Forgiveness and Freedom

Transcript

Jim 0:00

Hello and welcome to decide on Joy, a podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Jim Alt

Pjae 0:10

and my name is Reverend Dr. PJ Stanley. And welcome to decide on Joy.

Speaker 0:18

And today's episode is about forgiveness and freedom and forgiveness. Why does it matter? Yeah. Why is it important?

Pjae 0:30

It, that's, and that's a great question. Because if you. And there's so many things to forgive simply because of the stories that we tell about whatever is happening or whatever we believe is happening. And they just stack up and just weigh you down with feeling bad about people and about yourself, but other things. And it's weighing you down and it's on your mind, but I can guarantee it's not on the person's mind that you need to forgive or that there's, that the forgiveness is about that you feel like there's some forgiveness work there. Generally, it's about. Forgiving a slight or a wrong that you feel has been done to you and the other person that you that, that needs to happen with or for or whatever is very well unaware of the fact that you have this story that needs to be forgiven in your own mind and heart. But again, because it is in your own mind and heart, it's something that's weighing you down. And why? There's enough things going on in the world that we don't need to worry about. Something that we can just release anytime we want to and just be lighter in our lives and just have more love and just feeling better about life and what we're doing when we just let things go.

Speaker 1:41

Obviously there are times when the other person probably does know that they offended you. If they whacked you in the

Pjae 1:48

head

Speaker 1:48

and stole your bill folder,

Pjae 1:50

something, right? Is this

Speaker 1:51

Yes. Then yes. But they're not likely to care.

Pjae 1:54

But that was exactly what I was thinking when you said that. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:57

But

Pjae 1:58

they probably don't care,

Speaker 1:59

but certainly other people's stories may not include anything that they think needs forgiving.

Pjae 2:06

That's the problem, isn't it?

Speaker 2:07

And so you're taking it on yourself,

Pjae 2:09

so you're holding on and hanging on to something that you feel. S needs to be forgiven and the other person has gone on and maybe they did consider it at the beginning or knew something about it, but have completely gone out of their head. So why hang on to it. It's like you're saying, I'll let go of it as soon as they stop hitting me in the head or whatever. You know what I mean? And they could just stop hitting you in the head when you allow, when you say, I'm not gonna be hit in the head by this anymore, or in the heart, right?

Speaker 2:35

Are there techniques for accomplishing, letting it go?

Pjae 2:39

I actually think that forgiveness is one of the hardest things that we do. Because we feel like we've been harmed. We feel like we've been hurt, we feel like people don't care about us. That they would do something like this. And I'm reminded of what they say that Jesus said on the cross just before he died. And he said, forgive them father, for they know not what they do. It's always been an interesting thought that he said that because God already knows they don't know what they're doing. And if that's the case, then did he really say it because he wanted God to forgive them or because he needed himself to let it go? And I think that is an amazing thing if he was able to do it, hanging up there on the cross with these nails, that's a pretty big thing to forgive. So it. It helps me to understand if that can happen, then these little slice that I feel need to be forgiven aren't as difficult, and so it's just a matter of what we, of what everything is about a decision you make. Am I going to allow someone who I feel has hurt me to continue to hurt me because I won't let it go? That keeps it on your mind and heart. When you don't

Speaker 3:45

Are there

Pjae 3:46

Yeah.

Speaker 3:47

Practical things that you can do or,

Pjae 3:50

yeah. I, I really feel that it's a decision that you make. You, one of the things that I talk about a lot, and I really feel, and I try to do a lot myself, is reframe the story. Just tell the story differently. What could this have been about? So that. What, whatever you're upset about, is there another story that you can tell about, tell to yourself about it. So that's one thing. There, there are people who journal journaling. I'm not a journaler.

Speaker 4:17

Ignore me.

Pjae 4:17

Yeah, I've never been that. But there are people, I'm reading a book right now. Called Grace and Grit and this woman journaled about everything and her husband used those journals in the a book that he wrote about her life, and it's fascinating. The details that she talks about her life every day. And I just thought, wow, that is amazing. So for you who are journalists to journal about forgiveness and to say why you want it to happen. So I think that's number one is why do you want why would forgiveness be good for you?'cause it's not about the other person, whoever you're forgiving, it isn't about them. So that's the first thing. To understand that. So I think journaling or getting that in your mind is, why would I want to forgive them? What are what am I holding close to me that they are they're not responsible for, but I'm using them to hold that to my chest. So just thinking about either writing it down or starting to have conversations with yourself about how is this affecting my life? What am I in control of? That begins that conversation with yourself

Speaker 5:26

and I see here in a note, the idea of writing unsent letters of release.

Pjae 5:33

You could and a lot, and it starts off. It starts off, however it starts off, but generally when you write those letters, it starts off with you just saying all the things that you're upset about. Why why you, there's some forgiveness work to be done. So you could just write a letter to them that you, this is why it's unsent. So you write whatever you're thinking about, but there's something that happens when you write. You actually get clearer thoughts that you didn't know you had. Things that you were upset about comes out in your hand. As you write. There's a book called The Artist's Way, and Julia Cameron, I think is the one that is the author for that she talks about, and she doesn't call it journaling, but that's what it is. And it's just three pages. She just says, just start. Just wake up in the morning and just start writing whatever's on your mind. Just write for three pages, and it's just amazing. What comes out on the paper from your hand as opposed to you thinking about it. So that's a very powerful tool, just journaling and it doesn't have to be much, just let it go. Just not let the thing go, but just let your hand go. Yeah. That's a beautiful thing. That's a good questions for sure. Just with the power of you forgiving others, is that you've become free. You didn't even know that you were in jail. But it's so freeing on your heart and on your mind to let go of. It's like carrying a ball or a chain around your heart, around your leg and just dragging this thing around. And if you let it go, if you let, if you untied that chain or that ball that's around your leg. How much fear further would you go? How much fear would you feel? How much lighter would you feel? And so unforgiveness, things that need to be forgiven that tie you to someone else are like those chains. So if you could unwind them by journaling, by making a decision to do it, they don't have to be a part of this conversation. You don't need to talk with them. They don't even need to know. That you have a, there's a problem. Unless you're in a relationship with them and you feel that's, it's a necessary thing to do and that's fine. But we have a lot of things from years ago, from when we were kids things our parents did that some slights and hurts that we have.

Speaker 7:49

Sure yeah,

Pjae 7:49

yeah. That we can just let go that are binding our hearts.

Speaker 7:53

Yeah. Those. Those might be particularly difficult ones'cause they get you at an early age, And get embedded. But

Pjae 8:00

yeah, they do. They do. And the part of when you, as you are evolving and saying that you want your life to be a little bit different, those stories, those pictures of something that happened some years ago start coming up. Oh that's where that came from. And identifying where it comes from. It's not necessary, but if you do, if you can identify it, it's, it becomes easier to create a situation where you can let it go and just, and it's not, and I think part of the thing is that people think that if you forgive someone that has done something wrong, as far as you're concerned to you, you're condoning what they have done. But that's not what forgiveness does. It doesn't say what they did was okay, it says whatever happened, I'm no longer going to allow it to hold me back, to make me feel bad, to make my life heavy. That's the forgiveness is for you. It isn't for the other person.

Speaker 8:56

Right.

Pjae 8:57

And unless you're having to forgive yourself.

Speaker 9:02

Oh, there's another thing altogether.

Pjae 9:06

Exactly. And if someone else has done something. That has hurt you. You've probably done something that has hurt someone else, and if you're aware of it, it could be heavy on your heart. So again, there's forgiveness work that you can do for things you have done. You could, and we are harshest with ourselves. We, we really condemn ourselves a lot for things. Oh, you shouldn't have done this. You're so dumb, you're so stupid. Whatever. It's we have, we can forgive ourselves for saying stuff like that to ourselves. That holds us back. So there's a whole lot of things that can happen when you start looking at forgiveness work, forgiving yourself and others. I highly recommend it just one of those, one of those principles that we work on that leads us to having a lighter life a life where we can, we, we don't end up stacking up a lot of things we need to forgive once we understand the power of forgiveness. Then we start early on not even allowing that, I'm not gonna hold onto that. I can see where that's going.

Speaker 10:05

Oh, yes.

Pjae 10:06

Yes. So you cut it off at the past.

Speaker 10:10

Okay. We'll stop there for today and let you pursue a lighter life.

Pjae 10:18

Exactly.

Speaker 10:18

And we will see you next time. Thanks for joining us today.

Pjae 10:22

We'll be here.

10:24

Okay.