Over the past few episode's we've covered a number of fascinating and thought-provoking topics meant to propel us to living a life beyond our default:
Maintaining a healthy relationship with our own ego, good ego vs. bad ego, and what to do if we let our ego get the best of us.
How important it is to be mindful of the language we use to talk to ourselves about ourselves, and how this can directly impact how we move through the world.
Reshaping the role fear plays in our lives based on our unique experiences, so it doesn't become a destructive force.
The importance of the relationship we cultivate with ourselves, as well as the relationships we cultivate with others.
What's interesting about these topics is that, although they are distinct topics – each very much deserving of their own dedicated and focused conversation – George and I noticed a pattern emerging as we talked through them.
⚡ Go Deeper: What does it mean to live Beyond Your Default?
At some point, your personal journey tackling each of these opportunities and challenges will involve some element of forgiveness — whether that means we need to forgive someone else or, most of all, we need to forgive ourselves.
For instance, the language we use to talk about ourselves to ourselves can skew in a deeply negative way if we don't view ourselves worthy of self-compassion or forgiveness. On the other hand, the quality of relationships with cultivate, nurture, and maintain with others will almost always inevitably require us to forgive others.
Because of the complexities of the topic of forgiveness, it's impossible for us to cover it in a single episode. So, over the course of the next two episodes, we will be exploring both sides of forgiveness coin in depth.
We begin our adventure into the land of forgiveness a conversation of what it means to truly forgive others, why the forgiveness of others matters, and what it looks like in practice.
Why is our ability to forgive others tied so deeply to our ability to live a life that extends us beyond our default?
How has George's relationship with forgiving others changed over the years?
What are the benefits each of us have realized in our lives as we've integrated a more forgiveness-forward mindset?
What disparities do we see between what the true definition of forgiving others and how most folks tend to define it?
What makes it's so hard for some of us to truly forgive others?
How do we approach sensitive situations (trauma, abuse, etc.) where victims can embrace a forgiveness mindset without needing to absolve or engage with bad actors in their lives?
What are the most important questions someone should ask themselves if forgiving others is an area of their lives in which they struggle?
Forgiveness doesn't mean absolution. You can forgive without reconciling with someone who has caused you harm. It's about finding empathy and understanding while maintaining healthy boundaries to protect yourself.
Forgiveness begins with self-reflection. By asking key questions like "Is it really all that I thought it was?" and "What part did I play?" you can gain valuable insights into your reactions and behaviors. These questions help you reprogram your responses and choose forgiveness as a way forward.
Forgiving someone isn't always easy, especially when emotions run high. It often involves a mental tennis match with your inner self, challenging your beliefs and biases. But when you choose forgiveness, you take a step towards freeing yourself from the weight of anger and resentment.
Forgiveness goes hand in hand with empathy. It's about understanding the human experiences and flaws that drive people's actions. By practicing empathy, we can navigate complex situations with grace and compassion, fostering healthier relationships and personal growth.
"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love." — Martin Luther King Jr.
"Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against natural instinct to pay back evil with evil." — Pope John Paul II
"Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much." — Oscar Wilde
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." — Gandhi
"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." — C.S. Lewis
"Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart." — Corrie Ten Boom
"Many people think of forgiveness as letting go or moving on. But there's more to it than that, says Bob Enright, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who pioneered the study of forgiveness three decades ago.
True forgiveness goes a step further, he says, offering something positive—empathy, compassion, understanding—toward the person who hurt you. That element makes forgiveness both a virtue and a powerful construct in positive psychology.
One common but mistaken belief is that forgiveness means letting the person who hurt you off the hook. Yet forgiveness is not the same as justice, nor does it require reconciliation, Worthington explains. A former victim of abuse shouldn't reconcile with an abuser who remains potentially dangerous, for example.
But the victim can still come to a place of empathy and understanding. 'Whether I forgive or don't forgive isn't going to affect whether justice is done,' Worthington says. 'Forgiveness happens inside my skin.'"
"(Toussaint) found (in his research studies) that when forgiveness rose, levels of stress went down ... Toussaint's research has also found that for religious people, prayer can boost forgiveness."
"They found, as expected, that people who had greater levels of accumulated lifetime stress exhibited worse mental health outcomes. But among the subset of volunteers who scored high on measures of forgiveness, high lifetime stress didn't predict poor mental health (Journal of Health Psychology, 2016).
The power of forgiveness to erase that link was surprising, Toussaint says. 'We thought forgiveness would knock something off the relationship [between stress and psychological distress], but we didn't expect it to zero it out,' he says."
In summary, the ability to forgive others not only feels good in an abstract sense, but it also has measurable mental and physical health benefits.
"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Ephesians 4:31-32