0:01

Some things in life may be

0:03

unforgivable to you, but that doesn't

0:05

make them unforgivable. On

0:08

the converse, the truth is

0:10

there are human beings who

0:12

have forgiven every conceivable thing

0:14

that human beings can experience.

0:16

So it's a point

0:18

of view. It's not a truth. Hey,

0:21

guys. How are you doing? I hope you're

0:23

having a good week so far. My name

0:25

is Dr. Rongan Chatterjee and this

0:27

is my podcast, Feel Better,

0:30

Live More. When

0:34

it comes to improving our health, a lot

0:36

of attention has historically been given to the

0:38

quality of our diets and how much

0:40

we move. And over

0:42

the past few years, the impact of

0:45

chronic stress and insufficient sleep has been

0:47

highlighted more and more, which of course

0:49

is fantastic. But still, I

0:51

would say a crucial component of health

0:54

is still very much overlooked. Our

0:57

ability to let go, move on

0:59

and forgive. Today's

1:02

guest wants us all to understand

1:04

why forgiveness matters for

1:06

both our mental and physical health.

1:09

Dr. Fred Luskin is a clinical

1:11

psychologist, researcher and speaker who

1:14

has been teaching at Stanford University for

1:16

the past 30 years and

1:18

is director of the Stanford University

1:21

Forgiveness Projects. He has

1:23

taught tens of thousands of

1:25

people to live happier, healthier

1:27

and more fulfilled lives through

1:29

the practice of forgiveness, gratitude

1:31

and meditation. Although

1:33

20 years old, his book Forgive

1:36

For Good, a proven prescription for

1:38

health and happiness is

1:40

as relevant today as it ever was.

1:43

Based on groundbreaking scientific research,

1:46

it provides practical strategies for letting

1:48

go of grudges and resentments and

1:51

it offers startling insights into

1:54

the healing powers and medical benefits

1:56

of forgiveness and its profound

1:58

impact on our lives. In

2:01

our conversation, Fred explains how our past

2:03

hurts are stored in our

2:05

bodies. People who are

2:08

able to forgive are physically more

2:10

relaxed. Their blood pressure and

2:12

central nervous system normalise, their perception

2:14

of pain lowers, and their

2:16

risk of depression and anxiety goes down.

2:19

Crucially, their relationships are more open

2:22

and trusting, so they

2:24

feel less alone. Now this

2:26

is such powerful knowledge to have. Most

2:28

of us can probably think of an

2:30

example where we've allowed something that's happened

2:32

in the past to sabotage

2:34

our presence. Not letting

2:36

go of old hurts can be a

2:39

way of trying to protect ourselves and

2:41

control the future, but Fred

2:43

points out that this is a coping mechanism

2:46

to stop us acknowledging when we are

2:48

vulnerable. True resilience means

2:50

sitting with that discomfort and

2:52

learning that it will pass. Of

2:55

course, this doesn't mean we don't have a right

2:57

to be devastated if our partner has an affair

3:00

or our boss treats us badly for example.

3:02

It's vital to feel the hurt and process

3:05

your feelings as Fred, but if

3:07

you're still living in those negative

3:09

emotions months or years

3:11

later, it may well be

3:13

time to move on. Now

3:15

if that sounds easier said than done, rest

3:18

assured that Fred has plenty of

3:20

inspiring examples and practical suggestions to

3:23

help you forgive. He is adamant

3:25

that forgiveness is a choice and

3:28

a skill that anyone can learn. I

3:31

really enjoyed my conversation with Fred

3:34

and completely agree with him that

3:36

forgiveness is an undervalued human skill.

3:39

It may feel hard to access,

3:41

but it is a brave choice

3:43

and one that in any given

3:45

situation will trigger a cascade of

3:48

rewards. I hope this

3:50

conversation prompts you to reconsider some of your

3:52

past tense and move

3:54

forward with self-compassion And

3:56

freedom. I

4:02

think fried. That's. The.

4:05

Work you Do covers.

4:09

One. Of the most important. Yet.

4:12

Undervalued. Aspects.

4:14

Of House. So

4:16

I started this conversation. Why?

4:19

Should people care about this idea

4:21

of letting go, not holding onto

4:24

the past? Why should they care

4:26

about that in the present? Especially

4:28

when it comes to their physical

4:30

health. Were.

4:33

Mm. When I look it's you Are I

4:35

look at any one. What?

4:38

What I see or we

4:40

all see is the result.

4:43

Tobe habits, practices, preferences and

4:45

experiences. So the Roth embedded

4:47

in your body. You

4:50

wanna have as many positive

4:52

experiences and good habits as

4:55

you can and release some

4:57

as a negative experiences and

4:59

bad habits as you can

5:01

so that when you show

5:03

up every day in your

5:05

life your as by a

5:07

good natured in healthy as

5:09

you can be when you

5:11

hold on to negative experiences

5:13

it's stored. you know it's

5:15

like if he creates a

5:17

kind of brain groove but

5:19

the way. You hold your life

5:21

influences with as is so the

5:23

raises or what your blood pressure

5:26

is and. Letting.

5:28

Him: go not not

5:30

needing that wounds. Relaxes,

5:33

Stuff and so you show up

5:35

to me as a healthy you're

5:37

more present person. A

5:40

lot us. Religious. Practices Spiritual

5:42

practices for many years have

5:44

spoken about the importance of.

5:47

Forgiveness. the importance of

5:49

lessing gowdy importance of not allowing

5:52

the past to determine and dictates

5:54

your present day while i find

5:56

slashed anything about your work though

5:58

is that Yes, you

6:01

have the practical aspects of how you can

6:03

do that But

6:05

you've also done research on to the power

6:07

of letting go and forgiving

6:10

others On our

6:12

physical health blood pressure anxiety depression all

6:14

kinds of things. So yes

6:17

Letting go of past experiences helps us

6:19

to feel better today But

6:22

it has implications for your physical health as well,

6:24

doesn't it? You know letting

6:26

go is I'm

6:29

going to say a simplification of

6:33

a similar complex process it's

6:37

reevaluating and re-explaining

6:40

it to yourself rather than letting go

6:42

so If

6:44

I came in to talk to you

6:47

about let's say a bad marriage or

6:49

a harsh parent It's

6:53

not like I I let go that

6:55

that never happened or I just banished

6:57

it to the past what

7:00

I do is I have an entirely

7:02

different way of processing

7:05

that experience so that who I am

7:07

when I present it to you is

7:09

different so I could start

7:11

with before letting go so this

7:13

big boy did I have this

7:15

shittiest parents and then Forgiveness

7:18

or whatever and then you say, you know But

7:21

these poor people they had no idea had a

7:23

parent and what a mess they made

7:26

and it took me years to get over It

7:28

but now I'm clean That's

7:30

what letting go is. It's processing

7:33

it in a way where it's no

7:35

longer a Wound

7:37

or an experience dragging you down

7:39

now so

7:42

that transformation Affects

7:46

All of you, you know,

7:48

not just your mental emotional

7:50

status, but your physical status.

7:52

So Your muscles are less

7:54

tight from guarding against stuff

7:56

your blood pressure is more

7:58

normalized You're nervous? The sister

8:00

miss more stabilized because the

8:03

very way your processing the

8:05

world has changed. Some

8:08

of the research that we've done

8:11

or some of the researchers been

8:13

done has shown yes it does

8:16

reduce blood pressure and and angry

8:18

people is. It seems to serve

8:20

as a mediator between and some

8:23

heart disease and far the heart

8:25

disease Those who forgiven don't forget.

8:28

it reduces the experience of pain.

8:30

Said: if you're unforgiving, you

8:32

experience pain a little more.

8:36

Is has pretty. Significant.

8:39

Influences on depression and

8:42

anxiety. But. It's

8:44

it's just is

8:46

in relationship. Minutes.

8:49

The just because if some

8:52

hurt. Then I

8:54

walk into an experience with you.

8:57

Some. What frightens. If

9:00

I still identify myself as

9:02

a wounded victim said i'm

9:04

less open, less trusting, less

9:06

available to you, I have.

9:08

I have a mental way

9:11

of holding. its that says

9:13

hey Fred, Be careful. Where

9:16

they send ships are the most important thing

9:18

we do for our health. You.

9:20

Know that that's our, that's our

9:22

juice. that saw. It

9:25

other with the researchers

9:27

what sites fifty percent

9:29

of her happiness so

9:31

when you look at

9:33

the impact as has

9:35

of impaired relationship and

9:37

frightened relating. Then

9:40

you can see both individually

9:42

and culturally, the lack of

9:44

forgiveness, the implications of it.

9:47

Yeah. We.

9:51

Know that. Stress.

9:54

And. Some way or form is responsible for

9:56

may be up to eighty or ninety percent

9:58

of for medical doctor seen. Any. given

10:00

day. And I

10:02

think that relates. To. What

10:04

You're talking about: relationships.

10:07

It's relationship Because. Relationships.

10:11

When they are not going well.

10:14

Can. Be a sued source of stress

10:16

for us as individuals that the same

10:18

time. They

10:22

can be a source of com and comfort

10:24

and safety. That's right, if they all came

10:26

while threat, so think when we look at

10:29

it through that lens. We.

10:31

Can understand how. Your

10:33

ability to let go, move on

10:36

and again when improve your relationships

10:38

which then we'll have a knock

10:40

on effects and your stress levels

10:42

and how you feel in your

10:44

lifestyle choices, etc etc. But.

10:46

I think it's also interesting what you said

10:49

that you've done research to show that in

10:51

Angry People. Learning

10:53

says the guess. Helps

10:56

your blood pressure go down. It does. That.

10:59

Is nice for so many people.

11:01

When we talking about health and

11:03

blood pressure, most people are talking

11:06

about medication. I know if they

11:08

are. Broadening best

11:10

scope. Be. On medication That

11:12

talking about. Myself.

11:15

Toy says yea diet

11:17

style movement, sleep. All.

11:19

These things a great losing weight. Yeah

11:21

and all these things can help. But.

11:24

Actually, A lot of

11:26

people most people are not talking about

11:28

forgiveness, letting go of anger and how

11:31

that can have an impact on some

11:33

what blood pressure as well. I've been

11:35

thinking about this a lot. Forgiveness in

11:37

many ways. You can't measure it

11:39

with a blood test. And.

11:42

As a sometimes I think because you can't measure

11:44

it with a simple blood test. Maybe.

11:46

My profession. Doesn't.

11:48

Take it seriously, whereas. You.

11:51

Can measure. Your. Whites your waist

11:53

circumference read to see what I mean.

11:55

I don't. What's your take on that

11:57

allows. Missing. in

12:00

most of the discussions, like

12:03

we have a kind of neutral

12:05

space and then you

12:07

have stress and anger

12:10

or self-pity or whatever,

12:12

they create a negative space. But

12:15

there's so much importance

12:18

not placed on happiness

12:22

and joy and exuberance

12:25

and love and

12:27

connection. Well,

12:30

whatever small amount of research

12:32

there is suggests that it

12:35

has positive effects on our

12:37

physiology in the same

12:39

way that the negative emotions have

12:41

negative effects on our physiology. So

12:44

like when we teach

12:46

resilience, like in my

12:48

world, the easiest

12:51

way to promote

12:53

resilience is just

12:55

to stop people for a moment and

12:57

say, hey, take a breath,

13:00

relax, and

13:02

just remember a time that you were loved. Just

13:07

stop for a minute, quiet

13:09

down into yourself, and

13:11

just picture a time when you absolutely

13:13

knew you were loved. Absolutely, you can

13:15

feel it, you can see it. And

13:19

besides the fact that your whole

13:21

body calms down and everything slows

13:23

down, if

13:26

you can remember that or even

13:28

remember the experience the next time

13:30

you feel stressed, you

13:33

have a little more resilience because you're not as

13:35

alone, you're not as scared. So

13:38

when you forgive, when

13:40

you overcome negativity,

13:42

when you move past

13:44

it, it's

13:46

in there as a memory source.

13:50

So when I haven't forgiven, like, and

13:53

I meet you and maybe you remind

13:55

me of somebody who hurt me, that

13:58

memory triggers. physiologic

14:01

changes right now. You know, I

14:03

have adrenaline or I have things,

14:05

so I'm sitting down next to

14:07

you, but because of my memory

14:09

traces, I'm already aroused in a

14:11

certain way. If

14:14

I have forgiven somebody who looked like

14:16

you or sounded like you, then

14:19

I sit down with

14:21

confidence because I've been able to

14:23

handle myself. And

14:25

so not only do I not

14:27

have the negative memory, but

14:30

I sit down with you with

14:32

some degree of resilience of, oh,

14:34

if this happens again, I've shown

14:36

myself. I can do this. So

14:40

it's not just

14:43

markers, it's an ongoing

14:45

relationship to life that

14:48

impacts the physical and the

14:51

mental bodies. Yeah. Did

14:53

that make sense? Yeah, I really

14:55

like that. I'm just thinking,

14:58

if you

15:00

would pick anyone

15:02

off the street and

15:05

ask them, would

15:07

they like to be living in

15:10

the present moment? Yeah. Would

15:13

they like to not have their

15:15

negative past experiences impact

15:18

the way they interact? Let's take a relationship,

15:22

either with a loved one or a work

15:24

colleague or whoever. So

15:27

much of the time, we sabotage

15:30

the present because

15:32

of what has happened in the

15:34

past. Exactly. And so given

15:37

that we

15:39

can say that, and if people think

15:41

about it, if they step outside their

15:43

life and reflect, I

15:46

think most people would get that and go, yeah,

15:48

okay. The question then for me is, why

15:51

do we hold onto grudges

15:54

in the first place? Well,

15:59

immediately. I

16:01

believe that we

16:03

require time to adjust.

16:08

So if you get a phone

16:10

call that something happened to somebody

16:12

in your family, I mean

16:15

you know the amount of stress your body's going

16:17

to be under. I mean you're going to be

16:19

flooded. And

16:21

let's say some driver

16:23

was drunk and hurt somebody

16:25

in your family. It

16:29

takes a while for

16:32

the nervous system, the

16:34

mental apparatus to

16:37

adapt to both the horror

16:41

at first and then the changes.

16:44

So that period of time to

16:46

me, the healthy part of it,

16:48

is called grief. You

16:51

need a period of time to

16:53

adapt to life, to any

16:56

wounding. You come home and your

16:58

partner's in bed with somebody else

17:00

or you find out that somebody

17:02

robbed your store. It doesn't matter.

17:05

It's a massive adjustment. So

17:08

we are appropriately

17:10

destabilized and appropriately

17:13

needing to

17:15

work through this because the

17:17

world we woke up to

17:20

changed. And

17:22

I believe that's grief. Like

17:24

that's a healthy expression of

17:26

human experience. So

17:28

you go through some anger and

17:30

sadness and bargaining and all the

17:33

stages of grief. The

17:37

crucial question is what

17:40

happens after that? And

17:43

how are you processing it? You're going

17:45

through it. So resilient

17:47

people, they go through

17:49

all this upheaval, but

17:51

they have some mental place that observes

17:54

it and says, this will pass. You've

17:57

helped dealt with things before. know,

18:01

just write it out, less

18:04

resilient people or people who

18:06

have deep grudges or

18:08

all sorts of things,

18:11

they feed the flame. You

18:14

know, like this hurts now but remember

18:16

when mom was this way, where you

18:18

can't trust people or life sucks. So

18:22

again, it's always in

18:24

process. The

18:27

key question is not like

18:30

it's going to hurt, it's going

18:32

to disrupt, it's going to be

18:34

painful. That's part

18:37

of our basic humanity. It's

18:40

how do we resolve these things.

18:44

It's a bit like stress, isn't it? A little bit of

18:46

stress is good for us.

18:48

It helps us be our best. So

18:50

that negative event, the

18:53

fact that we feel bad. I

18:55

like the way that you describe that as

18:58

a form of grief. Yeah, it is grief.

19:00

That's absolutely okay

19:03

for a period of time. That's the key

19:05

thing. That's the key

19:07

issue. But if 10

19:09

years after that event, if

19:12

you're still thinking about

19:14

it. Not even 10 years after

19:17

this, some research that's

19:19

six months after a painful

19:22

event, if anger

19:24

is still your predominant emotion,

19:26

that doesn't augur well. It's

19:34

the necessity to

19:36

develop a kind of coping

19:41

where we are capable of

19:43

handling what life throws at

19:45

us without

19:47

excess bitterness that we

19:49

bring from past inabilities

19:51

to handle what life

19:53

throws at us. That's

19:56

the desperate need for forgiveness, both

19:58

as an individual. And there's

20:01

a culture It's

20:04

some of this about control and and what I

20:06

mean by that Fred is Something

20:09

bad happens we feel bad

20:12

for a period of time of course But

20:15

by not letting go of

20:17

it. Yes Is

20:21

it in some way our way of

20:23

trying to control the future? Yes, we

20:26

are holding on we're controlling And I guess in

20:28

many ways and we are we

20:31

prefer The

20:33

familiarity of

20:36

the pain that we know Rather

20:41

than the feeling of freedom that we

20:44

don't I

20:47

think the essential challenge

20:50

is how do we deal with our vulnerability?

20:54

That's the essential challenge So

20:57

when you're hurt or when something happens

20:59

that you didn't want or when an

21:02

uninvited suffering comes in

21:06

The hardest thing to recognize is as a

21:08

human being how

21:11

vulnerable you are like we can't

21:13

protect our families and we're gonna

21:15

die and People are

21:17

gonna mistreat us and people who

21:20

love us today aren't guaranteed to

21:22

love us tomorrow so

21:25

we exist in a you know, I

21:27

kind of liminal space of The

21:31

good we have now may not last

21:33

and so

21:35

one of the ways that we adapt

21:37

to that is Armoring, you

21:40

know, like I'm not gonna let it get

21:42

so deep But another way that we adapt

21:44

to that is by getting furious

21:46

when it's taken away or lost Which is

21:49

part of what you're talking about, but for

21:52

many of us Continuing

21:55

that anger or that self-pity like

21:57

I've had such a terrible and

22:00

nothing's gone well for me. That's

22:03

exactly what you were saying. It's

22:05

a form of control because we

22:07

don't know what to do with

22:10

the vulnerability. We

22:12

have no idea what to do with the

22:14

fact that as human beings, we

22:16

can't fully protect anything.

22:20

So we develop these

22:23

coping styles to stop

22:25

us from seeing that

22:28

every now and then sometimes we're

22:30

naked in life. We can't do

22:33

it. And

22:36

to be okay with

22:38

that vulnerability because

22:40

when you can do that, you

22:42

see other people's vulnerability. And

22:45

you're able to use that to

22:47

be more forgiving. Okay, so that

22:49

guy was a jerk. Well, of course,

22:51

he's a jerk. We're all scared. We're

22:53

all confused. We're all this. But

22:56

when we can't touch our

22:59

own vulnerability, then

23:01

we use these

23:03

harsher copings and

23:05

then we confuse them with

23:08

reality. And

23:10

so it is easier

23:12

for people to have

23:15

the pseudo power of

23:17

anger than it is to just

23:19

sit for a while and say, man,

23:21

I got slammed by that. I just

23:24

don't know what to do. But

23:27

if you sit with that, if you allow

23:29

that weakness for

23:31

the moment to come through, it

23:34

passes. And

23:36

then you prove to yourself, wow,

23:39

I can handle it. I'm

23:41

capable of being weak

23:44

in this because this really hurt.

23:47

I didn't stay there. And now

23:49

I don't have to be afraid.

23:52

I don't have to armor up quite as

23:54

much. And I

23:56

can be a better person

23:58

in relationship. Yeah.

24:03

You say

24:05

that forgiveness is

24:08

a skill that anybody

24:10

can learn. Well, I had

24:12

to learn it. Let me

24:14

tell you, it did not come easy. Yeah.

24:17

So this is interesting, right? It's a skill

24:19

that anybody can learn. There will be

24:21

people right now who just heard me

24:23

say that, who are

24:26

pushing back. Of course. Who

24:28

are thinking, hey, that may work

24:30

for some people, but you don't know my

24:32

life. Exactly. Right. So we'll get to that.

24:35

Can I interrupt you? Please, please. No, the

24:38

most humorous explanation

24:41

of things that we have in

24:43

our little world is we'll

24:46

go in and give a talk to somebody,

24:48

to a group, and people will

24:51

come out and say, almost that.

24:54

That's a great talk. However,

24:56

you never met my ex-husband

24:59

or you never met my mother. That

25:02

is the biggest pushback that we

25:04

have gotten. That's

25:07

great, but you don't get my life. So

25:10

let's then talk about, you know,

25:12

forgiveness. What exactly is it? Because

25:14

I kind of feel, well,

25:17

first of all, I agree with you. I believe it

25:19

is a skill that anybody can learn. But

25:22

in order to learn that, you

25:24

first have to understand, well, what

25:26

exactly is forgiveness and what

25:29

is it not? Exactly. So could you outline

25:31

that for us? Sure. I

25:33

mean, that's a very tough question

25:35

at some level, because before

25:38

you mentioned that the world struggles

25:40

with things it can't measure, it

25:44

struggles to define things it can't

25:46

measure. And so,

25:48

like, how do you define love or

25:50

how do you define beauty or how

25:53

do you define forgiveness? It's not so

25:55

easy, right? So

25:57

I struggle, as everybody

26:00

does with. defining these

26:02

absolutely beautiful aspects of

26:04

humanity. Right

26:06

now, the best place

26:09

that we've gotten to is

26:12

two separate, simple definitions.

26:15

One is making peace with the

26:17

word no. Like

26:20

no, life will not give you what you

26:23

want. No, it won't work out. No, you

26:25

can't get this. And

26:28

giving up all hope for a better

26:30

past. Those

26:33

are the two forgiveness things that's

26:35

as close as I can get,

26:37

some combination of both. I

26:42

like that. Giving up

26:44

all hope for better past. For better

26:46

past. Simple, lovely.

26:50

You know where that came from? A

26:52

woman in the Bay Area in New

26:55

York, not New York and California, her

26:58

daughter was killed and

27:01

she struggled for years. And

27:04

she came up with that definition

27:07

of forgiveness that helped her

27:09

cope. And

27:12

then she made bumper stickers around it.

27:15

And that was her way

27:17

of digging herself out of the

27:19

pain, was forgiveness is giving up

27:22

all hope for a better past.

27:27

Very powerful statement. Yeah, very powerful. Yeah.

27:30

At the start of your book, which I couldn't

27:32

believe you said it was over 20 years ago

27:34

when it came out. Yeah, it's 20 years. It

27:36

still feels very, very relevant today. Thank you. It's

27:39

called Forgive For Goods. And

27:42

right at the start, I kind of love this list that you

27:44

put there. I

27:47

appreciate it was written over 20 years ago,

27:49

so your views and thoughts may have evolved

27:51

since then. But this is what

27:53

you put back then. What is forgiveness? Forgiveness

27:56

is the piece you learn to feel when you allow

27:58

these certain things to happen. Calling plane

28:00

Yes. To land, Know what?

28:03

What Are they circling? planes? Just

28:11

taking a quick break to give

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a shout outs at Eighty One,

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drink AG one.com forward fish

30:19

live more So

30:27

we we brought Some

30:33

People from Northern Ireland to

30:36

Stanford a couple of times Each

30:40

of whom had people killed in

30:42

their violence the we brought Catholics

30:44

and Protestants And

30:47

they had each either had children

30:49

killed or other family members killed

30:52

and we tried to work with them to

30:54

forgive and and We

30:57

were tasked with coming up

30:59

with some a simple metaphor

31:02

For that because many of these

31:04

people were they'd eighth grade Education's

31:07

they hadn't been to college and

31:09

up until that point we we

31:11

were teaching at Stanford So like

31:13

everybody had a PhD and you

31:15

know, it's like a

31:17

very artificial world So

31:21

I I tried to come up

31:23

with a metaphor to explain what

31:25

forgiveness was and

31:27

I thought of this, you know, like when you go

31:30

to an airport and the

31:32

air traffic system has planes

31:34

floating overhead and they land

31:36

one by one and If

31:41

you have a grievance and that was

31:43

a pretty serious grievance Your

31:46

plane doesn't land you know,

31:48

it's still circles because you're not done and

31:52

Forgiveness is letting go of the grievance.

31:55

So The plane can land the plane

31:57

of this hurt me or this is

31:59

terrible. What it. What an awful thing.

32:03

To. Claim comes down. Let's let's

32:05

add it's passengers. Let's add it's

32:08

grievance and you'd done. So.

32:10

Was the plane is up in the ads

32:12

and can we extend that? Metaphors said that

32:14

We thank. Okay, Was

32:16

that plane has landed. It's coming around. My

32:18

body is going around my mind, it's causing

32:21

com fight to cells as Strasse sets it.

32:23

Until you on the plane.

32:25

Who? you land the plane

32:27

and when you don't land a

32:30

plane on time like anything else

32:32

when you don't grievous wounds and

32:34

let it go. It

32:37

disrupts of reason. They it it

32:39

gets in the way. It's like

32:42

this plane Sheila landed two days

32:44

ago and it's still up here.

32:46

This problem with your brother in

32:48

law with this problem with your

32:50

neighbor should have been resolved. And

32:52

did that matter For work? They

32:54

did. They. Got that new

32:56

case or combat site as the

32:58

Northern Ireland's and situation if the

33:00

games is really really fascinating but

33:03

in that list as you say

33:05

you sore spot landing their planes

33:07

you said of forgiveness is for

33:09

you. And. Not the offender.

33:11

Yes! To get Mrs taking

33:13

back your power, it's taking

33:16

responsibility for how you feel.

33:18

It's about your healing. And

33:21

knots about the people who hurt, see

33:23

which things ready and poor sense. You

33:25

say. It's a trainable scale, just slight

33:27

learning to throw a baseball. I think

33:29

that's really empowering to people smoke I'm

33:32

It's not that you can either forgive

33:34

or you can't maybe haven't learnt how

33:36

to do it with. deaths are going

33:38

to cover how you do that later

33:40

on. It gives you control over your

33:43

feelings, can improve your mental and physical

33:45

health. Forgiveness. Is

33:47

a choice. He basics really powerful

33:49

d Still stand by all those

33:51

things today. Base: Imitates

33:54

forgiveness is thousand zoos. Oh

33:56

they hasn't changed. And twenty

33:58

years. Okay, so

34:01

I really like that list and then you

34:03

say what forgiveness is not. Let

34:05

me give you the central piece to

34:08

that though. Let's

34:10

say you had an abusive parent and

34:13

you said you're in your 40s and

34:16

you realize it's time to heal,

34:19

right? The parent

34:21

could be dead. So

34:25

you can't wait for them

34:27

to apologize, to grow, to

34:30

change. So

34:32

with that as such an

34:34

obvious exemplar, the only place

34:36

forgiveness can be is in

34:38

us. That

34:41

we can have been harmed by people who

34:43

are dead, who have no

34:45

interest in us. We can be

34:47

harmed by people who don't even know they hurt us.

34:51

So that essential separation

34:54

of offender and

34:56

offendee is one

34:59

of the central tenets of this. That

35:03

I control my experience

35:05

to what they did and

35:09

they may no longer even be available for

35:12

me to have a talk or a conversation

35:14

with. Since that's

35:16

true, you can't

35:18

have forgiveness dependent on them.

35:21

That's a key point, isn't it? Yes.

35:25

It's so challenging for

35:27

people to let

35:30

go of a sense that

35:33

this thing in the past caused

35:36

me to be unhappy

35:38

today. That

35:41

link is called blame. Blame

35:45

has a good degree

35:47

of research on how debilitating

35:50

it is for your physical

35:52

well-being. It's a position

35:54

of helplessness. Helplessness

35:56

is not good for your physical well-being.

36:00

And I say, you know, let's say we

36:02

went to high school together and you stole

36:04

my girlfriend or something. If

36:07

I'm still 20 years later, like talking

36:09

to you as if you're the person

36:11

who stole my girlfriend, it's

36:14

not your fault that I've wasted 20

36:16

years like that. That's

36:18

me. That's

36:20

the crucial thing that is very

36:22

hard to get across to people.

36:24

Yeah. That's why I think people are

36:27

so resistant

36:30

to forgiveness a lot of the time. I was

36:32

watching some talks of yours last night, Fred, and

36:36

I think in one of them, you were

36:38

saying that forgiveness is the prescription that people

36:40

often don't want to hear about. Ain't death

36:42

the truth. And

36:45

I think it's because of

36:47

a fundamental misunderstanding, right?

36:50

And I think your list of what forgiveness is

36:52

not really speaks to that. Forgiveness

36:54

is not condoning unkindness. It

36:57

is not forgetting that something

36:59

painful happened. It is not

37:02

excusing poor behavior. I

37:04

think people often think that if I

37:06

forgive that person,

37:08

my ex-girlfriend, my ex-husband,

37:11

that I am excusing

37:13

their behavior. And

37:17

throughout the book, you make it very, very clear

37:19

that is not the case. You

37:22

also say forgiveness does not have to

37:24

be an otherworldly or religious experience, which

37:26

is a great thing to make it

37:28

more accessible. It is

37:30

not denying or minimizing your hurt.

37:33

It does not even mean reconciling

37:35

with the offender. And

37:37

it does not mean you

37:39

give up having feelings. In

37:41

fact, it's none of those things. One

37:44

of the things that we

37:46

recognized over the years, and

37:49

it was somewhat humbling, is

37:53

that a large part of what we

37:55

do is exactly what you're saying. I

37:57

started to realize after a while. that

38:01

the most important thing that

38:03

we were doing was explaining

38:05

what forgiveness is and isn't

38:07

and giving people permission to

38:09

do it. That

38:12

once you understand what it is

38:14

and isn't and somebody says to

38:16

you, hey buddy, this is good

38:18

for you. That's

38:21

a good deal of what

38:23

we actually do. The techniques

38:25

and the processes are less

38:28

important than that positioning and

38:30

permission. Does that mean that the

38:33

techniques are great, they can be

38:35

useful, but are you saying

38:37

that the key thing is to decide that

38:39

you are a person who

38:41

is capable of forgiving and

38:44

deserving and deserving of forgiving?

38:46

Yes. I

38:50

mean, so you're

38:52

here and I'm here for a

38:55

happiness conference and

38:57

one of the challenges of

39:00

teaching people to be happier is

39:03

a good number of them have not either

39:06

made up their minds or had

39:08

life experiences where they

39:10

know they deserve to be happier. They're

39:16

capable of right

39:18

now, right here, right at this

39:20

moment, I'm worthy.

39:25

That is the switch, some

39:28

challenging switch of

39:30

how it is that people make the

39:32

decision that they want to be a

39:35

little happier. With

39:37

forgiveness, the difficult

39:40

decision is do

39:43

I want to free myself

39:46

from suffering that

39:49

started with an offense but

39:52

has been continued by how

39:54

I am living my life.

40:00

to let go of

40:02

that past, but two, to recognize

40:05

that I'm the one who has

40:07

been doing, like, thinking

40:09

certain thoughts, telling myself

40:12

certain stories, relating

40:14

to the world in a certain way

40:17

that contribute to my suffering,

40:19

that I took an event,

40:23

I incompletely grieved it,

40:26

and then now I have been

40:28

relating to that event in a

40:30

way that causes me pain. Ongoing

40:33

pain. Ongoing pain, and every

40:35

now and then, I'll talk

40:37

to somebody individually, like,

40:39

I more do group stuff. Every

40:42

now and then, just the other day, I was

40:44

on a Zoom with somebody, I think, from Italy,

40:48

and he was talking to me, and the

40:50

reason he contacted me was, you know,

40:53

Fred, I just got to a point

40:55

where I just got tired of my

40:57

own mind.

40:59

Like, I keep

41:01

on playing this over, and

41:04

what we would tell people, or I

41:06

still tell people, let's

41:09

say you had literally the worst something,

41:14

how is it their fault that you can't

41:16

get them out of your head? How

41:19

is that their fault? It's

41:22

your head, and

41:25

that stops, that

41:28

question cuts

41:30

through a lot of

41:32

the drama that people

41:34

bring around their wounds.

41:37

Yeah, it's that

41:39

understanding, that deep understanding that

41:43

the feelings I feel, the

41:47

thoughts I have, are

41:50

being generated inside of me. Right

41:53

now. And I'm practicing how

41:57

I relate to my own life.

42:01

We've mentioned the word control a few times

42:03

in this conversation, and that

42:05

sometimes holding onto a grudge is

42:08

our way of trying to control the

42:10

future, which of course is uncontrollable. And

42:14

the present, so

42:17

that I don't have to feel

42:19

vulnerable, scared, small,

42:21

or lost in the present. But

42:24

I guess that word control, if we

42:28

take it one step further, many

42:32

of us know that we should try and

42:34

control the controllables and not

42:36

control the uncontrollables. Well, one

42:39

of the ultimate uncontrollables is

42:43

other people's actions, their

42:45

words, their behaviors. We can't control that.

42:47

Not at all. So if

42:50

we say that we

42:52

are going to be affected for

42:54

the next 10 years when someone

42:56

does something I don't like, you're

42:59

basically saying that I am going to be

43:01

a passive

43:03

victim to life. That's exactly...

43:06

I just say

43:08

that with an open heart. But that's it.

43:11

I'm not blaming anyone. I'm not calling

43:13

them. Of course, there are really nasty

43:15

and horrible things that happen in the

43:17

world. But an accurate reporting of reality.

43:20

Yeah. Once you get that,

43:22

that actually your feelings are your

43:24

responsibility, you

43:26

change the trajectory of your life. You

43:29

understand that the fire that's being lit

43:31

lives inside of you. They

43:35

may have done something one time

43:37

or 10 times even. It doesn't

43:39

matter. But how you're interpreting that

43:42

is down to you. So

43:44

let's end it in the present. So

43:48

let's take an example. The book is full of

43:51

wonderful examples. But

43:54

in relationships, in intimate relationships, someone

43:56

cheating on the other person is

43:58

pretty common. And it's clearly

44:00

very, very hurtful. I think they suggest

44:03

that between 25 and 40%

44:05

of marriages will have an

44:08

infidelity. Yeah. So

44:12

you must have come across this a lot. People

44:15

don't want to forgive their partner,

44:17

their husband, their wife, their ex-partner

44:20

for cheating on them. And

44:23

of course, it's very, very hurtful. But I mean, how if

44:26

someone came to you and said, listen, I

44:28

get what you're saying, but my

44:33

wife lied to me

44:35

for 12 months and

44:38

was having an affair. I

44:40

have every right to

44:42

feel upset, to be

44:44

annoyed. Exactly. And I'm

44:47

not going to forgive her. What

44:50

would you say to that person? It depends

44:52

when in the process they come to me.

44:56

So if they come to me nine

44:58

months after they discover the affair, I

45:01

tell them that's not bad thinking. If

45:04

they come to me 18 months after

45:07

the affair, I start saying, well, you're

45:10

creating habit patterns that are probably not

45:12

going to be in your best interest.

45:16

And that distinction is enormous. Okay,

45:18

hold on. This is really, really

45:20

interesting. So you're saying that

45:23

from the amount of people you've seen

45:25

over time and for that kind of

45:27

offense, that's a huge offense. You're

45:31

saying nine months, it's

45:34

still reasonable to be hurt and

45:36

upset. It's not just reasonable, it

45:38

can be even healthy. Okay.

45:42

But at 18 months, not so. So is

45:45

that because you have a ballpark in your head

45:47

from your experience? I do that

45:49

there's some research somewhere that I read

45:53

that most people move

45:55

through an affair with

45:57

healthy grieving between...

46:00

six months and two years of when it

46:02

happens. I

46:04

do try to keep some

46:07

research available. So

46:10

that's the patterning of

46:12

healthy adoption. So

46:14

nine months is what I mean, I

46:16

can bring my own experience. I had

46:18

an awful relationship at

46:21

one point in my life and

46:23

knowing enough about this stuff,

46:28

I gave myself six months

46:30

to complain as much as

46:32

I wanted to anybody

46:35

about how badly I was treated.

46:38

And I was such

46:40

a pain in the butt and everybody

46:42

who met me was hi Fred, I

46:44

had a lousy, I'm Fred, I had

46:46

a lousy experience. And

46:49

I didn't put any limits

46:51

or governors on my pain

46:53

or my confusion or my

46:55

hurt or even my blame.

46:58

I did that for six months knowing what

47:00

was going on and then one inside

47:03

of me I started to

47:05

recognize I don't need this anymore. I've

47:10

complained, I've had pity

47:12

parties, I've gotten angry, I've had

47:14

that whole gamut in there. It's

47:17

not really doing me much good anymore. If

47:19

I'm not careful, this is going to just

47:21

be a habit. That

47:24

was part of it was inside. The other

47:26

part was in my head that said Fred,

47:28

well you know enough, you've

47:30

dealt with enough people. You got

47:32

this out of your system now.

47:36

Now you start talking about the

47:38

coping narrative. You

47:40

change the story, nothing

47:43

changed on the past but you

47:45

gave yourself a period of time

47:47

to actively grieve, actively

47:50

blame and just be

47:52

a mess. That was fine. But

47:55

don't make it your life's story.

47:58

So I shifted. to, well, that

48:00

was awful. Now what do I do

48:02

about it? Or

48:05

I better figure out what's next for me.

48:07

Or I have to learn how

48:09

to let this go. Or now I

48:11

need to find out her good qualities,

48:13

you know, whatever. But I

48:16

deliberately shifted the focus

48:18

of the narrative because

48:21

I know that grieving

48:23

has anger and despair,

48:26

but it needs to find acceptance.

48:30

And so I didn't do

48:32

it before inside, I was ready. You know,

48:34

you can feel. I've

48:37

bitched about this enough. And

48:40

now it's either a habit or

48:42

I don't know what else to

48:44

do. That's what hits people. I

48:47

don't know what else to do with

48:49

this. I only know how to complain

48:51

or tell everybody how bad it is.

48:54

I don't know how to shift to,

48:56

I don't know how to land

48:58

those planes. So

49:00

that's what people need massive help

49:03

with. How do you

49:05

shift that narrative and how

49:07

do you shift that focus

49:09

from helplessness to coping? That's

49:13

the intervention point. It's

49:19

hard, isn't it, for people because A, they

49:23

may have been hurt before in

49:26

similar ways so this can

49:28

reinforce existing patterns that we

49:30

have. You mentioned

49:33

the word habit, which is really interesting.

49:35

It's this idea, isn't it, that we

49:38

get good at what we practice. Ain't

49:40

that the truth? So if you practice

49:42

this kind of I'm a victim to

49:44

the world narrative because of this incident

49:47

that happened and I

49:49

get it, nine months, 12 months, 15

49:51

months, however long it takes you to get

49:53

over. Yes. Sure.

49:56

But if five years after you're still doing

49:58

it, you have to understand. understand

50:01

that it's harming you. Well, and it's

50:03

also you're doing it. Like, yeah,

50:06

it could be. Let's say let's make

50:08

it really specific. Let's say someone

50:11

was in a relationship and

50:13

their partner cheated on

50:15

them once. Let's say, right.

50:17

So it's one event that happens. And

50:19

let's say they had 10 great years

50:22

before that, for example. There's

50:25

so many things in what you said that I

50:27

think are the traps that people fall into. So

50:29

the first trap I think people fall into is

50:33

making someone either all good or all

50:35

bad. Right. Yes.

50:37

Yes, that was a bad and negative

50:40

experience. That was something that you wish

50:43

hadn't happened. But it

50:45

doesn't necessarily mean they're a nasty

50:47

person. No, nor does it mean

50:49

the relationship is over. Yeah.

50:53

And what I'm trying to do is really get

50:56

to these key points where people

50:58

get stuck. Right.

51:00

So if I meet somebody

51:02

who's absolutely stuck like that,

51:06

if you saw in the book, there's a

51:08

practice called PERT. Yeah, P-E-R-T. So

51:11

it would be like

51:14

take a couple of slow deep breaths into and

51:16

out of your belly. Like just quiet

51:19

down. Take a, you

51:21

know, inhale deeply, exhale

51:23

deeply, inhale deeply and

51:27

bring your attention inward. Can

51:30

I just push back here for the purpose of

51:32

the conversation? Not because I disagree. If

51:35

someone's feeling that anger and rage towards

51:38

an ex-partner and they're saying or

51:41

they're hearing you say, take some deep breaths.

51:43

Again, to where in the process it is.

51:45

So if somebody's three months

51:48

in, this is not what anybody I

51:50

would do. But again, if

51:52

they're 18 months in and

51:54

I would do that. And then I'd say,

51:57

remember somebody you love, not

51:59

the person. person who hurts you, feel it, touch

52:01

it. And now you're

52:03

a little quieter. Let

52:06

me talk to that person. Let

52:09

me talk to the part of you

52:11

that's a little quieter. You both exist

52:13

right here, both of you. I see

52:15

the angry person. I see

52:17

the bitter person, but I know

52:19

there's also an entity in you,

52:22

a certain vibration, way of looking

52:24

at things that's already

52:26

at peace. Let's

52:29

bring that voice out to

52:31

join the conversation. The

52:34

game changes because

52:37

the anger is simply a

52:40

habit. And

52:42

once that it's a habit, it's

52:45

conditioned, it's a conditioned response.

52:48

When you're a victim, you know

52:51

you have an adrenalized response

52:53

and your HP access is all

52:55

over the place. So

52:59

you develop a conditioned response within

53:01

the stimulus of the bum that

53:03

had the affair and

53:05

your body's arousal. So

53:07

you've got to cut that. So

53:10

the first thing is you calm everything

53:12

down with some deep breaths. Just

53:14

a couple of deep breaths. And

53:17

then bring an image of someone you love

53:19

or a time when you felt safe. And

53:23

if you're in a horrible marriage, connect

53:25

with the love you have for your dog. It

53:27

doesn't matter. You're opening

53:29

up to a part of you that's

53:31

been hidden from you. And

53:35

then quiet down for a

53:37

minute and just let's

53:40

tell a different story that

53:43

doesn't make you upset

53:46

again. A story

53:48

about the event that happened? Yes. That

53:51

story can include the ten

53:53

years of marriage. The angry

53:55

story ignores the ten years

53:57

of marriage. come

54:00

to me all unforgiving and they

54:04

will say you know the the bum

54:07

ruined our relationship because they had a

54:09

fair and that's fine. If

54:11

you say that story a hundred times

54:13

you've said it enough. A

54:16

better story is we were

54:18

happily married for eight years things

54:21

started to get vulnerable for some

54:23

stupid reason the guy had an

54:25

affair it

54:28

almost destroyed us but there's

54:32

room in that story for

54:34

growth for change but

54:37

it includes more of

54:39

the relationship and the

54:41

truth then this one

54:43

thing is not the

54:45

entire determinant but you

54:47

know enough about adrenaline

54:49

that adrenaline's purpose is

54:52

to us to focus a

54:54

narrow band of attention on

54:56

a problem so

54:58

when people are angry at a

55:00

habit they're simply giving us an

55:03

adrenalized response

55:05

that they have gotten

55:08

to be hair-triggered. Yeah and the

55:10

really important thing for

55:13

me that Fred is what

55:15

I think a lot of people don't realize is

55:17

that if you are holding

55:19

on to a lot of resentment and anger

55:22

and you can't let go it changes

55:26

who you are it changes how you

55:28

see the world you are living in

55:30

a stress state and in a stress

55:32

state what does your body want it

55:34

wants narrow focus

55:36

deal with the threat at hand

55:39

what it doesn't one is peripheral

55:42

vision perspective perspective does not what

55:44

it doesn't even know what to

55:46

do with the

55:48

lens through which you are seeing

55:50

reality is completely different when you're

55:53

an angry stress state exactly compared

55:55

to a calm relaxed state which

55:57

is why I feel your work

56:00

honestly is so so important because I

56:02

think what you've done Fred is you've

56:04

done a lot of research and science

56:08

on forgiveness on the benefits of forgiveness it was

56:10

not just something that's going to make us feel

56:12

better of course it will

56:14

do that but it's also

56:16

going to help you interact with the world in a

56:18

much more considerate compassionate

56:20

loving way which ultimately is the way

56:22

we all want to be whether

56:25

we say we want to or not we

56:27

all want to be that calm relaxed forgiving

56:30

person and and also trusting

56:35

your marriage you said yeah I've

56:37

been in relationship now for 10

56:39

years with somebody I

56:43

go back to them and I'm almost

56:45

certain that they're loyal that

56:48

they they certainly haven't cheated on me

56:50

that they're they're going to say nice

56:52

things about me and

56:54

so I walk into that house with a

56:56

sense of trust if

56:59

they had done something which

57:01

broke that trust the

57:04

forgiveness piece is in large part

57:06

to get that trust back but

57:10

here's where people go off the rails

57:14

it's not just about trusting

57:16

them it's

57:18

about trusting us to cope with

57:20

our own life because

57:24

life involves hurt

57:26

and disappointment and

57:28

challenge and if

57:30

we get that and

57:32

we can't cope and

57:35

we blame it on them like

57:37

the reason I can't trust you

57:39

again is you did x y

57:41

and z three years ago that's

57:44

only half the story the

57:46

other half of the story is

57:48

I never learned to make peace

57:52

with a life that has difficulty in it

57:54

I never learned that and I and

57:57

so I'm bringing my failure

58:01

into the relationship moving forward

58:03

and I'm blaming that on

58:05

you. And

58:08

so realism

58:12

is a very good patterning.

58:15

So often before

58:18

any big difficulties occur in

58:20

a marriage, we're unrealistically

58:22

positive. You know, like they're great,

58:24

they're going to love us forever,

58:27

and we're going to live happily

58:29

ever after. That's unrealistically positive. When

58:32

you get hurt or disappointed,

58:35

you become unrealistically negative. What

58:39

you want to be is realistic

58:41

with some bandwidth, you know, that

58:44

yes, they're almost always going to be

58:46

good to me, but not always. And

58:48

they make mistakes and they have their

58:51

own issues and they're going to disappoint

58:53

me. And so

58:55

I need to develop a

58:57

deeper love within me,

58:59

where I can handle them

59:01

not just doing

59:03

what I want all the time, but

59:06

learning to love when they don't

59:08

do what I want. It

59:12

deepens. What's

59:15

the relationship between being able to

59:17

forgive ourselves

59:21

and the ability to forgive others? Just

59:29

taking a quick break to give

59:32

a shout out to Vivo Barefoot.

59:34

Now I'm a huge fan of Vivo

59:36

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59:38

them for over a decade now, well

59:41

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59:45

my patients for years and I

59:48

have seen so many benefits

59:50

when people start wearing them. improvements

59:52

in back pain, hip pain, knee

59:55

pain, foot pain, even

59:57

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one of One of the common things people

1:00:01

feed back to me when they

1:00:04

start wearing vivo barefoot shoes is

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that they have an increased enjoyment

1:00:08

of movement. Because when you

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walk around in minimalist shoes like vivos,

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1:00:19

your feet. And contrary to

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people find vivos really, really

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me they would never go back to

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fact, they're the only shoes that

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I wear, whether I'm working, going

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to the shops, exercising or just

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walking around. Though I

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honestly would love to see more

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people experiment with wearing barefoot shoes

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like vivos. So now that

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to vivobarefoot.com forward

1:01:24

slash live more. This

1:01:27

episode is also brought to you

1:01:29

by the Three Question Journal, the

1:01:32

journal that I designed and created

1:01:34

in partnership with Intelligent Change. The

1:01:37

journaling is something that I've been recommending

1:01:39

to my patients for years. It

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are of course many different ways to

1:02:00

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1:02:03

important that you find a method that

1:02:05

works best for you. One

1:02:07

method that you may want to consider

1:02:09

is the one that I outline in

1:02:11

the three question journal. In it you

1:02:13

will find a really simple and structured

1:02:15

way of answering the three

1:02:17

most impactful questions I believe that

1:02:20

we can all ask ourselves every

1:02:22

morning and every evening. Answering

1:02:25

these questions will take you less than five

1:02:27

minutes but the practice of

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answering them regularly will be transformative.

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Since the journal was published in January I

1:02:34

have received hundreds of messages from people telling

1:02:36

me how much it has helped them and

1:02:39

how much more in control of their

1:02:41

lives they now feel. Now if you

1:02:44

already have a journal or you don't

1:02:46

actually want to buy a journal that

1:02:48

is completely fine I go

1:02:50

through in detail all of the

1:02:52

questions within the three question journal

1:02:54

completely free on episode

1:02:57

413 of this podcast. But

1:02:59

if you are keen to check it out all

1:03:02

you have to do is go

1:03:04

to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal

1:03:06

or click on the link in

1:03:08

your podcast. A

1:03:15

lot of tests maybe because of our

1:03:18

childhoods and how we were brought up we

1:03:20

don't feel good enough. Many

1:03:23

many many people grow

1:03:25

up very vulnerable

1:03:27

to feeling not worthy

1:03:30

enough to be loved and

1:03:33

so they they have games in their

1:03:35

head we all do. I have to

1:03:37

do x y and z to be

1:03:39

lovable. I have to I have

1:03:42

to become a physician I have to

1:03:44

get a PhD have to win a

1:03:46

gold medal I have to you know

1:03:48

make money I have to do whatever

1:03:50

in order to be loved. That

1:03:53

that's a game that almost

1:03:55

everybody does to some degree

1:03:58

and it causes a lot a lot of lot of

1:04:00

pain. Our

1:04:04

loveability really has nothing to do

1:04:06

with our achievements and little to

1:04:11

do with our outward successes.

1:04:17

We have a humanity or something

1:04:19

in us that's lovable

1:04:21

and we connect to

1:04:23

other people's loveability completely

1:04:25

independent of their story

1:04:28

of this and I had

1:04:31

this history and that's not what we're

1:04:33

loving but we have such fear that

1:04:35

if we don't do this that we

1:04:37

do too much of that, that we're

1:04:40

not going to be loved. So

1:04:42

we become very unforgiving towards

1:04:45

our mistakes or our failures

1:04:47

or our weaknesses. Whether

1:04:50

that directly relates to forgiveness or

1:04:53

others, I don't believe so. There

1:04:56

are some people who are

1:04:58

incredibly forgiving of other people

1:05:01

and incredibly harsh to themselves

1:05:05

and there are other people who are very

1:05:08

gentle towards themselves. They let themselves

1:05:10

off the hook for everything and

1:05:12

are harsh as heck to others.

1:05:15

There was a therapeutic system 40

1:05:19

years ago called transactional

1:05:21

analysis and it

1:05:23

was I'm okay and

1:05:26

you're okay but it

1:05:28

was a basic decision. This

1:05:31

comes I think from Alfred

1:05:33

Adler's work on we create

1:05:35

through our early childhood one

1:05:38

of four boxes, I'm okay, you're

1:05:40

okay, which is the healthiest. I

1:05:43

like me, I like you. I'm

1:05:45

not okay, you're not okay, which

1:05:48

is really unhealthy and more

1:05:50

people fall in the I'm okay but

1:05:52

you're not okay or I'm not okay

1:05:54

and you're okay. I have found that

1:05:57

in the forgiveness world. A

1:05:59

lot of people are very hard on

1:06:01

themselves but really good hearted and kind

1:06:03

to others. The

1:06:06

world is awash with too

1:06:08

many people who so quickly

1:06:11

forgive themselves, don't even look

1:06:13

at how they've harmed other

1:06:15

people, don't have a lot

1:06:17

of regret, don't say they're

1:06:19

sorry easily. Yeah. That

1:06:22

was fascinating. I

1:06:25

guess then, all the

1:06:27

steps we need

1:06:29

to take so that we

1:06:31

can forgive others the

1:06:34

same as the

1:06:37

steps we need to take to forgive

1:06:39

ourselves or are they different? Very

1:06:41

similar and that is, yeah,

1:06:44

they're different tracks. Can

1:06:47

I add something? The

1:06:50

key elements of self-forgiveness for

1:06:52

me have evolved over time

1:06:55

and they're more now like

1:06:57

remorse, like that in

1:07:00

order to forgive oneself well, you

1:07:03

really need to feel bad for what you did. Whether

1:07:07

you harmed yourself or other people or you

1:07:09

screwed up or you failed, it's

1:07:12

really important for a while to

1:07:15

tussle with one's

1:07:17

own failure but

1:07:20

more just one's humanness. Besides

1:07:23

remorse, we as a

1:07:26

world need desperately to learn how

1:07:28

to be better at apologizing, like

1:07:30

sincere, straightforward, caring

1:07:33

apologies. Remorse

1:07:35

and apology are central to

1:07:38

self-forgiveness because self-forgiveness means

1:07:40

we're letting ourselves off the hook.

1:07:43

You have to earn it. You have

1:07:45

to do something. The

1:07:48

last piece from the 12-step

1:07:50

programs is make amends. Whatever

1:07:54

you did or I did to hurt

1:07:56

the world, make it right in whatever

1:07:59

way you can. So if

1:08:01

you did something that harmed your

1:08:04

marriage, make it right. If you

1:08:07

screwed up and hurt your kids,

1:08:09

make it right. If you

1:08:12

simply forgot something, make it right. Those

1:08:15

three, remorse, apology, and

1:08:18

kind of amends, those

1:08:22

are so crucial. And

1:08:24

I don't see them

1:08:26

culturally as promulgated enough.

1:08:29

Yeah, taking responsibility, I think, is

1:08:31

such an important concept. No question.

1:08:33

We all make mistakes, right?

1:08:36

We're all human. Oh my God.

1:08:38

Therefore, we all make mistakes. Yeah.

1:08:40

But you have to take responsibility.

1:08:43

You have to first of all take

1:08:45

responsibility to yourself and

1:08:48

go, Yeah, you know what? That was me. I

1:08:50

could have done that differently. You know, next time

1:08:52

in that situation, I hope to behave or act

1:08:55

differently. And then, you know,

1:08:58

response words can also mean if you have

1:09:00

hurt someone, whether you

1:09:02

meant to or not, taking responsibility

1:09:05

for that and saying that and

1:09:07

expressing that. I'm sorry. Now,

1:09:10

I've heard you say, Fred, that

1:09:12

forgiveness is easier when you get

1:09:15

an apology. But

1:09:17

that's not just me. That's the research.

1:09:19

Yeah. So this is an interesting point,

1:09:21

isn't it? Because on one hand, we're

1:09:24

saying that we don't want to

1:09:26

be dependent or

1:09:29

overly dependent on the actions of other

1:09:31

people. Right. So someone did

1:09:34

something. I perceive

1:09:36

that as being hurtful. I

1:09:40

don't want to be stuck in a

1:09:42

place where I can only move on

1:09:44

from that. Exactly. If that person, who

1:09:46

I have no control over, is going

1:09:48

to apologize. Right. However, I

1:09:51

think what the research is saying that

1:09:53

if that person does give you a

1:09:55

proper apology, and I know you have

1:09:58

some thoughts on what actually a proper apology is. Yes, if

1:10:01

they do, it makes my job of

1:10:03

forgiveness easier. Oh, so much easier. Does

1:10:06

that mean that we're dependent on that

1:10:08

person? It's just a gift. It's

1:10:10

a gift. It's a gift. And what's the

1:10:13

proper apology? I

1:10:15

mean, the gift, and I

1:10:17

like the way you brought out the

1:10:19

tension in that. Like, you

1:10:21

don't want to sit around, you

1:10:24

know, like this waiting for an

1:10:26

apology before you move, and that's

1:10:28

a really good reading of the

1:10:31

data. But you

1:10:33

also don't want to be close

1:10:36

to an apology. Like, you

1:10:38

can be hopeful that

1:10:41

the person will recognize

1:10:43

their error. You

1:10:46

can desire it. You can ask

1:10:48

them. It's not like being

1:10:50

dependent on them means you're not in

1:10:53

a relationship and can't put requests out

1:10:55

there. What

1:10:57

is debilitating is when you

1:10:59

have an expectation that they

1:11:01

will apologize. So

1:11:04

if you – let's say you're late. I'll

1:11:08

give you an example. Just the

1:11:11

other day at Stanford, I do

1:11:15

some trainings. I'm a

1:11:18

meditation teacher for some of the

1:11:20

athletic teams at Stanford. So

1:11:23

I come in and I do

1:11:25

mindfulness, and I teach this stuff,

1:11:27

positivity to athletic teams, the Division

1:11:30

I teams. And

1:11:32

one of the teams that I speak

1:11:34

to, I came in and they weren't

1:11:37

there. They

1:11:39

had canceled practice at the last minute

1:11:41

and didn't tell me I was

1:11:43

coming in from somewhere. And I show up

1:11:45

and there's nobody there. And I'm thinking, hey.

1:11:48

So I sent the coach a text.

1:11:50

Like, where are you? And

1:11:52

she sent back an absolutely

1:11:54

sincere apology. You know,

1:11:56

it's like, so sorry I wasted your time.

1:11:59

I feel terrible. We made a last-minute thing.

1:12:01

I just forgot. It's

1:12:04

totally clean at that point. If

1:12:06

I had sent her my text and

1:12:09

she hadn't sent the

1:12:11

apology, then I could

1:12:14

have said, you know, she's a jerk or

1:12:16

whatever, but I also could have said, you

1:12:18

know, next time, if

1:12:21

you're changing, please give me a call. I

1:12:25

can put out what I want. Where

1:12:28

I run into trouble or the human

1:12:30

race runs into trouble is she

1:12:32

has to apologize. She owes me an

1:12:35

apology. And I'm not going to move

1:12:37

on until I get it. That's

1:12:39

it. So then you put yourself

1:12:42

into a very weak position. Understandable

1:12:46

position, but a weak position.

1:12:49

Yeah, and one which gives

1:12:51

them control over your nervous

1:12:53

system. Just say

1:12:56

that again, because that, I think, is a key point.

1:12:59

One that gives them control over

1:13:01

your nervous system. Yes, so

1:13:03

we're effectively a puppet. Right?

1:13:06

I would think so. You

1:13:08

know, the actions and words

1:13:10

and non-apologies of other people

1:13:15

has the power to control me. And

1:13:20

that is so, so profound, Fred,

1:13:22

because when you really get

1:13:24

that, if you can get to the point

1:13:26

where you understand that, I

1:13:28

think you open yourself up to a new

1:13:30

pathway in life. That's it. Because you

1:13:33

realize, no, no, wait a minute. Yes, bad

1:13:35

things are going to happen. Negative things are

1:13:37

going to happen. And forgiveness is

1:13:39

that opening to a new pathway.

1:13:42

Yeah. And a

1:13:45

sincere apology says,

1:13:48

I'm sorry, but

1:13:51

it also acknowledges the harm.

1:13:55

So I'm sorry that I wasted

1:13:57

your time. It's not just I'm

1:13:59

sorry. I'm sorry, but

1:14:01

I'm sorry that I wasted your

1:14:03

time. I'm sorry that I hurt

1:14:05

you. It acknowledges,

1:14:07

it sees the

1:14:09

damage done, and it

1:14:12

makes a link between

1:14:14

my action and your harm.

1:14:17

Like a fake apology is, I'm

1:14:19

sorry you feel bad. That

1:14:23

makes people crazy. And

1:14:26

you get, that's a very common

1:14:28

fake apology. I'm sorry you feel

1:14:30

bad. I'm sorry that you're

1:14:32

out of control. But

1:14:35

a real apology is, I did

1:14:38

X, it legitimately

1:14:40

caused Y, I'm sorry,

1:14:43

and can I make

1:14:45

it right or can I tell you

1:14:47

that I simply won't do that again?

1:14:50

That's what a sincere apology is. And

1:14:52

if you receive one of those, although

1:14:55

it's not necessary, it makes

1:14:57

the job of forgiveness a lot

1:14:59

easier. Oh, so much easier. Yeah.

1:15:02

Because it repairs

1:15:05

the relationship. What

1:15:07

forgiveness does, it repairs us.

1:15:12

But the apology helps repair

1:15:14

the relationship. Yeah.

1:15:19

Well, let's talk about these nine steps

1:15:21

to forgiveness that you published. And

1:15:24

I'm hoping that people who feel that

1:15:26

there's something in their life that they

1:15:29

can't let go of, I'm

1:15:31

hoping that understanding these nine steps will give

1:15:33

them something to work with. Okay,

1:15:35

so step one, reflect on your experience. What

1:15:38

does that mean? I mean,

1:15:40

you have to know what happened, know who

1:15:42

hurt you. It

1:15:46

can't just be vague. Like

1:15:49

I had a shitty dad, that's

1:15:51

probably not good enough to

1:15:53

really forgive it. Dad

1:15:56

did X, Y, and Z. It hurt

1:15:58

me in this way. I mean,

1:16:00

you don't have to have 400 journals

1:16:05

about it, but you

1:16:07

have to have dug in a little

1:16:09

bit to the experience and the pain

1:16:11

so you know what it is that

1:16:13

you're letting go of. And

1:16:16

it's also an awareness that

1:16:19

it's still hurting me now.

1:16:22

Okay. And these nine steps,

1:16:24

before we go to step two, they

1:16:27

don't have to be done in one go, right? You

1:16:29

work on over time, you go

1:16:31

through the steps sequentially or do

1:16:33

you circle back? Yeah, nothing works

1:16:35

sequentially. You've probably read enough research.

1:16:38

You go from one to two to six,

1:16:40

back to four. Yeah. But

1:16:42

these are the nine steps to look at on your

1:16:44

journey through and to

1:16:46

forgiveness. Okay, so number one reflects in

1:16:49

your experience. Number two, make

1:16:51

a commitment to yourself to

1:16:54

work towards forgiveness. And

1:16:56

forgiveness, as they describe now

1:16:58

the research, is two components.

1:17:01

There's decisional and emotional. What

1:17:04

does that mean? Decisional is I'm

1:17:06

deciding I need to let this

1:17:08

go. Then emotional forgiveness is the

1:17:10

inner experience of working on it.

1:17:12

You need both. Okay. But

1:17:15

is that to make a commitment to

1:17:17

yourself? Is that basically the decision?

1:17:20

It's a decision to be good to you.

1:17:24

It's a decision that I need

1:17:26

to suffer less. I need to

1:17:28

change. Something has to

1:17:30

adapt in me because the world so

1:17:33

far doesn't show that it's going to

1:17:35

change for me. Yeah.

1:17:37

So that's step two. Step three, understand

1:17:39

that forgiveness does not mean trying

1:17:42

to make up with the person who harmed

1:17:44

you or excuse their actions.

1:17:48

It's the difference between

1:17:51

reconciliation and forgiveness. This

1:17:54

is an inner mind, body,

1:17:56

release, and healing. Reconciliation

1:17:59

is restorative. or relationship,

1:18:02

you can forgive and not reconcile.

1:18:05

So you can have a marriage with

1:18:07

a horrible set of affairs and

1:18:10

you can say, hey, you know, I

1:18:12

forgive you. It's obvious that this isn't

1:18:14

a good marriage. It's obvious

1:18:16

that whatever reason, you and I can't make

1:18:18

it work or you can't be here. So

1:18:21

I open my heart. I'm clean. But we're

1:18:23

done. Any marriage

1:18:26

is reconcile and don't forgive.

1:18:30

So they keep on coming back to each

1:18:32

other every night, but they stay angry. So

1:18:36

there's a clear difference between reconciliation and

1:18:38

forgiveness. Yeah. And there was another key

1:18:40

point there for me, Fred, which

1:18:44

is letting

1:18:47

go of

1:18:49

that pain and that hurt, forgiving

1:18:52

that other person. Because

1:18:56

the emotional charge is lessened, you

1:18:59

are better able to move on

1:19:02

and make good quality

1:19:04

decisions. Exactly. When

1:19:07

you're not coming from anger and

1:19:09

revenge. Or not just anger or

1:19:12

revenge, self-pity. Self-pity. That's

1:19:14

the other piece. To me, those are

1:19:16

the poles of fight or

1:19:18

flight. Poor is

1:19:20

fight and self-pity and kind of

1:19:23

like poor me, those are the

1:19:25

flight reactions. Because self-pity,

1:19:32

it's just not going to help you,

1:19:34

is it? Not long-term. Short-term, it may

1:19:36

be necessary. Yeah. It's

1:19:38

in the long-term. Short-term stress helps us. Long-term

1:19:41

chronic unrelenting stress is what harms us. Short-term

1:19:45

grief, perfectly normal. Helpful. Go through

1:19:47

it. Talk to your friends. Take

1:19:49

your chest. Exactly. So at

1:19:51

some point, and that point is going to be different for

1:19:53

everyone, at some point, you've got to change.

1:19:56

You've got to change the lens. Okay.

1:19:59

Step four. to shift your perspective?

1:20:03

I guess we've discovered that, haven't we? Usually

1:20:08

that's also

1:20:10

from perspective from past to

1:20:12

present. So

1:20:15

perspective means that I,

1:20:17

you know, most of my energy was

1:20:19

spent on what happened in the past,

1:20:21

how bad it was. Shift

1:20:24

your perspective means that you want

1:20:26

to move to what

1:20:28

am I doing now What

1:20:30

can I change now and how

1:20:32

can I be better in my

1:20:34

life now? It's going from

1:20:37

past to present. Yeah. Can

1:20:40

I share with you how I do

1:20:42

forgiveness and how I would

1:20:45

apply to try to shift your perspective? A

1:20:50

few years ago I

1:20:54

chose to take on the

1:20:56

view, it was choice, with

1:20:58

the decision I made that

1:21:01

every single person in

1:21:03

the world is doing the best that

1:21:05

they can in that moment. That's right.

1:21:07

Based upon who they are and

1:21:10

based upon their life experiences.

1:21:13

So in essence if I was that person,

1:21:16

if I had their

1:21:19

childhoods and their parents and their

1:21:21

schooling and their friends and their

1:21:23

bodies and their bodies, I would

1:21:25

be behaving in exactly the same

1:21:27

way as them. I

1:21:32

am not even 1% exaggerating, babe,

1:21:34

when I say that approach has

1:21:38

completely transformed my life. Oh of course

1:21:40

it will. Health and happiness. Of course.

1:21:42

Because you lead in life with compassion.

1:21:44

Of course. And I

1:21:46

believe that if you can take that approach

1:21:51

and it's like we said, you Get

1:21:53

good at what you practice. So

1:21:55

If you practice that, you get damn

1:21:57

good at thinking about approach. No

1:22:00

rights and you were a bit starts to

1:22:02

become automatic at some points. Yes, Intensely A.

1:22:04

Thinking about it, you're thinking about that. You're

1:22:06

trying to practice exam before you know what

1:22:09

you're doing it every Y, no question. What?

1:22:11

I find so powerful about that

1:22:14

in relation sister given us. but

1:22:16

that is forgiveness. Yeah,

1:22:18

and services interesting for me because I

1:22:21

think if you take that approach of

1:22:23

curiosity and compassion for the other person.

1:22:27

Forgiveness. Is a natural byproduct

1:22:29

of that Xactly pisses. That's the

1:22:32

nothing says the gifts. Well yes

1:22:34

there is because you will register

1:22:36

a sense. It's not

1:22:38

like you become immune. You

1:22:41

will registers as that hurt or

1:22:43

that was unskilled, full, or that

1:22:46

close to me harm. And

1:22:49

the processing of that

1:22:51

registering instead of being

1:22:53

blamed and a task

1:22:55

will be a true.

1:22:58

Opening to your own

1:23:01

experience which is a

1:23:03

valuable and it will

1:23:05

involve an understanding that

1:23:08

while slide. They did

1:23:10

who they were, Yeah.

1:23:14

I. I.

1:23:17

Guess I feel that. I.

1:23:19

Wanna I know how many people push

1:23:21

back against forgiveness and I really want

1:23:23

to make sure that we cover it's

1:23:25

from every boss. Orlando is one other

1:23:27

piece that. The

1:23:31

the sense of self, the

1:23:34

ego like death, the I.

1:23:37

Thrives. On Discord.

1:23:41

like that that separate cells

1:23:43

part is it's job is

1:23:45

to find ways that it's

1:23:48

different than other people that

1:23:50

it's special that it's you

1:23:52

need that is better than

1:23:54

other people xactly and that

1:23:56

also it's an identification point

1:23:59

around suffer Like,

1:24:01

I hurt, I

1:24:03

was mistreated. The

1:24:06

ego sense does not

1:24:08

necessarily like letting

1:24:11

it go because it

1:24:13

loses its influence. So

1:24:17

that part of us that's attached

1:24:19

to the ego, that

1:24:21

part of us is what struggles

1:24:23

with forgiveness because the ego is

1:24:26

being abandoned. It's like, yeah, you

1:24:28

were hurt, but so what? Everybody's

1:24:30

hurt. Or you were hurt by

1:24:32

an imperfect human being. Well, join

1:24:35

the crowd. Yeah. When you

1:24:37

say it like that, it's like, of course it's going

1:24:39

to happen. Of course. There was this

1:24:41

really nice case in your book, Forgive For Good. I

1:24:43

think it was a chap called Mark. Mark

1:24:47

was in a marriage for 10 years and then his wife

1:24:49

had an affair. Okay.

1:24:53

So I'm saying what has

1:24:55

changed things for me is

1:24:57

by truly believing that if I

1:24:59

was that person, I'd be doing exactly the

1:25:01

same as them. Right. So

1:25:04

it doesn't mean that Mark's

1:25:07

ex-wife did

1:25:09

an amazing thing by having an affair.

1:25:11

Right. To be clear. Let's

1:25:13

hope not. Of course, it's going to be hurtful for Mark

1:25:16

and probably hurtful, I would imagine, for

1:25:18

his ex-wife. Yes. Right.

1:25:22

Let's say I was Mark. We

1:25:25

can apply that and go, okay, my

1:25:27

ex-wife, I understand, I can

1:25:30

see why she had an affair. It was

1:25:32

hurtful. I wish she hadn't. But

1:25:35

it could be, for example, she

1:25:37

had a really tough upbringing. She

1:25:41

was always really insecure. I

1:25:44

was busy at work for a few years. I

1:25:47

get why on some level

1:25:49

this happened. I'm not excusing it. I'm

1:25:52

not saying it's right. But

1:25:54

it's like that step four, shift your perspective.

1:25:56

You're just opening the door a little bit

1:25:58

to go. And maybe I didn't. nourish

1:26:00

parts of her in the

1:26:02

way that I thought I did. Yeah.

1:26:04

Now Fred, I know some people are going to push back

1:26:06

here and they're going to go, yeah,

1:26:09

but that's still no excuse to have an affair. Because

1:26:12

we've covered forgiveness on the show before. I

1:26:14

spoke to a monk last year, Geelong Tubsen,

1:26:17

and he spoke from a Buddhist

1:26:19

perspective about the importance of forgiveness.

1:26:24

And when we put out this one-minute

1:26:27

reel from the episode onto

1:26:29

Instagram, it got a lot

1:26:31

of interest. Some people loved it, other people

1:26:33

were pushing back and going, yeah,

1:26:35

I had a tough upbringing. I

1:26:38

didn't feel loved when I was growing up, but

1:26:40

I still would never have an affair. Which

1:26:44

may well be true. May well be true.

1:26:46

But what I hear in all of this

1:26:48

stuff is some level of judgment. Judgment

1:26:51

of other people. So you're

1:26:53

one of the world's leading experts

1:26:56

on forgiveness and research on

1:26:58

forgiveness, right? Would

1:27:00

you agree that if Mark looks at

1:27:02

his ex-wife and says, look, I

1:27:05

don't like it, but I understand why

1:27:08

it happened, it doesn't mean that

1:27:11

they can stay together. But the

1:27:13

forgiveness is, I guess,

1:27:16

it's a part of forgiveness, understanding

1:27:19

why that person acted in the

1:27:21

way that they did. So

1:27:25

the wife may have had

1:27:27

a difficult childhood, but

1:27:30

she also may be lazy, you

1:27:32

know, and that she didn't put

1:27:34

a lot of effort towards working

1:27:36

things through with Mark. Maybe

1:27:39

she had poor impulse control,

1:27:41

you know, that the guy

1:27:44

presented himself. Maybe

1:27:46

he didn't see himself clearly and

1:27:49

was a worse partner than he

1:27:51

thought it was. The

1:27:54

definitions and the understandings

1:27:57

are complex. The

1:28:00

business does is it says

1:28:02

that harsh hostile judgment

1:28:06

of the terribleness of them

1:28:08

and the blamelessness of me.

1:28:12

I'm moving past that. And

1:28:16

so I'm willing now to

1:28:18

release that judgment

1:28:20

and that blamelessness so

1:28:23

that I can be back in my

1:28:25

present life without storing so

1:28:27

much energy from what they did because

1:28:30

it's complex and I'll never fully know

1:28:32

why she did it. But

1:28:35

I accept that she

1:28:37

and I were imperfect

1:28:40

couple partners. She behaved

1:28:42

badly. I didn't know how to cope with

1:28:45

it well. It's

1:28:47

a bigger thing than just one,

1:28:50

you know, I look back and see

1:28:52

this and that. It allows the complexity.

1:28:56

So I'm open to life's

1:28:59

experience. I'm

1:29:01

not start to judging or protecting. I

1:29:06

can have conversations around it. You

1:29:11

get what I'm driving at. It's a

1:29:13

present-centered freedom. Yeah. So

1:29:15

I love the way you put that. I

1:29:17

guess where I'm coming from is more that

1:29:22

I just fundamentally believe that when

1:29:24

we can approach people and the

1:29:26

world with compassion and understanding everything

1:29:30

on the other end becomes

1:29:32

easier. Because you relax.

1:29:35

Yeah. Your mind is clear.

1:29:37

Your heart stays open. Exactly. And

1:29:40

again, it's not condoning that behavior. It's

1:29:43

just saying, okay, that happens.

1:29:45

It happens. I don't like it. Maybe

1:29:48

we can't be together anymore. Exactly. But it still

1:29:51

doesn't mean we didn't have a great 10 years.

1:29:53

No. Or a great eight years until

1:29:55

whatever it might have been. And you

1:29:57

can even wish them well in their

1:29:59

future. Let's

1:30:02

get to step five. I think it speaks

1:30:04

to what we've just been talking about. When

1:30:06

you feel upset about a past harm, try

1:30:08

calming exercises. That's the break, right? And I

1:30:10

did that, right. So with

1:30:12

the people from Northern Ireland that we

1:30:14

brought, the

1:30:17

first day that they got there, the

1:30:19

first thing that we did was

1:30:22

we brought them to

1:30:24

a fifth floor window

1:30:26

on Stanford's campus and

1:30:28

they had come from Belfast. And

1:30:31

we opened all the blinds and it was

1:30:33

January, but it was still 65 degrees

1:30:37

and the sun was shining and what

1:30:40

we asked them to do was just let the

1:30:43

sun in. Open

1:30:45

your arms, feel the warmth and go,

1:30:47

you know, the

1:30:50

world is beautiful too. To

1:30:54

be open to experience,

1:30:56

calm down. Right

1:30:58

here and now, right now, calm down.

1:31:00

Yes, in the past somebody was murdered,

1:31:04

but right now you can calm

1:31:06

down, you can open to goodness

1:31:09

and have a good moment. Yeah,

1:31:12

and that's a necessary step if you are

1:31:14

going to move on. You have to be

1:31:16

able to get out of the path. You

1:31:18

can't forgive like big life until

1:31:20

you can have 30 seconds of peace.

1:31:24

Step six, remember that some

1:31:26

things, other people's actions and

1:31:28

feelings are not on your control. I

1:31:31

think we've covered that. Step seven, try

1:31:33

not to dwell on the hurt

1:31:36

you experienced. For someone

1:31:38

who says, Fred, listen, that sounds great, but

1:31:40

I can't stop thinking about the hurt that

1:31:42

I've experienced. But you can. I

1:31:45

mean, it's just that it's hard. And

1:31:48

so one of the strategies is

1:31:51

a cognitive strategy, which

1:31:53

is to not say I can't,

1:31:56

but and these are just normal cognitive

1:31:58

strategies up until now. I haven't

1:32:00

been able to or it's hard for

1:32:02

me or I want to learn to

1:32:06

When you say can't you make sure

1:32:08

you can't yeah So that's

1:32:10

hopeful and empowering for people. It's

1:32:12

more truthful and as

1:32:14

you say forgiveness is a skill that anyone

1:32:16

can learn and My hope

1:32:19

with this conversation is that we're just opening the door

1:32:21

for people to go So you

1:32:23

know what that's all we can do, you know What

1:32:25

maybe it is something I can work on and get

1:32:27

better at it practice And if

1:32:29

somebody comes up with a schema like

1:32:32

yours that works what a blessing. Yeah

1:32:36

Step 8 the penultimate step look

1:32:39

for the love beauty and kindness

1:32:41

around you. I guess

1:32:43

that is Come

1:32:46

to the present moment. Let me explain

1:32:48

how that is so related to forgiveness

1:32:51

in a way that most people don't think

1:32:54

about so You

1:32:57

know that our negativity bias

1:32:59

the the basic wiring we're

1:33:01

constantly looking out for Things

1:33:04

that go wrong people that harm us

1:33:07

mistakes Unfortunately

1:33:10

that bias makes us distort

1:33:12

what we see so

1:33:15

what what what I Understand

1:33:18

is that when people are hurt They

1:33:21

become very vigilant to make sure they

1:33:23

don't get hurt again, you know, that's

1:33:25

part of this negativity bias but

1:33:28

what what is entirely missing from

1:33:31

that is Promoting

1:33:34

more positivity bias such as

1:33:37

Do you notice every time your wife is

1:33:39

kind to you or not every time? Do

1:33:41

you notice when people are good-hearted? What

1:33:46

what the and I brought

1:33:48

up to you like an hour ago about

1:33:50

vulnerability if you

1:33:53

acknowledge that You're

1:33:56

vulnerable sometimes to be hurt

1:33:59

in that space you can recognize

1:34:02

how vulnerable and open you

1:34:04

can be to so much

1:34:06

goodness. Like

1:34:08

if you're not fighting, you

1:34:10

see how kind people are to you. You

1:34:14

notice it. You

1:34:17

allow your humanness

1:34:20

to see. Oh yeah. An

1:34:24

example came with the woman you

1:34:26

met, my girlfriend. We had

1:34:28

a fight, I don't know, a week ago. It

1:34:33

wasn't enough of a fight that it was something,

1:34:35

but I noticed that she

1:34:37

just stood there and didn't threaten

1:34:40

me in any way. And

1:34:43

a little bit later I came to her and said, wow, you

1:34:45

know, that was just amazing.

1:34:48

Like you're just

1:34:50

there. Like you're not going anywhere.

1:34:52

There's a commitment that you've made

1:34:55

to this relationship. And

1:34:58

like I saw that, I

1:35:00

can feel it, but

1:35:02

that's what can happen when

1:35:04

you're open, when you're vulnerable, when

1:35:06

you're willing to not have to

1:35:09

be in control. You

1:35:11

can see people's goodness

1:35:14

and you're not so obsessed with

1:35:16

people's not goodness. They both exist.

1:35:20

You said that gratitude goes hand in hand with forgiveness.

1:35:22

That is one of the few, besides

1:35:25

in apology and being older,

1:35:28

that's about the only research-proven

1:35:30

thing that predisposes to forgiveness.

1:35:33

The more grateful you are, it turns

1:35:35

out the more realistically you see things

1:35:38

and the more likely you are to forgive. And

1:35:41

again, what you practice, you get good at.

1:35:43

So if you practice gratitude every day, guess

1:35:45

what? You start seeing

1:35:48

good things everywhere. You

1:35:51

counteract our negativity

1:35:53

bias, which has been there for many

1:35:55

good reasons, but has been there for

1:35:57

survival. happiness.

1:36:01

Step nine, the final step, remind

1:36:03

yourself that you made a brave

1:36:06

choice to forgive. Yes, and that

1:36:08

means change your story from

1:36:12

what we cheesily call from

1:36:14

victim to hero. Yeah.

1:36:16

So stop telling a story about

1:36:18

what a victim you are and

1:36:21

start telling more of a story

1:36:23

about how you have handled adversity

1:36:25

well. Yeah. Northern

1:36:28

Ireland, you

1:36:31

mentioned that you worked with people

1:36:33

who'd been through some quite horrific

1:36:35

experiences. Some pretty horrific stuff. And

1:36:38

all the, you know, the troubles there. Yeah.

1:36:41

And the bombings. Yes. I

1:36:44

think when we talk about forgiveness,

1:36:48

a lot of people will say, well, some

1:36:51

things in life, Fred, are unforgivable. They do

1:36:53

say that. What would you

1:36:55

say to them? I

1:36:58

mean, some things in life

1:37:00

may be unforgivable to you, but

1:37:03

that doesn't make them unforgivable. On

1:37:06

the converse, the truth is there

1:37:09

are human beings who have

1:37:11

forgiven every conceivable thing that

1:37:13

human beings can experience. So

1:37:16

it's a point of view. It's not a truth.

1:37:19

So you work with people who have forgiven, you

1:37:22

know, their parents being murdered.

1:37:24

Oh my god, yeah. The point I'm trying

1:37:27

to make, Fred, and you're sort of answering

1:37:29

this, we

1:37:31

think some things in life are unforgivable. You're

1:37:33

saying it's not actually technically true because

1:37:36

you have come across people who have

1:37:39

forgiven some of the most

1:37:41

horrendous things. I've

1:37:44

come across many people who

1:37:46

haven't forgiven small things. So

1:37:50

it's not only in the offense. I

1:37:52

remember a woman who,

1:37:54

at some experience that I had

1:37:57

with her, refused to forgive her

1:37:59

name. neighbor because he

1:38:01

had built his fence like

1:38:04

two inches onto their property

1:38:06

and She carried

1:38:08

that grudge for a long time And

1:38:11

I know families who drift

1:38:14

apart because they don't vote

1:38:16

for the right candidate So

1:38:20

if you see that people

1:38:22

don't forgive things that are

1:38:24

You know not that important you

1:38:27

realize how much choice there is

1:38:29

and how much personal processing there

1:38:32

is One at the

1:38:34

very beginning of my work People

1:38:37

used to always ask me. Well. How do

1:38:39

you forgive Hitler like and that's and And

1:38:42

and I had a number of answers,

1:38:44

but I remember one of them was

1:38:47

so don't forgive Hitler But forgive everybody

1:38:49

else I get that like the worst

1:38:52

Person I get but don't

1:38:54

use that an excuse To

1:38:57

not make peace with as much as you can

1:38:59

in your life. Yeah, that's really empowering You

1:39:02

know when my view on

1:39:04

forgiveness really opened up Was

1:39:07

a few years ago when I spoke to this

1:39:10

lady called Edith Eager, then if you know her

1:39:12

or not She she lives in California now. She

1:39:15

was 93 when I spoke to

1:39:17

her Still to this date one

1:39:19

of the most life-changing conversations. I've ever had because

1:39:21

she When she was 16 years

1:39:24

old she was taken to Auschwitz concentration

1:39:26

camp Wow Both of her

1:39:28

parents were murdered within two hours of getting

1:39:30

there and when I spoke

1:39:32

to her at 93 I Have

1:39:36

rarely Fred spoke to someone who

1:39:38

was full of compassion and amazing

1:39:40

forgiveness and an open heart I

1:39:43

know genuinely and I thought okay

1:39:45

Rongan Here's

1:39:47

the thing if Edith Eager attention

1:39:49

to this woman totally and I

1:39:51

did I was literally Moved

1:39:54

so much by that conversation. Yes,

1:39:56

and I use her as inspiration

1:39:58

in my life If there's something

1:40:01

I struggle to forgive or to

1:40:03

reframe, I don't

1:40:05

make myself feel bad. I go, hey,

1:40:07

wrong. Listen, Edith could reframe events in

1:40:10

Auschwitz. She can forgive. If

1:40:13

she can forgive some of that, you

1:40:16

can probably forgive some

1:40:18

of this. You probably can. Do you know what

1:40:20

I mean? So I take that. And again, I'm

1:40:23

not saying that everyone should be forgiving some

1:40:25

of the most traumatic events that have happened.

1:40:28

But I guess the point you're making is that some

1:40:32

of these events that we consider unforgivable,

1:40:35

some people actually do manage to

1:40:37

move on and let go and forgive.

1:40:39

And if you can't forgive the worst

1:40:42

things in your life, then it's even

1:40:44

more imperative to open your heart back

1:40:46

up to all the things you can

1:40:49

so you don't walk around with a heavy heart.

1:40:52

Fred, you shared with me that in

1:40:55

a few months, I think you're going to turn 70.

1:40:57

I am in May. You

1:41:01

have been banging

1:41:04

the forgiveness drum for quite a long

1:41:06

time now. Almost 30 years. Okay.

1:41:11

I'm incredibly thankful that you have

1:41:13

been doing so, that you've done all

1:41:15

this research at Stanford. What's

1:41:19

your hope now with this forgiveness, letting

1:41:22

go movement for the next

1:41:24

few years, and derocer the next few decades? Well

1:41:28

I mean, people have tried to

1:41:31

get people to forgive throughout history.

1:41:35

The basis of the Christian

1:41:37

faith is Jesus' forgiveness on

1:41:39

the cross. And

1:41:42

I mean, the Mahabharata talks

1:41:44

about forgiveness. It's

1:41:48

one of the hidden

1:41:50

human skills that

1:41:53

when it's applied is valuable

1:41:56

in any way you look at it. But

1:41:59

it's very valuable. Very hard for

1:42:01

people to access it and the

1:42:03

only thing I would say that

1:42:05

I have done. Is

1:42:07

taken this idea which is

1:42:09

been around my guess as

1:42:12

long as humans have been

1:42:14

around and find your way

1:42:16

to translate. It's insists secular

1:42:19

simple language so that people

1:42:21

in Twenty First, the merrier,

1:42:23

twenty first century America basically

1:42:25

have a hook into it.

1:42:28

They say i don't make

1:42:30

it spiritual or religious a

1:42:32

may get practical when I

1:42:34

started this whole thing. I.

1:42:37

Was a. A. Pre Doc

1:42:39

and then oppose starts at

1:42:42

Stanford University School of Medicine.

1:42:44

I was a Pre Doctor

1:42:46

Rosen, a postdoctoral fellow in

1:42:49

Preventive cardiology at the Medical

1:42:51

School and it all of

1:42:53

this came from training and

1:42:55

and orientation and behavioral medicine.

1:42:59

So I took those ideas

1:43:01

and turns toward something ages

1:43:04

old. That's that's my contribution.

1:43:06

It's bit of forgiveness is.

1:43:09

Way bigger than any of us.

1:43:12

And why the ends a thaw

1:43:14

conversation which us thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed.

1:43:16

Fats Good. thank you Me too.

1:43:20

For. That person. He stumbled across our

1:43:23

conversation. And. Has

1:43:25

recognize that. They'd.

1:43:27

Been holding on to paint. Yeah, They've.

1:43:30

Been. Resenting.

1:43:33

Or this, of course, They're

1:43:36

angry. About. Things that

1:43:38

happen in the past. That he

1:43:40

found a with them. Well.

1:43:44

I mean my final words

1:43:47

to them am. And

1:43:50

how it would try be the same

1:43:53

for everything. It's in whatever way you

1:43:55

can remember that your loved. and

1:43:59

connect with that. And

1:44:02

if even for a moment you remember

1:44:04

that somewhere in you is love, you've

1:44:06

been loved, when you

1:44:08

connect with that you will want

1:44:11

to release some bitterness because love

1:44:13

and bitterness are the opposites.

1:44:18

And if you can't connect with love,

1:44:20

then walk outside and appreciate the beauty

1:44:22

of nature and notice a

1:44:24

sunset or a sunrise and that

1:44:26

will have the same thing because

1:44:28

they can't exist together. That

1:44:31

would be my words to them. Fred,

1:44:33

I love that. For people who want to

1:44:35

find out more about you, I'd highly recommend

1:44:37

your book For Gift, a Proven Prescription for

1:44:39

Health and Happiness. Where else would

1:44:41

you direct people? My

1:44:44

website is fredluskin.com.

1:44:47

I'm just finishing a book on

1:44:49

forgiveness for people in

1:44:52

recovery from substance abuse.

1:44:54

That book should come

1:44:56

out in September. There's

1:44:58

probably a hundred YouTube videos

1:45:01

of me teaching. So

1:45:05

check you out wherever they like to continue that content. Yeah,

1:45:07

but the more important thing is practice

1:45:10

forgiveness. Tell somebody

1:45:12

you live with that you felt a

1:45:14

graduate. Tell them something nice. That

1:45:16

would be more important than finding

1:45:18

me. I appreciate all your

1:45:21

work for coming on the show. Thank

1:45:23

you. Really

1:45:29

hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think

1:45:31

about one thing that you can take

1:45:33

away and apply into your

1:45:35

own life. And also have a

1:45:38

think about one thing from this conversation that you

1:45:40

can teach to somebody else. Remember,

1:45:42

when you teach someone, it not

1:45:44

only helps them, it also helps

1:45:46

you learn and retain the information.

1:45:49

Now before you go, just wanted

1:45:51

to let you know about Friday

1:45:53

5. It's my free weekly email

1:45:55

containing five simple ideas to

1:45:58

improve your health and happiness. In

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or videos that I'd be consuming, and

1:46:11

quotes that have caused me to stop

1:46:13

and reflect. And I have to say,

1:46:15

in a world of endless emails, it

1:46:17

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