How Forgiveness Can Help You Heal From Anxiety and Depression

Hey, I have so many bags right now, and there's a reason for that. And so today I'm going to explain to you the reason for all of these bags and what they mean and what to do about it. So if you feel like this, if you feel like you are living your life carrying all of these things around, know that there's a reason for it, that it can mean something, and that you're not alone. And so just imagine. Imagine if you had to walk around like this all day, if you were carrying all of these bags, metaphorical, literally, if you're trying to go for a walk and then you're carrying this extra weight, if you're trying to celebrate. But it's hard to, like, dance and be joyful and be in the moment. If you feel like you have this heavy burden, it can feel really logical to say, well, just set down these bags, right? But these bags all have a purpose and they're a part of you and they protect you. Like, if someone wants to come at me, I could just hide behind my bags, right? So these bags have their advantages. But what if we were to start putting the bags down and lighten our load just a little bit? What would that look like? And that's what we're going to be talking about today. If you feel like you have all of this weight on you, if you feel like you have this heaviness, if you feel like you're holding on to stuff, then this video is for you, this conversation is for you. If you feel like you have all these old thoughts, all of these old memories, all of these old experiences, all of this stuff that is occupying real estate in your brain, it's like carrying a backpack that isn't yours. And so this conversation's for you. Is anyone who's listening to this, do any of you feel like you've been hanging on to stuff that you feel like your current experience is being hijacked by past experiences or anybody who's watching, do you ever feel like you have all these things in your mind that are words from other people, things that other people said to you? For example, this bag, for me, could represent negative things that my parents said to me about my capabilities, about my intelligence, about who I was, and I've been carrying that around. And so what if I was to set that down? What would that look like? Or does anybody feel like they're continuing to not only have bags, but that things are being added to the bags? And it's like every nook and cranny is being filled with stuff. Stuff that's burdening you, stuff that's weighing you down. If so, then this is the conversation for you. I'm Dr. Nicole, and today we're going to be talking about forgiveness. And don't end the video yet, because there's a lot of power in the conversation that we're going to have. And I hope that it will change your life. I hope that by simply setting down the pile of bags gives you the space. Space to pick up a puppy. I hope that setting down all of your burdens gives you the bandwidth to take your life back and to fill your warehouse with things that make your soul shine. I think about forgiveness in terms of you have this warehouse in your mind and the warehouse, and as we start, life has a few things inside of it. But then as we go through life, we add to the warehouse. Someone says something to you, you take the package in and you put it in the warehouse of your mind. And as we go through life, we accumulate more and more and more things. We accumulate experiences, messages, thoughts, meaning, and we start to fill our warehouse. But if we go in and do an audit of our warehouse, if you go into your mind, into your thoughts, into your experience, if you go into your warehouse, how much of that is yours? If you were truly to look at the labels, read the labels in the packages, how much of it is really yours and how much of it belongs to other people, and how much of it is. Somebody else is going through their own thing, somebody else is having a hard day, Somebody else has their own warehouse of packages causing them to be carrying these heavy burdens. And in their desperation to perhaps get rid of their heavy burden, or in their own resentment and pain, they give that to you, and then you take that, and then you store it and you carry it with you. The thing with forgiveness is that it's not for the other person. Forgiveness is for you. And forgiveness is different than concession. Right? When I think about concession, it's to end a conflict. It's to just, okay, fine, you're right. I accept it. Just let's let it go. It's an avoidance of responsibility and avoidance of conflict. But rather, forgiveness is releasing the negative emotions that are inside of you that are shaping those bags, those backpacks that you're carrying, or the boxes that are occupying the real estate of your mind, that precious real estate. Symptoms and signs that you may be holding on to hurt, holding on to wounds, holding on to grief would be. Do you dwell on the past? Are there buttons where there are people in your life that Know your buttons, these things that are like raw places on your body where if it gets touched, that it's really activating. Do you feel like you just can't let go of something? Do you feel brain fog? Do you feel anxiety? Do you feel anger? Do you feel angst? Do you feel frustration? Do you feel incompetence? Do you feel imposter syndrome? Do you feel like you struggle to connect with other people and that you have to have this protective wall up? Do you feel hyper vigilance? These are all signs that you may have a warehouse that is full of things that do not belong to you. And so when we think about forgiveness, we want to think about forgiveness fitness. If you are fit at forgiving, that means that your warehouse is constantly being audited, and things that don't belong to you are being removed and taken out so that you have space for new things. Things that give you life, things that give you joy, things that build you up, things that speak truth, things that hold you accountable to growing, evolving, and changing. Right? Forgiveness fitness is what brings you to your truest self. If you don't have forgiveness fitness, and if you are holding on to hurt and resentment, if you are holding on to the negative things that people have said to you, if you've been receiving shipments of other people's pain and garbage and you are carrying that, it can create disease in your own mind and body. We see in the clinical research that people who struggle with forgiveness, who are carrying those packages, that have those boxes in the warehouse of their mind, have increased risk of depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, chronic disease, pains like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, headaches, and so much more. And by working on releasing the need to hold on to that resentment and that anger can be what truly helps you to move into the life that you deserve, that you are worthy of forgiveness fitness. So when we think of forgiveness fitness, there are eight steps, and I'm going to share these steps with you. I have them written down. And so I'm going to be looking at a piece of paper to make sure that we don't miss anything. We're also going to be posting this on our Instagram page. We're going to be posting it on a blog at some point. It's going to be in the act course and in a book. And so you're going to have access to these things. And for now, just know that we're going to be posting this video and you can listen to it again. But let's get into the forgiveness fitness. And so what we've been talking about. I have it all written out here for you. Okay? So number one, if you're having a hard time and you're holding on to resentment, if you're holding on to frustration, then we need to work onto forgiveness because we see that resentment, anger, it causes a release of stress hormone in your body, releases cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine, epinephrine. These things that create the symptoms that we have when we are suffering from anxiety or depression or chronic fatigue or pain. Right? And we've talked about auditing the packages and returning them to sender or just simply letting them go. We've talked about the difference between letting someone get away with something and conceding to something that isn't just or fair or right or true versus forgiveness is for you and releasing the hurt, negativity and angst and letting it out of your body. And no longer carrying all of this. I have this huge stack next to me. No longer carrying all of these bags that don't belong to you. And so now we're going to talk about the eight steps for forgiveness. Number one. And by the way, a lot of this education I found in the book Eight Steps for Forgiveness, forgiveness is a choice by Robert Enright. We'll make sure that we give you the link so that you can check out his book. And so I have extrapolated from this. And so number one is know what forgiveness is and why it's important. And so remember that forgiveness is important because it's releasing the bonds that have been holding you captive. And it's so fascinating to me because so many of us never think about that as a part of our anxiety and our depression journey. In fact, when I was at rock bottom in my anxiety, nobody talked about how I've been holding on to quite a lot of hurt and pain of things that had happened the years before that. No one talked with me about that and I was harboring it. I don't know about you, but I'm a good stuffer. Is anyone with me, is anybody else here a good stuffer? Where something happens to you and instead of dealing with it and releasing it and processing it in the moment, you stuff, put your feelings aside. Yeah. So know that forgiveness is important because forgiveness causes suffering in you. It can cause disease, it can cause symptoms, it can cause stress on your nervous system. And releasing those bonds will help you set the stage for freedom. And so what I want you to do while we're going through these is I'm going to give you self reflection Questions. So if you have somewhere you can write or a piece of paper, I want you to ask yourself, where do I need to call upon forgiveness in my life? Who do you need to forgive? What do you need to let go of? Maybe it's yourself. Is there something that you did that you need to forgive? Is something that someone did that you need to forgive. Not forget, not concede to, but just simply release that. And we want to change the language about the event. So instead of allowing your mind to go over and to obsess and to dwell on the negative aspects of it, we want to actually start to prune those neural networks in our brain, which is changing our brain. It's changing the wiring in our brain. We know that your brain is neuroplastic, meaning your brain can heal and change so that you can then start to get out of that thought loop. You can mindfully tell your brain, okay, I'm going to release that. I'm going to let it go. I'm going to forgive it. But then there's that pruning process that has to happen so that your brain goes along with your choice. And that's 90 to 120 days of you practicing this before that will actually rewire and change in an appreciable way. So you're going to omit the talk that digs you deeper into that hurt. And instead I want you to replace it with how you would rather feel. So let's do a practical example of this. So when I was. I'm going to tell you guys something really personal. I'm going to tell you a personal part of my story that I actually haven't said on my social media at all yet. When I was junior high or high school, I was driving down the highway and one of my parents was driving the car and I was expressing that I wanted to be a physician. And they said, you're not smart enough. You should think of something else. You'll never be a good doctor. You'd probably never make it. And you guys, that was gutting. That was so painful. And I did become a physician. I have a really successful practice. I've worked with people around the world. I've been invited to redirect curriculums. I've been a national speaker. I've had such great feedback from people. And yet that part of me, I've been carrying around that wound for a long time. Like 20 years, right? So it's like I have this whisper in the back of my mind, this resentment towards this person that said that to me. So I've been carrying that around a lot of hurt, right? And so for me, the process is, you know what? I choose to release that this person said this to me. I choose to set it down. I choose to do an audit of those boxes. That was Hearst stuff that had my parents name written on it. That was her stuff. That was her lack of confidence. That was her anxiety about failure. That was her garbage. And I had been holding on to the hurt and the truth of that for so long until I made the choice to go and look at that package and say, you know what? I'm not going to believe this. I'm not going to hold on to this and I'm going to let it go. And so when I think about that, I have to think about, she said this to me and this was from her place of suffering. It wasn't a reflection of me. It's just where she was. And I choose to love and accept myself. So that's a practical example, very personal one from my life. So I ask you guys to be personal and real. And so I want to be real and personal with you too, okay? So we want to cultivate a compassion for humanity, right? And so in my example, that's really trying to cultivate a compassion for her having radical empathy that she was doing the best she could with what she had. It was really wrong. It wasn't, okay. You should never say something like that to your child. And yet that's just where she was. And so releasing the need to change that, releasing the need to hold her accountable 20 years later for saying something like that has been a huge part of my transformation and owning my joy in what I do. Right? So cultivated compassion. So when you're thinking about forgiveness, you want to work on cultivating compassion, right? So for yourself and for the person that hurt you, okay? The next thing in cultivating compassion is to show love in everyday encounters. And this could be something as easy as smiling at the gas station clerk. It could be paying it forward. It could be using words of affirmation, giving someone a little extra time, time. But the way that we wire it is the way your brain's going to fire it. That means that if you are acting in a way, kind of fake it till you make it. If you are acting in a way that is giving life and putting that energy out there, your cells hear that, your brain hears that, and your brain and your cells will start to respond as though that is reality and this is neuroscience, right? So we have to start creating those synaptic connections we have to start putting that out there and then just simply on an energetic level level, it creates a higher vibration for those who are around you and get to benefit from your life giving position in the world. Right? Okay. Address your inner pain. This is doing work like you guys. I've done so much work. I've done emdr, I've done cognitive, behavioral, I've done ego state work, I've done nutrition and lifestyle. I've really worked on owning my process and that should be a part of your healing process as well. Forgiveness fitness. Healing the body. Do the deep inner work. I teach you more about how to do the deep inner work in the anxiety Breakthrough program. So check it out if you're interested and you're ready. Take that step. The links in the bio. Alright. Forgiveness fitness. We all feel stuck. And so if there's a really big sticky factor one, then have mercy for yourself and know that every day that you are choosing to forgive is a day closer to when you will actually feel that forgiveness and and then be free from the bondage that holding on to hurt and resentment and grief and pain has been keeping you. Okay. Finding meaning in your suffering. This is tricky for me because I don't want to consent to suffering. You know how people. This is a little bit of a rant but you know how people always say, well, the universe, my higher self, God, the divine, whomever it is that they're speaking, speaking of, will say that I have been sent this painful thing in teaching me a lesson and I personally reject that. I believe that there is pain and that there is suffering in life. And I don't think that it is an intentional thing to make you a better person, but rather when pain happens, and it will, it's inevitable, right? When pain happens, we can choose how we deal with that pain. We can choose to hold on to those packages. We can choose to dwell in that pain. We can choose to resist instead of receive, we can choose to suppress instead of express. We can make a choice with how we deal with pain, which is inevitable, or we can allow that pain to mold and transform us. And so having my parent tell me that I wasn't worth anything and being told that I would never be a doctor and I wasn't smart enough to be a doctor, instead of believing her and then choosing a different career, I was like, you know what? I delete that. You know, just not allowing that into my world. I kind of tap on my forehead because I have this friend who's a hypnotherapist where she always Sends delete, delete, don't let that in. Right? And so instead of allowing those messages to be a painful things, that, that holds me down. I don't consent to that. But I did choose to prove her wrong, and I did choose to pave my own way. And you can too, right? Okay. Finding meaning in your suffering. I like the quote. Smooth waters a skilled sailor does not make. Smooth waters a skilled sailor does not make. And if you're going through something really hard right now, if it's really, if, if you've been wronged in a way that is so unacceptable, so wrong, so I want to say unforgivable, but forgiveness is for you, it's not for them. And so if you're going through something, it's really important to honor that, to be in that anger, to be in that hurt, hurt at times, to be in that hate, to acknowledge all of those feelings that are coming up and then release the need to continue to universally hold that accountable, to release that and be like, you know what? I'm releasing the need to hold that in my body. Okay, so when forgiveness is difficult, call upon your strengths. And I wrote here, when experiencing a deep injustice or witnessing a deep injustice of other people, we can feel powerless, right? We can feel unequipped to, to manage it. Sometimes it's just too big. And so we have to call upon our strengths. What can we do with it? So in times when I've witnessed injustices, I think about, I can't change that injustice, I can't right the wrong, but I can make a difference in what ways? I'm gifted. And so that may be part of the forgiveness practice is finding empowerment where you do have power. Because oftentimes when we are wronged, we don't have power, right? That power has been taken away from us. And that's part of the journey of finding our personal power. And that can be huge. And so a journaling question is, have traumas in your life prepared you to contribute to the world in a unique way? And if so, what are they? Right. Seek wise counsel. Talk with those who you trust, who love you, who are wise, and write your thoughts down. And then I want to talk just about one more thing before we finish up today. And it's about self loathing. Have you ever had self loathing? Has anybody here felt self loathing? Has anybody here felt resentment and irritability and anger? And where you just can't let go of the bad things that you did or said or didn't do in your past, the reason for Regret is to teach us right. Regret is intended to be a teacher. It's intended to show us what steps we need to take in order to navigate who we are and what our convictions are. And so if we have a negative feeling, that can provide us an opportunity to learn from that and to do something different next time. And self loathing isn't productive. In fact, self loathing can be really harmful for ourselves. It could be destructive. And I know I felt that I deserved the destruction, I felt that I deserve self loathing. But at one point, it's not very honest. And I'm all about trying to be as honest with my parts as possible. So when we want to be honest, notice the self loathing, notice the regret, notice that I did something wrong, I really effed up, I really screwed up, I should have done better. And notice that and honor that. And then at the same time, I am worthy of forgiveness. I am worthy of a new chapter. I am worthy of hope, I am worthy of joy. And holding those two possibilities at the same time, because it's not honest to just hold one side of the story. We want to be honest. And then eventually allow yourself to release this because you've learned, you've had the opportunity to grow and evolve, and now you can step into the life that you you want. So today we've been talking about forgiveness and why it's important, how to do it, why it matters. We've talked about some journaling exercises. This is all coming from the ACT method. I did reference an amazing writer, and I'll make sure to get you his information. And then we'll be posting some information in the blog about this in the coming weeks. And so check that out. You can find everything by going to the link in the bio and any other questions or topics, let us know. I'm Dr. Nicole, and I want to express to you I'm so grateful that you've been a part of this journey of helping me set down my packages. Because when I do these videos with you, when I do these podcasts, when I have the opportunity to share life with you and be real and be vulnerable, it helps me in my healing journey. So thank you for your comments, for your love, for your messages, and for being present and helping yourself to truly transform. All right, I'll see you guys next week. I honor you, I love you, and take care.