Forgiving When It's Really Difficult

Okay, so today we're going to be talking about something that pretty much everyone can benefit from. Our topic is forgiveness, and we're going to do a little bit more than just skim the surface. We've all heard that forgiveness is for yourself and not for the other person. But we're going to take this conversation just a little bit deeper than that. We're going to talk about what it means, why you'd want to do it, what situations would maybe apply and maybe not apply. What when is it harder than other times? And what really needs to happen in order for you to forgive someone in your heart, your soul, and your mind. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can stay five steps ahead of it and get back to living the life that you want to live. So if that sounds like something that you'd like to do, consider subscribing. Okay. On to our topic. You know, it's always a good place to start by just getting on the same page about what I mean when I say the term forgiveness, just so that we're all lined up. So when I'm saying the term, what I'm talking about, forgiveness means letting go of bitterness and grudges. And I've even heard it said that forgiveness means letting go of your right for revenge. Now, just thinking of it that way may turn things in your mind just a little bit. Because, see, the whole thing about forgiveness is it's hard because it feels sometimes like if I forgive someone, I'm letting them off the hook. Or it can feel like if I forgive someone, that I'm making myself vulnerable for it to happen to me again. Because anger and resentment are normal, natural emotions, and they're protective emotions. You know, we feel angry when someone has crossed our boundaries, and it's an important to feel angry. We need to know that something's not okay and someone's crossed our boundaries so we can know when to protect ourselves. There's nothing wrong with that emotion whatsoever. However, sometimes we can get stuck in anger and resentment, and it becomes the center point of our attention and our focus, and we can stew in it, and when that happens, it's just not good. We become consumed with how we've been wronged, bad things that have happened to us, and this can lead to all kinds of nasty things. You see, every time you have a negative thought, your brain responds to that by a negative drip of Chemical which then in return responds with negative emotions. It's like a feedback loop. So having negative thoughts is going to make you feel bad. Feeling bad is going to make you have more negative thoughts. And if you keep this whole thing going long enough, it can and will take over in a very not good way. It really can sort of creep in there and rob you of lots of joy and happiness. Now you might even be feeling a little bit defensive even as we're talking about this topic of forgiveness together. You might be holding it, you might be reluctant to letting it go. And what I'd like for you to ask yourself is why is that? Is it something that you're doing to protect yourself? Is it something that you're doing because you feel like the other person doesn't deserve your forgiveness? If that's the case, then probably we need to look at the word forgiveness a little bit differently. I know I said we're going to go a little bit deeper and I don't like to be cliche, but I feel like I do kind of have to remind you that forgiveness is for you. It's about letting go of past hurts and bad things so that they don't continue to hurt you and destroy you and consume your whole life. It really has very little to do with the other person. It's a choice you're making about your own sanity and well being. But you know what, Maybe there are some situations and scenarios where it's really okay and maybe even a good idea not to forgive someone. What are your thoughts on that? Are there some situations where you really don't feel like it's appropriate? Let me know what you think, because I can definitely think of some situations where I would have a real hard time and I'm not quite sure if I could get there even if I wanted to. What would that be for you? You know, forgiving someone doesn't mean that you're okay with what happened. It mean that you've let the person off the hook. And it for sure doesn't mean that you have to sort of reconcile with this person or even allow this person back into your life at all. For me, it just means that you've made the decision not to let the past bad thing consume your life because it's your life and you really deserve to be able to move on and experience the other great things that your life has to offer you. By staying consumed with it, you're literally re injuring yourself over and over and over. Now I've already told you, it can make you feel bad it can make you think bad thoughts. It can make your physical health be really crappy. But the other real dangerous thing about holding on to grudges and resentments is the fact that grudges and resentments lead us all to making more bad decisions. You see, what happens is we feel victimized. And feeling victimized very frequently leads us to making bad choices that continue to cause problems in our life. We let ourselves off the hook from being responsible and from doing the right thing. And then ultimately then you're going to be mad at yourself. Now, we are going to talk about the topic of self forgiveness in another video. So definitely be on the lookout for that one. Now, there are absolutely some situations that are harder to forgive than others. I think we can all see and recognize that. But some people actually have a harder time forgiving than other people. And those are people that usually have really high expectations for themselves. So if you're really hard on yourself, if you hold yourself to a crazy high standard, if you have like a really loud inner critic inside your head that's constantly on you, then you're probably going to have a harder time letting other people off the hook. Even if it's just for little things, like ever be late? And someone's late might be more likely to hold on to that resentment longer than someone else. So one way to get yourself in a better frame of mind if you're trying to get to forgiveness. And a good place to start is to practice empathy with yourself. When you can take a look at bad decisions that you've made, when you can acknowledge that you've hurt other people in your past and you can have a little empathy for yourself, it's going to be easier for you to have empathy for other people and the decisions that they've made. So being kind to yourself will result in being kinder to other people. None of us are perfect and we've all done bad things, things that we regret and that we feel shameful about and that we really wish had never happened. Now the next question that comes to mind is, does the other person have to acknowledge the wrong that they've done to you in order for you to be able to forgive them? Like, do you need for them to say I'm sorry or make an amend or at least admit what they did? Well, I can certainly say that definitely makes it a lot easier to forgive someone. It goes a long way and it helps a ton with the healing. But even when someone does acknowledge it and admit it, it doesn't mean that we immediately get there and Forgive someone because some things are just really, really, really hard to get past. And that's okay. Forgiveness isn't this one time event where you just go in your head and you just make this decision that you forgive. It may be something that you back to over and over. And what might be a more helpful way to think about it is really just letting go of that obsessive preoccupation and anger and resentment and bad feelings that you can go to in your head. Sometimes I call it going into the rabbit hole. It's a dark place and there's nothing good down there. And you may find yourself falling back into the rabbit hole from time to time. And you're going to have to make the decision not to go in there. It can feel really tempting. Maybe it's familiar, maybe you've been thinking about it for a long time. Sometimes something happens in life that really triggers you to remember that experience. And while yes, it's important to remember the bad things that have happened to us so that hopefully we can protect ourselves and they won't happen again, it's not good to go in the rabbit hole and swirl around in there and stay in there for very long. Like I said, it will bring you nothing but unhappiness and more bad feelings and more likely result in more negative life experiences. Now another question that I get really frequently is should I tell the other person how what they've done to me makes me feel? Now, there are some situations if you're still in a relationship with that other person where it may be really helpful for you to communicate that. But it's important that you be in a really sort of healthy state, state of mind to do that. If you're still extremely emotional, if talking about it's going to cause you to get really upset or angry or yell or scream, even though the person may deserve to be yelled or screamed at, likely even if they deserve it, they're going to respond defensively towards that. And when that happens, it's going to make it even harder for you to forgive. In fact, they're probably going to say and do some things that's going to add some more hurt to the list. So I definitely wouldn't try to have that conversation. If you know going to go badly. You see, you can forgive someone even if they don't know it. You can forgive someone even if they won't acknowledge it. It's literally about deciding that you're going to let go of your right to revenge. You're going to let go of that obsessive dark, negative thought because it's not doing you any good. Now, the perfect video that goes right along with this is my video on why do good people do bad things? So I'm going to put it right up here for you to watch next.