#136 A Different View of Forgiveness
Are you someone who gets stuck in thoughts about how you’ve been hurt and have trouble letting go of that hurt? If that’s you, this is your episode.
In this episode, I’ll give you a different view of why you might be stuck and how to begin moving forward.
Want help processing your difficult emotions so you can get unstuck and finally let that hurt go and move on? Let’s work on this together. Set up a 90-minute coaching call with me and let’s work on it together. You’ll feel so much better after this call.
CLICK HERE to set up your call
Are you putting off having a difficult conversation because you get emotional every time you try to express yourself? Maybe you cry, or get angry, or say things you regret later, so you avoid having difficult conversations.
If this is you, download The Difficult Conversation Guide!
In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to prepare yourself for the conversation, what to do during and after the conversation. And you’ll also learn some pretty useful emotional management skills that will help you long after the conversation is over.
CLICK HERE to download The Difficult Conversation Guide – how to have a conversation with your adult child.
CLICK HERE to download The Difficult Conversation Guide – how to have a conversation with your husband.
Full Transcript
00:00
When you try to have a difficult conversation do you end up getting emotional and forget what you want to say. Or maybe you or the other person ends up angry, and it turns into a yelling match, or someone stomps away. If you’re wanting to be able to find clarity, to feel confident in having a difficult conversation, and you don’t want your emotions to take over, I want you to download my free guide to having difficult conversations. I’ll walk you through how to prepare yourself beforehand, what to do during the conversation. And even after that conversation is over. And I’ll also give you some emotional management skills that you can use long after the conversation is over. Hop on over to the show notes to find the link and download your guide today.
00:48
Welcome to the coaching your family relationships podcast, where we work on you. My name is Tina Gosney, your host as well as your family relationship coach, and positive relationship strategist. When we make peace with what’s happening inside of you, you’ll begin to find the peace you’re looking for and your family relationships. Let’s get started.
01:14
If you’re having trouble forgiving someone, and you find yourself continuing to ruminate on something that you wanted to let go of, but it keeps coming back and dominating your thoughts. It just takes over your brain, then if that’s you, that sounds like something that you’ve been through, you’ll probably resonate with this episode.
01:36
Maybe you’ve been told for years now that you’re a person that holds grudges, or that you make a big deal out of nothing, or that you are an overreactor. Maybe you’ve received messages like that from people. And you believe that because you do this, there’s something wrong with you. If that is you, this is your episode.
01:58
If you don’t have trouble letting things go off, that is easy for you, it’s easier for you to just like say, Oh, it’s just fine. And let go and forgive. This might not be your episode, you might not resonate with this one. But there also might be something here that you find some value with. So don’t give up on it yet. If that’s you, if you’re somebody that lets go really easily, you don’t have trouble with forgiveness, it’s okay, you’re probably still going to find something of value here.
02:25
In this episode, I want you to think about when you are stuck, when you are reliving something or someone that hurt you. And you keep going through this over and over and over in your head, and you’re feeling all of the painful feelings that go along with that. That is a super painful place to be that is what we call suffering. You can spend a lot of energy, a lot of brainpower on something that isn’t even happening right now. It’s only happening inside your head. It’s not happening in the present, right? It already happened. But for you it’s very present. And it’s dominating your thoughts. And it’s exhausting.
03:16
So what if you could let go of that ruminating? What if you could let go and use that energy in your brain power? For something so much more productive and creative and exciting to you? Would that be something that you would be up for? You can and I’m going to show you maybe one of the reasons today that you’re stuck in not being able to let go.
03:42
Now all people are different. None of us are exactly the same. And none of us are having the same experience on the earth. Not even two people in the same room having the same conversation are having the same experience in that conversation. And there’s so many different reasons for that. But we are all different and some people feel things more deeply than other people do.
04:12
Are you one of those people who has been told that they’re too much, you’re too sensitive or you’re too insensitive? You’re too quiet, you’re too loud, you’re too shy, you’re too social. You’re too whatever, you name it. I think everyone has been told they’re too much. And maybe it was told to you in different words. But that was the meaning behind it. I want you to think of what messages you have received through your life about something that said you are not okay the way that you are.
04:45
When you’re a kid, you don’t know how to be you don’t even know who you are, except through looking at other people and seeing yourself reflected in them. So what other people tell you that You are that’s what you believe that you are. And then they say that you’re too insensitive or you’re too sensitive or you’re too loud, or you’re too soft. And then you internalize that message. Until that becomes not something that somebody else is saying to you, it becomes something that lives inside your own head that you’ve made true, and just inherent to who you are. It’s like at the core of who you are, as a person, their voice becomes your own voice.
05:30
So let’s just say that’s where you are, because that’s where all of us are all of us. Were internalizing messages that we’re not helpful as a child. And then you’re now you’re a grown up, and something happens in your family when you’re hurt. Because that’s what happens in families, you will be hurt by other people, and other hurt, and other people will be hurt by you. And because you’re hurt, you’re feeling some big feelings. And you were always told, You’re too sensitive. You take things too, personally, there’s something wrong with you, why can’t you just let this go? What if this is you, and then you’re stuck reliving that conversation that past hurt, all the feelings that are associated with it, and you internalize this feeling that you’re wrong, for feeling the way that you’re feeling?
06:23
And other people are not really saying that to you? Maybe they are, but maybe they’re not. But for sure, you’re saying it to yourself, their voice became your voice? Do you know what we call that when we think that there is something wrong with us, we call that shame.
06:41
So many of us don’t realize how much shame we have internalized. And shame says, There is something wrong with me. And in the back of our head, it’s not something that we’re able to change. It’s just like a core part of who we are. There’s something wrong with me. This is debilitating.
07:05
Shame wants us to hide, it tells us that we need to physically hide, when you are feeling like there is something wrong with you, you are probably more likely to not want to talk to people not want to be around people, you’ll probably physically separate yourself away from other people.
07:23
You’re also going to hide emotionally, you’re going to hide your feelings. And especially if you’ve been told that you feel too much that you have too big of emotions, you’re going to hide your feelings, and it’s not going to feel safe to open them up to anyone because they’re going to tell you once again, there’s something wrong with you that you’re feeling that way, reinforcing that same idea that you already have inside your own head. We’re just going to repeat those same words to ourselves, what is wrong with me than I am feeling this way? We’re already thinking it ourselves. But if we opened it up to someone else, they would actually say it. Now what do you make, that would even make it more true.
08:02
We’re also going to hide relationally, we won’t let other people get close to us, because that doesn’t feel safe. So we keep people at an arm’s distance. We don’t let them come into our inner world. Or we’re so dependent on validation and approval from other people that we lean on them. We lean on their validation and their approval, and we can’t stand on our own two feet without it. And so we do all sorts of crazy things, trying to get that validation just so we can feel okay. So I want you to think about how have I internalized shame, what have I told myself is wrong with me? And how am I hiding that? Because then we get stuck. And you can’t let go the feeling. But you’re maybe you’re so angry or frustrated or resentful at other people. But you’re also ashamed of yourself that you’re feeling that way.
09:04
So what is going on here? Does this sound remotely familiar to you? Have you ever experienced something like this? You know, as soon as we push away pieces and parts of us that we don’t like. And that’s what shameful parts are. Like, I don’t want to look at that I’m going to push it away. I’m not even going to acknowledge that it is that it exists.
09:27
And then we have pushed that part away of us that we don’t like or maybe we believe what someone else has said to us when they said there’s something wrong with you. Then we become fractured internally. There’s a piece of us that we’re rejecting. We become internally fractured. When that happens. We stay stuck right where we are. So I want you to think about is this- Does this sound like me and maybe is this possibility that this is why I’m having trouble letting go and forgiving. Why can’t I move on? Why do I keep having this conversation? Or this situation? keep replaying inside my mind? Am I stuck? Do I believe that there’s something wrong with me that I’m feeling the way that I’m feeling? Because of something, a belief about me that I’ve internalized?
10:22
How do we flip this around? What if there’s nothing wrong with you? What if you’re just a very sensitive person, a deeply feeling person. And a person that’s been told that it’s not okay to be that way. Whatever you reject and push away, it will keep pushing back on you. If you’re rejecting your emotions, and how you’re feeling, and everyone else is telling you, you’re wrong for feeling the way that you do. So you get external reinforcement for an internal message that you’re already saying to yourself, you’re going to find yourself stuck, those feelings will keep pushing back, and they will have a hold on you. Because you’re rejecting them.
11:09
It’s so interesting, that when we fully accept our feelings as a part of us, and not a shameful part, but just as a part that is teaching us about who we are about who we really are, before we internalized all the messages as a child that told us who we were, that’s when those feelings will start to loosen their grip on you. What if it’s actually a superpower? That you are a deeply feeling and sensitive person?
11:47
What if that is not a weakness, but actually a strength?
11:53
What if that was actually true? Because you can make it true. If you’re feeling angry, let yourself feel anger. Anger is not wrong. It’s an emotion. It’s just an emotion. And it wants to be felt. And just because you’re you allow yourself to feel anger doesn’t mean you’re going to get more angry and be a more angry person. It’s actually the opposite.
12:19
Processing your anger is therapeutic and healthy. It’s way more healthy than acting out that anger into the world, because it felt too big to contain within you because you were not able to handle the bigness and the intensity of that anger. And so you kind of spewed it out and diffused it into the world.
12:43
Are you feeling disrespected. There’s a reason that you’re feeling that way. And it is okay to feel it. There is nothing wrong with feeling disrespected. That feeling has a message for you about your true inner self. Remember that self that was that came to Earth before you got the messages that told you who you were. And so you won’t be able to access that message until you allow yourself to go through the process of processing that emotion of disrespect.
13:17
If you’re wondering what I mean by processing and emotion, I want you to go to Episode 63. That is called processing emotions. I am going to walk you through how to do it, I walk you through it step by step. Now this is not a skill that anyone teaches you how to do. So if it sounds strange, and it sounds foreign to you when you listen to that episode, that is completely normal. But this is how we process emotions. This is how we handle our emotions internally, and increase our capacity to handle emotions, big emotions, by processing them and not spewing them out into the world.
14:00
Now after you’ve listened to this episode, if you’re needing more help than the episode provides, I want you to set up a call with me there is a link in the show notes where you can do just that. I have helped so many people process their emotions, and I’ve processed so many of my own. I’m kind of I’m kind of a guru at processing emotions. I just got to tell you that. So if you’re wanting help, let’s do that together. Click on that link and set up an appointment with me.
14:26
And now I want you to consider that maybe another reason why we can’t let go and forgive is because we aren’t accepting a situation just as it is. And we aren’t accepting a person just as they are. So often we are surprised, angry or offended when someone acts the same way that they’ve always acted. And why should we be people show us all the time who they are.
14:56
We just have expectations that oh, this is the time They’re going to be different. And then they don’t. They’re still showing us who they are.
15:04
Maybe you have a sister in law who says mean things to you, and she just unloads all of her garbage on you. And she blames you for all of her problems. But she’s always done that, and she’s been in your family for a long time.
15:18
Maybe you have a father that makes inappropriate comments about your spouse. But he has a history of making inappropriate comments about everybody. So he’s shown you over decades, who he is, don’t be upset when people are themselves.
15:34
But we do get upset, don’t we? We think that this time, they should be different. And then we started having conversations, something happens. And we start having a conversation inside of our own head about how wrong they are when they do that thing that they always do. What if we said to ourselves, that is sister in law being who she is, or that’s my dad, making inappropriate comments.
16:00
Again, we don’t have to be porous, we don’t have to let our skin be porous. And let those things pour into us and make it their inappropriate behavior fuel the feelings inside of ourselves, that we then feed and fuel every time we think about what happened. And then every time we fuel it, and feed it, we are keeping ourselves stuck.
16:25
This does not mean that we don’t respond with some limits about what we will allow others to say to us, and do around us. And that is a that’s a topic for another episode. But we don’t have to keep ourselves in that same situation that created those feelings inside of us. But when we get stuck in thinking that other people should be different than they are, and then we feel all the feelings, the painful thing, feelings that go along with that. And we feed them with more thoughts about how that person is supposed to be different, then we get stuck. And we add suffering on top of our own pain. Now that initial experience was painful, and every time we relive it, we think about it and feel it all over again.
17:18
What if we could let their behavior stay with them, and not pick it up? And believe it or let it permeate our thoughts about ourselves? What if we don’t have to extend the pain and the suffering for ourselves? To do this, we have to be able to let it go. But as long as we are making ourselves wrong, for feeling the way that we’re feeling, we will be stuck recreating it over and over and over again.
17:49
Now if this episode has been very different than you thought it would be, I think I’ve done my job. But I also want to consider that maybe you can do something different than you’ve done in the past. I want to give you some things to think about in this episode. I want you to think about how no one else needs to apologize to you, for you to be able to process your feelings. Your feelings belong to you. You are the creator of your feelings. No one else is the creator of those feelings that you have.
18:22
And someone else who has hurt you does apologize. Consider yourself one of the lucky few. Wouldn’t it be great if we all owned up to how we hurt hurt each other. But so many people only see the way that they’ve been hurt, not the way they’ve hurt others. And so until we have more awareness around our own actions, those apologies are going to be stuck somewhere out in the ether. They’re not going to show up in your life. But you will continue to be hurt and relive the past until you can begin to accept yourself. Your feelings are not wrong. Except the situation except for the other person except these things right where they are. Interestingly, once you accept things just as they are, that’s when you can begin to change them.
19:14
And you don’t have to continue to say yes to the situation that hurt you. You can forgive and also choose to not reengage. Forgiveness does not automatically mean reengagement.
19:28
If you want help forgiving someone, if you want to help getting unstuck, so that you can let go of the suffering that you’ve been experiencing, I want you to set up that call. Let’s talk. I can help you get on that path of forgiveness. So let’s have a conversation. Have a great week and I’ll see you next time.
19:51
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