How to FORGIVE Someone Who Hurt You with Kingsley Grant

Join host Ruth Hovsepian and her guest, Kingsley Grant, in a deeply personal and inspiring conversation about the transformative journey of forgiveness. This episode delves into the heart of spiritual healing, examining the emotional complexities and the liberating power of truly forgiving from the heart. With personal stories, scriptural wisdom, and professional insights, Ruth and Kingsley offer guidance for navigating the bumpy road of mending relationships, managing anger, and overcoming trauma. Discover how the act of forgiveness aligns us with our Christian faith and is not just an option but a divine mandate that leads to freedom and growth. Whether you're struggling with unforgiveness or looking to deepen your understanding, this conversation invites you to explore the boundless grace found in forgiveness.

Connect with Kingsley Grant:
Website | www.happiermarriagesecrets.com
Instagram  | www.insstagram.com/kingsleygrant
Facebook  | www.facebook.com/kingsleygrant
LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com/in/kingsleygrant
Podcast | www.happiermarriagesecrets.com/podcast

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Transcript

00:17 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Welcome to Out of the Darkness with Ruth Hovsepian. Today I have a great guest. I met him, actually, last year when I was a guest on his podcast. I have invited him back because Kingsley Grant is a national and international speaker, certified relationship coach, published author, podcaster and licensed marriage and family therapist. He specializes in helping individuals, couples and families get to their desired results by teaching them effective communication and emotional intelligence skills. That's a mouthful. 

01:00 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
And. 

01:00 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
I'm telling you, I follow you, kingsley, on social media and I truly do enjoy all the time and effort that you put Putting the information out there for us, and the reason I invited you here was, first of all, I enjoyed being on your podcast and. 

01:23
I wanted to have the same conversation here, but this time I really wanted to talk about forgiveness. And forgiveness is a tough one, and I personally hear from Christians and I'd love this to be in the context mainly around Christians because as believers, we have certain things that we need to do as believers, and one is forgiveness. And I know personally, when I went through my divorce, I had people around me say things that made it very difficult for me to forgive. Whether there was a reason to forgive or not, we're not even talking about that but I felt the onus on me to forgive in certain ways or the way that the Lord wanted me. And at a certain point I said to people oh, I have forgiven everything. You know, bygones are bygones. I'm healed, whatever. 

02:37
But when, about nine years ago, I committed my life to the Lord, recommitted my life to the Lord and started this journey, I realized that, though I was mentally saying, oh, I'm saying I had forgiven the people around me, I realized that in my heart I had not, and for different reasons and I'm not trying to justify it for different reasons I was not able to forgive them. 

03:15
But I realized that the Holy Spirit was convicting me of this and saying Ruth, how can you this and this if you have not forgiven? And when I did get on my knees and pray about them, I realized that, when the forgiveness came, a burden lifted off of me, off of my shoulders, and I realized that that was what forgiveness was. That. You know my heart. I could talk about them, pray about them, and you know, there was no heaviness on my heart, even though I hadn't realized at the time that it was there. After the fact, I knew that it had been there. So what is it about us, though, that you know here? As a believer, right, I've been forgiven of my sins, and I'm having a tough time forgiving others, and I know this is a deeper conversation than we can have in, you know, like half an hour or so, but what is it about us that makes you know? We want to have that last say. 

04:32 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
It's a great question, you know. Let me just ask a question to see if it fits the what I hear more often than not from people when it comes to forgiveness. If I was to ask you, ruth, what was your greatest fear about forgiveness? What led to you holding on to, initially, of not forgiving or not wanting to forgive? 

04:52 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, I think it was feeling justified for my, you know, like giving justification that you know what had happened and making me feel good and I have come to understand. Now I'm on the other side of healing and I have come to understand that everyone has a part and in my case it was divorce. Everyone has a part in it and what I, what trap I had fallen into, was listening to all the noise around me and not looking inside of me and being convicted by the Holy Spirit of certain things. So I think that that's what it was for me the feeling of justification, that yeah, and the reason I asked? 

05:41 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
because I pretty much I hear that quite often as well people will look at it as a now they have an opportunity to have the upper hand or power, and so that is hard to let go off because the fear of if I let go of that, what does that mean going forward? So I find I find that many times what's out there, the many voices, what's embedded in the system, the culture, what gets in the way is how it's framed, is what forgiveness have been taught, and people have this idea that if they forgive, somehow they're letting go of one thing, the last echelon of power they have to hold on to, they have to let go off, and so that fear gets in the place, and I also find that they fear of, they feel as if they're being asked to forget something as well, and so that fear of like, how can I forget something that has happened to me at this level, which has so much pain and everything else that goes into what led to where they're at, in their pain? They feel as if someone is asking them to no longer remember, to no longer have any memory of that, and so that becomes an issue why some people have a hard time, they struggle through forgiveness, and I think it's a misunderstanding of forgiveness. So one of the things I lead off with is helping people understand that, even though it may not be Grammatically correct in the way I'm stating it, but it makes a point. 

07:37
I say forgiveness is not forgetness. Right, it's not about forgetting, because there's no way that you're gonna forget a painful Wound that's happened to you. This car is there to remind you and everything else you look at remind you of what happened. So I said only if we have amnesia or God miraculously wipe our memory, we're gonna forget it. But we're not, and and sometimes we don't want to forget, because that very same thing Serves as our, as protection for us. It serves as a way for us to help other people, to relate to them. So sometimes it's not what happened to us is what happened through us. 

08:32 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
I know that, first of all, my kids laugh because I have selective memory, it seems. Actually, you know, I, I remember certain things and some things I have no memory of. And this past weekend we were actually talking, I was talking with a friend and I said it's very interesting, I really have, I have certain memories as a child, yeah, and then, and then everything else is sort of blank and that's a whole other episode. And then, you know, in my teens I have, you know, vivid memories. And then, during my Marriage and after you know, the fallout of it, I have very selective memory and I feel that that was a God-given thing, almost, because I don't remember, you know the, the bad things. I mean I do remember, obviously I lived through it, but they're not painful anymore. 

09:32
And one of the things that I had said and it's not even for my divorce, it doesn't matter, you know, fallouts with family members or whatever it was in my life in the past, right, I have always said that If I can't say anything good about the person, I will not say anything. That was just my Rule for myself. Yeah, and it hurt me when I heard other people knock down these other people, because in my little Bubble. That's how I survived. Right, that was my Survival mode, but in hindsight, you know, I guess I remember things, because Remembering also prevents you from making the same mistakes. 

10:20
Of course and and you know as a Recovering addict those memories are there. They're not painful like right. I, you know, I really want people to understand that that when someone has healed and someone has recovered from addiction to the point where they can talk about it and, as you said, use it to help others right, those memories are very different. It's almost as though I'm watching a Replay of a movie. The emotions are not necessarily there. 

10:55
There are times where Satan, I feel, wants to knock me down, you know like the course the closer my, my relationship has gotten to the Lord and you know, the closer you know, the more time I spend in the Word of God and prayer I. Have those. It's not frequent, but there are times I have to. I want you know, I need to admit this so people understand they're not alone. I have Satan say but Ruth, how can you be praying about this when you yourself and he lays it off? You know. But it's difficult. 

11:33
You know, and I know of one. You know a couple of people in my life that have said and and they're older, right. Well, you know, one person has always said I cannot forgive. I know I cannot commit my life to the Lord because I cannot forgive and use since I say heaven, I try to). You know that says a lot about the person being aware. You know of what forgiveness is. But yeah. It is difficult to to get people to understand what forgiveness is and what the Lord is expecting from us. 

12:14 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
Yeah, I think, like you just described even that person, I think we have to understand that forgiveness is a choice we make, like any other choice we make in our lives. We make a decision to forgive, especially in the context of Our forgiveness from God that we've called to forgive. So we just have to make a decision that you know God has called me to forgive, as we have to begin by obedience, so I'm gonna act in obedience. But obedience does not mean that I'm not necessarily gonna have my emotions Right in line with that decision. So I mean, I feel it. God didn't ask us to feel forgiveness. He asked us to forgive, to obey and act in obedience. So Doesn't mean that we won't have, as I said, feelings like man. I don't feel it. Well, that's fine, it's fine. Don't worry about the feelings yet. Let's just do what we know we're supposed to do and Act in faith, believe in that God has asked us to forgive. He's not gonna allow us and leave us out there by ourselves without coming alongside and Sure up and build up and support that decision we have made. But he's also gonna allow us, because of how we mean he's created us, to walk through that process. So what happened. Is that what? How I look at forgiveness is after I make a decision to forgive, then my emotion say, for example, my decision is a hundred percent which it ought to be a hundred percent, decisional forgiveness, emotionally I may not be there yet, and that's fine. No one is asking you to be there emotionally a hundred percent at the beginning. And so if say, you're emotionally at their attempt percent, but decisionally you're a hundred percent, that's fine. God will work with that because you have obeyed. Here's what happened, like you were describing. 

14:15
Over time we begin to rest, reframe the story we told ourselves about what happened, because we only have a lens, a biased lens we all do and the story is going to favor us. So when we start to have made a decision to forgive, the Holy Spirit will bring us back and Use his lens through which to look at, possibly, what happened. The story will change and as the story changes, our emotions begin to change Alongside that. So over time our emotions that may have been at 10% now moved to 18%, then it moves to 25%, they may move to 32% and it may move to 37. But here's a beautiful part it gets to a point where the emotional hit that, a point where it just Spike up. So if it had 37% and it's like, hit that tipping point, it goes to 100 very, very quickly, because it's time is our best friend. But because we made the decision, our emotions will follow soon, over time. 

15:32
And to give an example, because, as someone who been sexually molested myself as a teenager and for 20 years, no one but the person and myself knew and force God knew what happened, because at the time I grew up in a culture in Jamaica where you never talked about those things because, number one, you will be blamed for putting yourself in that situation. You will also be labeled as someone who participated and so now you have to care that label. So the fear of those things Causes and calls me to hold on to that for over 20 years, never said anything to anybody. I just had to live through all of that and suppress as much as possible that incident. 

16:21
And that's what most people do. They suppress and suppress and our brain is there to serve us in that capacity. So the suppression will cause us to so suppress it so deeply that is moved to our subconscious where we don't really remember or we don't even Act, access or acknowledge it, but doesn't mean it's not there, it's just suppressed deep within our subconscious. But there's gonna time when it's gonna leak or it's gonna pop. It's just gonna be there. It's gonna leak or it's gonna pop. It never, ever, not somehow. 

16:55 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Hercules, yes, yeah, it's exactly. Yeah, it does, and okay. So you know, let let me give you some scenarios of Situations that I have heard over the years. You know people coming to me, talking to me, asking me for prayer or for advice. I'd love to hear your how, how should we respond to these people? Because we have, you know, friends and family in our church, in our own family, that have gone through certain things. So one scenario is a spouse is unfaithful to another spouse. Now, they're Christians, right? So we're talking about Christian couples and I, you know, my advice is different sometimes for those that are in the world and then those in the church, right, because we do live by different. We are different, right In the Lord. So, you know, in a church environment, there's a couple and one spouse cheats on another spouse, on their spouse. How can that other person forgive? 

18:05 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
That's a very tough one, because the violation and the breach of the covenant is really a play as well. And so what happened is if both couples are committed to the relationship, that's where I first established that, that they're there because they're, and there's one to come, because they're committed to working on this whole thing, that's right, and I would start with an assumption. And so, because they're there, my question would be okay for you to forgive this person? What would you take for you? And that person would decide I would need for him or her to do XYZ, and we established that as some language for the relationship frameworks, for the relationship boundaries and so on. 

18:48
And then the person who is a who have been offended in that situation, then I would encourage them to number one. It's going to be risky, it's going to be a faith, it's going to be feel like you are the one now having to do some of the work when it's other person who did this to you. Right, but I'm always on the side of the relationship. What does this marriage needs and what would it take If it's going to succeed? It requires both people to work at it, even though it's one who violated and brought the pain in the relationship. I would try to have them to say now we have this pain here, how can we both look at this pain and externalize the pain as if it's something else, and how can we team up together to win, to overcome, so that this relationship can mend? Because if it's not taken out of the relationship and treated as an external entity, there will always be this blame and finger point in. 

19:54 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
And most of the time you know, you see it and you know, you hear about this and you know that it's not a personal attack from the person that cheated. It's really. It's something that they've had to deal with, it's something about them. It's not their spouse. And I have heard, you know, I've had women come who have cheated on their husbands and say to me I cheated on my husband, yet I love my husband. I don't want to divorce my husband. Why did I do it? And that's a whole other subject. But there was something within her that caused her to step out and to be unfaithful to her husband. It wasn't the man's fault. 

20:41
He had done nothing wrong and I think that, as someone who is in the husband situation, if we are believers and if we are committed to this relationship, right, we took this covenant in front of the Lord to say I will make this work. I will work because it's it's. I know it's easy to talk about it when you're in that situation. There's a lot of emotions, but this is what I think we need to do. What about the scenario of, for example, children and parents? Sometimes parents do things to that are. You know, the society and culture says it's unforgivable for parents, right? We hear this all the time. It's unforgivable to do this and vice versa. Even. You know, I've had parents come to me and say my child, who may be older, did this, this, this. How can I forgive them? Now, this is a whole other construct of a relationship, right, it's not a marriage. 

21:48
We're, we're related, my, my flesh and blood, right as a mother, my flesh and blood. How do we, how can we help that parent or child to get into the, into that journey of forgiveness? 

22:04 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
Yeah, you know that's a good question. I find some times that if I can help the person to establish what I call anchors meaning that if I ask this question, say it was Ruth. As a Ruth, was there ever a time in your life at any point that you did something to offend someone else? And let's anchor, let's establish that Tell me, at a time when you did something that you wished and prayed and begged and asked someone to forgive you, what were you hoping that they would do? And then most times is I wish and prayed and hope they would forgive me. Well, so you were in a situation where you were hoping to have, and now you have someone else in that situation and they're praying and hoping and wishing that you would do the same. What should you do at this point? 

22:57 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, always put. Yeah, I agree with you. You know, I think, in the heat of the moment, we, we are feeling that heat, that emotion. Right, that's hot emotion and it's hard to forgive. But when we put our ourselves in their shoes, we in and reverse it. 

23:18 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
We, we, we know what, what it is, what we have to do right, and that's what I think the Bible says we're clearly be angry and See not right. I said we swift to hear and slow to speak, so those are the things that guide us, and so we may have to step away for a moment and Recalibrate and get ourselves in a place so we don't act Emotionally right and that happens so quickly. It's it like I said, we can say it very easy here, but I say what is it? What's happening right now? It's also hard to be in that position, so hard is not the issue right. It's me wanting to do the right thing. And how do I get to that place? 

23:58 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Let's, let's change it up a little bit and say between friends, where it's a different type of relationship, right, it's Friends come it was, you know, and if we're realistic about it, we have friends, maybe from childhood, and the bond is there because childhood friends are different. But, you know, you make friends as you get older and you have, you know, different pockets of friends in your life. What time? Or and let me add into that church hurt as well, right, sometimes there are, there are, there are situations that people are hurt in the church setting, and Is there ever a time where we should just step away From a relationship and say, okay, I forgive you. I still think we need to forgive, right, because that is our responsibility. 

24:54
That's the base for me right but is there also a time to say I Need to take myself out of this relationship, of this friendship, out of this church, because it's toxic, whatever the situation is, and step out? Am I going against the Lord's will or is this something that is a way to maybe protect myself? 

25:20 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
Yeah, and so what I find sometimes there is I think it's very Like a subjective meaning that it depends on the situation, because sometimes God may want to use that very thing that we label, in whatever words we use, to label the situation of that person. Who's to say that God may not want to use that person to refine us at a church, to refine us to learn something that we may be resisting and fighting against? So I think it's we have to come to a place to make sure that number one, if I truly forgive, is a person or a church for a church hurt, that I'm not leaving because I still am Unforgiving of that situation. But having established that and recognize that you know for this the health of my, my family, myself, it would be better be someplace, as I think then that decision could be made. 

26:15
But I think I want to make sure that people hear this, that we just don't run away because it's easier, because God may want to use that still to refine and shape us. So I think we have to really pray through and ask God God, is this something that you want me to become, to know, to learn from? And if God gives us the release, then I think that we should wisely, right and I, can we not speak about extreme situation where your life is in danger? Of course you get a remove yourself from that, but I think in these moments we have to be careful we don't we're not running away because it seems easier, right? So I think it's really depends on how the person they're with God and what they feel God may want to do in their lives. 

27:05 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Which brings us to the point that if our relationship is a healthy relationship with the Holy Spirit and we are Intune and we hear him, then he will guide us in these difficult times. And you know, I'm I'm such an advocate To building those relationships. You know, not not a one-time prayer a day, not, you know, like a weekly thing, but really Going into the word of God, because he's that's. He's speaking to us through that. 

27:38
Yes and through prayer and giving time. And you know, the prayer has to be not one-sided, it's a two-sided prayer right. I need to. I need to sit silent, just like a conversation, sit silent and listen to what is being spoken back to me and what he wants from me and and it's I've. 

28:04
I have compared it to Muscle memory right when we work out your, your muscles remember right and they react to it. And that is what prayer is as well. The more you pray and the more you sit in silence with the Lord and listen to the Holy Spirit, you Refine those muscles, you refine that prayer life right. 

28:32
And I think it's I. I agree with you a hundred percent. Sometimes we stay in situations where others do not understand why we have stayed there. It's because the Holy Spirit, you know, this is what God wants from you. Yes, you know and and this is what you have heard from him to stay in there and yeah it. I think that Forgiveness is a difficult one and our culture says that. 

29:01
You know, forgiveness is not An option right and you know we're counter, you know culture in this one, in in this area, but and so it should be right as believers. We should be counter culture, definitely in many things in our lives and and we tend not to do, but I I think it is very important. The Bible talks about forgiveness from the beginning to the end and there's no reason for us to say that, as a believer, that I can't forgive this other person. 

29:43 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
And it's so true and you know Salamone mentioned this that I do say that I'm speaking about these things, not just my theoretical standpoint. You know, yes, I am a clinician but I've also experienced those very scenarios you've written. You know, I have to ask my son many years ago, when he was much younger, to forgive me of something that I had done. You know, shouted at him in the time where I hurt him. I had to, where I have experienced a friend who hurt me very deeply and I remained in that relationship. We amended it and became great friends afterwards because I forgave and God used that to refine some things in me. 

30:18
I have been mentioned about being sexually molested. I had to forgive my you know, my personal perpetrator, but God has used it also to help me, to use it as a message. So I guess I you know I'm not just speaking things about what I've worked with couples or work with people I too have had to learn how to forgive and it's the most liberating thing and freeing thing to you to move around in your life, recognize it, that you're not anchored or chained to those things and you live in the freedom of what Jesus said who the Son has said free is in free, indeed, you know. 

30:52 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah, and I can attest to that as well. 

30:55 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
Sure, you can. 

30:56 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
That it. You know there, I I really don't know too many people that have not either hurt someone or been hurt, and it is difficult, you know it. It it's just as difficult to ask for forgiveness as it is to forgive, but this is something that we, as believers, must do because it's part of our, our mandate, right? Our mandate is to forgive those and we, and if we're following and emulating the life of Christ, then who are we to say that we cannot forgive, after you know he forgave those that hurt him and put him on the cross, and I think it gives us a chance, like you just described, to really relate to some degree very small way to what Christ did for us, and I think God wants us to share in Christ's suffering. 

31:57 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
So this is one of the ways to share the things that he has done. When we choose to forgive and request forgiveness, I think we're also experiencing that life that he's come to give us. 

32:10 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Yeah Well, kingsley, I really appreciate you being here. I know this is a bigger subject, you know like a bit, but half an hour can cover. There are so many other aspects of it, but I really just wanted to to at least make the audience think about it, and we all struggle with some sort of unforgiveness in our lives. And thank you for your time and for your wisdom and your knowledge and to my friends that are listening. 

32:43
If you want to follow Kingsley on his social media, all the information will be in the show notes, and please share this episode with those around you. We all need some advice in this area, so I appreciate all of you being here and thank you again, kingsley. 

33:03 - Kingsley Grant (Guest)
You're welcome. Thank you too. 

33:05 - Ruth Hovsepian (Host)
Thank you.