In this live Facebook broadcast, women's coach Val Nichols shares a heartfelt discussion on forgiveness. She opens by introducing herself and her mission to empower women through spiritual gifts and sustainable businesses. A recent viewing of the film I Can Only Imagine triggers an emotional response that leads her to reflect on her own childhood trauma and the difficulty of forgiving those who have hurt her. Nichols clarifies common misconceptions about forgiveness—emphasizing that forgiving does not excuse wrongdoing or require reconciliation, but rather releases the emotional burden for the forgiver’s own healing. She describes how holding onto unforgiveness feels like carrying heavy rocks that block new opportunities, relationships, and personal growth. By letting go, she reports increased freedom, openness to love, and a healthier heart. Nichols invites viewers to identify a person (or themselves) they need to forgive, seek guidance from a trusted mentor, coach, or support group, and take one concrete action step today. She promotes her “High Vibe Tribe” women’s support community as a safe space for continued work on forgiveness and personal development.
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Hello, Facebook Live. My name is Val Nichols, and I'm coming at you live tonight on my personal page because I really, really wanted this message to get across to as many people as it can. I am— for those of you who don't know me, if you are just seeing me live for the first time, I am Val Nichols, and I am a women's coach. And what I do is I empower women to live their best life possible to use their spiritual gifts to create a profitable business that is sustainable and will make them some money and get them out of the corporate world. So I wanted to talk about forgiveness tonight because it is a very huge topic that I am just really coming across here lately. Angela, there's my girl! Hi, Ashley! Oh my gosh, if you guys are hopping on, say hello. Hi! Charisma, so that I can say hi because I just, I love you guys. You got these ladies that just hopped on are just bringing me so much joy. So, and if you are watching on replay, you can also put replay and then comment along as we go. So I did want to talk about forgiveness. I watched this movie last night. It's called I Can Only Imagine, and it's the Bart Millard story about how he created that song. I don't know if you guys have ever heard that song. But I just lose it every single time I listen to it. They played it at my friend's funeral a couple years back, and I remember just feeling God's presence so much and just feeling like Tyler, the guy whose funeral it was, that Tyler was just there and that he was just— that everything was okay. So I totally lost it watching this movie last night. I Can Only Imagine, because it is all about forgiveness. And I was literally sitting on the couch just like that ugly crying. Like, it wasn't cute crying like you see on the movies. It was like snotting, and I was just a wreck. And my husband looks at me and he's like, are you okay? Are you, are you okay, babe? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine, but I'm just like bawling. Because if you're like me, you know, I had some experiences growing up where things happened that I didn't have any control in. I didn't play a part in necessarily because I was, I was a kid, you know, and I was trusting these adults in my life to be caring for me in ways that they just, they weren't capable of doing because they had their own battles and their own struggles that they were going through and they had their own things, you know, all those things that as adults grow up and sometimes they carry Their baggage and their emotions and everything like that with them. So I didn't— I wasn't dealt the best hand in life. You know, I was talking to someone about this yesterday. You know, sometimes we aren't dealt the best hands. We don't get to choose what family we come into. We don't get to choose our circumstances until we're to a certain age. And, you know, and right now, today, We can't go back and change our past. We can't go back and change things about our story that we wish we could change. However, you know what we can do today is we can take a look at our life and we can take responsibility for what's happening and choose that we can forgive. And what forgiveness does. A lot of times, you know, if you're like how I used to be, I used to think that by forgiving someone, I was literally just giving them an out. I felt like sometimes if I was going to forgive someone, it's as if I was saying, oh, it's okay, it doesn't matter, it's fine, you know, you're good, let's be best friends again. But that's not always the case with forgiveness. You know, if you're anything like me, I did not want to forgive. I held my regrets and my judgments and my non-forgiveness. I held on to it because it was such a great comfort. I could be angry and I could just sit in that and had excuses and I liked it because it provided like a safety blanket for me to just be angry. Hi Dorothy, how are you girl? Hi. And so forgiveness, it's a beautiful, amazing, just weird thing. It's more for us It's more for our own healing, and it's more for our own purpose for us to be in that state of forgiveness. Hi, Steve! Oh my gosh, all the great people are on here today. This is wonderful. We have some amazing people watching tonight. So forgiveness offers us a sense of freedom and a sense of just, of just well-being where we can literally just let go of those icky feelings that we're holding on to. And it doesn't mean that what that person did or, you know, what happened is, is okay. We're not giving people an out. But what we're saying is that I forgive you. I release this thing that I'm holding on to that is dragging me down. Because believe me, for years and years and years, I would carry around These big rocks, these huge rocks, and they would— I would be trying to just trudge up the hill with them, and I would be trying to carry them around through my life, and I just held on to these huge things. And through the work that I've done, I have realized, I have come to discover that by me letting go of it, it frees me up and opens me up to the opportunity to have so much more in my life. When I'm so stuck in these areas that I'm holding on to unforgiveness for somebody, I am stuck. If I'm holding on to all this unforgiveness, I literally have no extra space in my life to open up for new friendships and new beautiful opportunities and new beautiful experiences in my life. And I know that there's someone out here today Right now, who's holding onto something that you feel like you cannot forgive? You cannot possibly forgive that issue, that person, because what they did to you is so wrong and has had a complete and total ripple effect in your entire life. Hi, Beth! In your entire life. But I'm here to tell you it is possible, and it is going to bring you so much healing and so much freedom into your entire. Life that you are going to feel such a sense of relief if you just let it go and forgive. And here's been my experience: often I have forgiven people, and I have released them from from me myself from carrying them, and I'm no longer carrying them in my heart. I'm not letting them. rent space in my head, I free myself. And it doesn't mean that I want to be friends with those people again, and sometimes that doesn't mean that I want to even allow them back in my life. But what it does for me in my heart is I practice the soul care of doing what's good for me. And what's good for the greater— what's the best for the greater good of the world? And for me to allow someone sometimes that I've forgiven back into my life is not always the best thing for everybody. Sometimes I'm— I don't have the opportunity to have those people back in my life because they may not even be living anymore. I have someone who died when I was really, really young that I struggled for years. I mean, I'm not talking 1 or 2 years. I'm talking decades. Decades. And once I thought I forgave them, something else popped back up. Something else came back up. This man is dead. I can't go to him and tell him I forgive him. But I have been given the opportunity to forgive for my own well-being and my own heart. And here's the weird thing that happened. I no longer punish myself for the things that those people did to me because I did for years. I punished myself. I would try and drown out the pain. I would try and just— and you know, some of you know my story, and I self-medicated with alcohol. I self-medicated with drugs. Hi, Rishi, so good to see you on here. And I would just, I would do these things to just like to punish myself for the unforgiveness that I had in my heart. So I'm here to tell you, if there's someone in your life or some situation in your life that you believe you cannot find forgiveness for, reach out, find someone who can walk you through the process because it is so healing. And there's so much opportunity to just open up your heart and expand to all of the great and wonderful opportunities that are out there for you to love. And that's another thing I realized, you know, for so long I kept this wall up between me and you because I was afraid to get hurt again because I couldn't have forgiveness in my heart. And once I had forgiveness in my heart, slowly but surely I opened up and I was able to just love with a wild passion and give freely of myself and my heart and my time and my, my, myself. So here's what I want to leave you with today. Who is that one person that you need to give forgiveness to? I know you know who it is because you're thinking of that person right now. Who is that person that you need to offer forgiveness to? It might even be yourself. There might be things that you have not forgiven of yourself. So find someone, you know, a church group, a mentor, a coach. Find someone who can help walk you through that process, because I'm not saying it's going to be easy. It's going to be painful. But once you allow yourself the opportunity to feel that pain, you can come back together in total and complete healing and offer yourself the opportunity to open back up. And there's so much beauty on the other side. So what are you gonna do today to allow yourself that freedom? One action step today. I'd love to hear it in the comments. If you, you know, if you're watching this live, let me know. If you're watching it on replay, I'd love to hear the comments. If you are a woman who is struggling with this kind of thing and you would love to find a support network Let me know. I have a group of amazing women on here called the High Vibe Tribe, and they are amazing. It's a great, supportive, wonderful group to safely share these things and to really just just get the love and support from other women that you're looking for. So I would love to be here to support you, and let me know, and I will see you guys another time. Bye.
