,

Same,

Uh,

Group was,

It was a really cool time.

But,

Um,

But I have shortly after that,

Um,

I was,

I was not forgiving.

And shortly after that,

This type of situation came into my life,

Um,

Around the college years and a lot of my friends were moving on with their lives and going off to colleges and really starting to become more responsible and,

And walking in a direction of making something of themselves.

And I didn't,

I was,

I was lost.

I wanted to,

Uh,

Just get a job so I could have my own apartment and knocks and beers back.

You know,

That's all I was interested in.

And,

Uh,

I saw,

I,

I saw friends,

You know,

I'd find out that they had come home from college and not stopped by my apartment.

And I was hurt by that,

You know,

Close friends.

Um,

So that was,

I think my first taste dealing with it.

So I'll bring it right into my,

My situation.

And you know,

That's,

That's the type of situation where I had to look at things and understand that.

And this is,

This is where it ties into kind of all situations.

It's not personal.

Okay.

Yes.

That's the,

That's the long winded answer.

It's not personal.

It has nothing to do with me,

You know,

Like they can,

They can,

Um,

Even if they say,

You know what,

Glenn,

You are a jerk now and I don't want to hang out with you and I don't like the direction that your life is going.

It's still not about me.

It's about them.

What if they say,

Glenn,

You're a nerd and,

And it's always been okay.

Cause no one else has been around now.

I'm too good for you.

And that's not about me either.

It's okay.

It's about them.

You know,

It's always about them.

I am such a secondary player in other people's lives.

It's not even funny.

And they are,

They are a primary player in that life.

All right.

Let's,

Let's go with a couple more quick fire examples.

Uh,

Latch key kid never comes home two 30 every day.

Parents don't get home till almost six,

Uh,

Grows up feeling like they never had time for him.

It's not personal.

Next.

Really it's not.

It's about the parents.

The parents are doing the best that they can.

Now,

If,

You know,

If the,

There's,

There's certain types of parents who just go,

Well,

This is what we need to do.

This is what we're doing.

But,

But,

But,

And they just do it and the child never says anything.

Now then,

And they just do because they don't know that it's hurting the child.

There's other parents in that situation that the child could go,

You know what,

This is bothering me.

And they'd go,

Oh,

Well,

You know what?

Um,

I had to take care of myself when I was your age.

This is just how things are.

He needs to learn to be responsible.

So I'm still going to do it anyway.

And the parents won't necessarily really hear what the child is saying.

And it will continue.

Other parents will actually hear what the child is saying and maybe adjust the schedules.

It's all different scenarios of possible outcomes.

But the initial situation,

It's not personal.

That parent is not going,

You know what I'm going,

What I want,

I could be home earlier and I could change my schedule.

But what I'd like to do is hurt my child and make them feel is,

You know,

As horrible as possible.

So I'm going to do this to them.

It's not about them.

All right.

Two more quick ones.

One,

Uh,

They,

Uh,

Guy and a girl dating for years,

Guy cheats on her breaks,

Uh,

It's over.

She thought they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.

He dumps her moves on.

Boom.

It's not personal.

You see a theme here.

It's,

It's his stuff.

If he goes and cheats,

Then,

Then there's something within him that he's trying to fulfill in a,

And he's making bad choices by,

By doing that,

But it's not about her.

Mother,

Um,

Has one child,

A child as a teenager goes out,

Drinks with friends.

Friend is driving,

Into a car accident,

Child dies,

Not the kid that drives.

How does that parent forgive?

Well,

Obviously that's a,

That's a huge one.

And that would take most people that would take a long time to forgive,

You know,

But at the end of the day,

It's not personal.

The kid did not get behind the wheel and say,

I'm going to go kill that child.

The kid made a poor decision and it's,

You know,

It's that it's a big one,

You know,

And that one's complicated and has lots of feelings around it.

And those,

That one needs to be dealt with step by step by step.

Let's go into that in more detail next time.

Heck yeah.

Let's continue this conversation for right now.

Where can people find you?

They can find me at,

Hey,

They can find me at a new place.

Should I tell you about it?

Uh,

Yeah,

Quickly.

The new place.

Uh,

I have a new business space opened up at 2076 new snack Hill road in Coventry,

Rhode Island.

And,

Um,

I do life coaching out of there.

I do Reiki and intuitive healing out of there.

I do personal training,

Uh,

One-on-one sessions out of there.

So,

Um,

You can stop by and see me there.

Also my website is life-enhancement-services.

Com and my Facebook page,

Life enhancement services and my personal Facebook page,

Glenn Ambrose.

And this is going to be good because we're going to continue with this forgiveness.

It's a huge topic.

So we're going to do another,

Um,

Another half hours.

Absolutely.

And if you are a fan of this podcast and would like to contribute to that new space and be able to help a lot of people out,

Go check out Glenn's page on gofundme.

Com.

I'm going to do that plug for you.

Go,

Gofundme.

Com.

Check out Glenn's,

Uh,

Check out Glenn's site.

Maybe you can help him out and help out a lot of people in the process.

Thank you,

Glenn.

Thank you.

Let's keep this rolling.

Thank you,

Dave.

We'll see you next time.

This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions,

Executive producers,

Glenn Ambrose,

Benjamin Barber and David DeAngelis.

Reviews

Interesting but if it's not personal how come we take it so personally when we've been wronged? Thank you

Thanks for making me laugh during such a serious topic!!!

Love it! Thank you.

Insightful! ✨
(But why does Ben always sound so stuffed up? 🙈)

Powerful message. I will have to listen to this a few times to truly get the most that I can out of it. Thank you.

Forgiveness is a journey. Looking forward to part 2. Thank you 🙏

It's not personal... But I LOVED THIS! Thank you SO much❤️

Less anger more forgiveness. Good talk!