Letting Go of What Feels Unfair

Life is full of moments that feel deeply unfair — divorce, betrayal, unexpected loss, medical diagnoses and broken dreams. When something feels unfair, it can leave us angry, hurt, resentful, stuck, or spinning in “why me?”
 This episode explores how to process, heal, and release what feels unfair so we can move forward and rebuild lives filled with hope, purpose, and peace.

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This is a podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life. Now on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about a tough one.

We're gonna be talking about what to do when life feels unfair. And since this podcast is specifically designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life, this is something I feel like we can all relate to.

You didn't start over in the middle of your life because you chose to. You probably started over because something happened out of your control. And most of the time, that feels really unfair.

So how do we let go of that and move on and have happy, healthy, whole life? Because, I mean, let's be completely honest. Life brings us moments that are deeply unfair, whether it's divorce, betrayal, loss, a medical diagnosis, broken dreams.

Lots of things happen that are just that gut punch. And it can only be described as unfair. It can be described, I guess, as a lot of different things, but it feels wrong, unjust.

And sometimes it can leave us angry and hurt and resentful and stuck. And we keep asking, why me? So today, I wanna talk about that.

How do we process through that? How do we heal and release it? Which, don't get too excited.

There's no way we can do all of that in one episode. These are things that take time, but talking about them, exploring different aspects of them, is part of that process of healing.

So maybe you'll take one nugget away from today and say, okay, that makes sense. Letting go of a major thing that happened, it feels unfair, a major injustice is a journey. It's not a light switch.

So it won't be like, oh, I'm going to listen to this podcast and be all better when it's over. That's not the way it works. But talking about it, talking through it, what is the process looks like, that helps get us on a better path.

2:32

Name Your Unfairness

Okay. So that's what we're going to do today. So first things first, we need to name what feels unfair.

Okay, we can't release what we refuse to acknowledge. So big unfair moments like infidelity or divorce that we didn't choose. It could be the death of somebody we love.

It could be a devastating medical diagnosis or life altering event. Unfair doesn't always mean unjust, but sometimes life simply happens. I was in an auto accident.

I lost two fingers. It wasn't unjust. Nobody did something wrong to me, but it felt unfair, okay?

So sometimes it can be unjust, sometimes it cannot be unjust, but oftentimes all of it feels unfair, right? So when we've had these things happen to us, we can feel anger, we can feel grief, we can feel shock. Maybe sometimes we feel jealousy.

We feel this concept of this shouldn't be happening to me, right? But naming that experience and the way it makes us feel helps take some of the power out of it. What situation in your life still feels unfair when you think about it?

What emotion shows up first? Is it anger? Is it sadness?

Resentment? Confusion? Starting to name it and label it helps take it out of that swirl of emotion and put it down into something that feels concrete, tangible, manageable.

This isn't the fix, but it's the start. You have to name what it is that is unfair and how it made you feel. That's just kind of step one.

We can't release it until we name it.

4:46

Permission to Grieve

All right. Next, I want to give you permission to grieve. And in our culture, in our society, we really associate grieving with death.

And that's true. But grieving isn't just for death. You can grieve betrayal.

You can grieve broken expectations and lost dreams and the life you thought you were going to have. If you don't allow yourself to grieve, it leads to bitterness, emotional numbness, outburst over small things.

So you have all this emotion inside, and you're not letting it out, you're not grieving, and it comes out in the wrong places. It's like it leaks, right? And so you get really upset over something super minor.

When you take the time to grieve and healthy, you can feel anger safely. It's okay to be angry about what was unfair. It's not okay to be angry and yell at the cashier at the checkout.

Does that make sense? You can be angry safely, because it's okay to be angry about that. If you choose to acknowledge and grieve what you're angry about, sometimes it does.

It shows up in odd places. And cry, it allows you to cry without apology. If you say, I'm going to grieve this, crying is very cathartic.

It's okay in a healthy relationship with a close friend or trusted family member to tell the truth about how much it hurts. Not everybody is there to listen to that.

But when somebody is there to listen, it's okay to be honest about how much it hurts. I will tell you that I needed to grieve when I lost my fingers. But I didn't know this.

I was 16. I didn't go to counseling. Everybody told me I was handling it so well.

I got so many pats on the back for handling it really well. And I didn't cry about it. I didn't grieve it.

I didn't mourn the loss. But it was inside me. And I had a lot of emotion over it.

And so probably a year and a half, two years went by. I was in college, okay? So this happened before my senior year of high school that I had this accident, and I lost my fingers.

And so I was in college. And I remember being upset over something really dumb. It didn't matter.

And I got really angry. And I was just kind of sorting through all this stuff in my head, and I was feeling resentful. And I realized, you know, I never grieve the fact that I lost my fingers.

I never cried over it. I hadn't cried in probably two years. And I thought, I need to cry over this.

And I literally couldn't make myself cry. I just couldn't. I had so much that I just buried and pushed down that I wasn't able to release it.

It took time. I did, I was able to mourn that and grieve that. But grieving is healthy.

And that was such a small thing compared to other things I've been through. It was much easier to manage. It was less of a emotional personal attack.

It was just something that happened that felt unfair. But I needed to mourn the loss. It was part of my body.

I no longer have a thumb and an index finger. And it was frustrating. I would go to tie my shoes and I would get frustrated.

And that's actually what caused that moment where I realized I hadn't grieved the loss of my fingers. There was a guy that was flirted with me and he untied my shoes.

And it made me so mad because it was difficult for me to tie my shoes because I don't have a thumb and index finger on my left hand. But I was irrationally angry over a very simple thing that had happened. It wasn't a big infraction.

He had no clue why I went off and got that angry. But it was because I had never sorted out in my own mind the fact that I was sad about it. I was living this persona of, it's all okay.

And it is, I am at peace with it. But if you don't take the time to mourn and grieve something that felt extremely unfair, it's going to show up in weird places.

And that's such a tiny simple example, without that really big personal emotional attack. But how much it mattered for me to be able to sit down and work through those emotions.

And it was that night, I realized I was so angry, so upset, but I realized, I am angry over the fact that I lost my fingers. I'm not really necessarily angry at this person. How would they know how difficult it is for me to tie my shoes?

I am angry over the fact that I've lost my fingers. And I needed to grieve that and mourn that. And we have to grieve.

After my divorce, by then, trust me, I was really good at crying. I cried a lot, but I had to grieve and mourn the loss of the life. I thought I was going to have.

When I got divorced, I had to grieve and mourn what I thought things would look like. And take time to say, this isn't how my life is going to be, and it feels really unfair.

And I've got to mourn and grieve the passing of what I thought my life would look like. I think we brush past this process, but women especially are deeply emotional creatures. You can't change your nature.

You have these emotions, and we've just got to take time to sit with them, even if it's uncomfortable. We've got to take time to say, I want to grieve the loss of what I thought things were going to be.

I want to grieve the fact that this feels really unfair. How do you do that? Well, one way you could do that is you can journal.

You can begin with a phrase, it's not fair that, it's not fair that I lost my fingers. It's not fair that my husband cheated on me. It's not fair that somebody I love dearly died.

It's not fair. Start with that and just let it out, write it all down. Another way to process this is through prayer.

I told God so many times, all the different things I thought that were unfair.

And the more I brought it back to him, and the more I reflected on his true nature and his goodness and his word, what it says the promises of God are, the more I said, this is unfair, but I really reflected on the truth, the more I was able to come

to terms with what had happened. The more I was able to begin to get to a place where I could truly let it go. So prayer, I feel like, is also very, very helpful.

Of course, therapy, you can talk to a counselor, and they can help guide you through the process of grieving. There are also support groups. So there are divorce support groups, there are widow support groups.

I'm sure there are different support groups for different people with medical, different medical diagnoses. I haven't found a support group for eight-fingered people, but I'm sure somewhere is out there.

I think I'm okay today, but there are a surprising number of different support groups, and sometimes that is really helpful. And like I said, a therapist, therapy and counseling is easier now than it's ever been.

You don't even have to drive to somebody's office. You can talk to them on the phone, and your insurance covers it most of the time. Mental health has become such a priority.

Insurance will cover it, and you can sign up and chat with somebody over the phone or do like FaceTime or Zoom. Things like that make it super easy to fold it into your lifestyle. And a different busy schedule.

So counseling therapy is definitely a good option. And this sounds silly, but allow yourself to cry without judgment. Back when I was a teenager and I lost my fingers, I thought tears and crying were a weakness.

And I didn't want to be weak. I had to be strong. I had to show everybody that I was strong, that this didn't bother me, I was okay.

Allow yourself to cry. Allow yourself to shed tears over something being unfair without judgment. Don't judge yourself over this or that or the other.

I should have handled it this way. I should have done that. I'm being weak.

I'm not... Allow yourself to just be sad without judgment. That's actually a very cathartic and healing thing that you can do for yourself.

14:22

Let Go of Fairness

All right? After we've kind of named it, after we've kind of allowed ourself to grieve over the unfairness, next, how do we release the need to have fairness in our life, in this situation, right?

How do we release and let go of needing for things to be fair? Healing doesn't mean it was fair, okay? I need you to understand that.

Healing means that you refuse to be owned by it, okay? If it's still upsetting you, if you're still in knots over it in 10 years, it owns you. It owns a piece of your mind, your heart, your soul.

If you let go of the need for fairness, you get to release it and not let this horrible situation, whatever it was that happened, you don't allow it to own you. So let's be really clear about what releasing the need for fairness is and what it's not.

Releasing the need for fairness is not approving what happened. It was not okay that my ex-husband cheated on me.

I can release the need for fairness, I can grow, I can forgive, I can be healthy and whole, but that does not mean that I approve of what happened. I need you to hear that, okay?

So just because you move forward and you release the need for fairness doesn't mean that you approve of what happened, okay? It doesn't mean that you forget. You will always remember a very significant, major unfair event in your life.

There's no way that you will forget it. So releasing the need for fairness does not mean forgetting it. And it doesn't mean pretending that it doesn't hurt.

There will always be a sore spot there, just a little bit. You could have the wound heal up, the raw jagged edges finally heal, right? But every time you touch that spot, you feel it, right?

So it doesn't mean pretending that it doesn't hurt, because you will always carry that. It's just something that is now a piece of your story. What does it mean, though, to release?

We know what it doesn't mean. What does it mean? It means loosening the grip of resentment.

It means deciding to not carry this weight any further. It means choosing peace over the constant mental replay. That's what letting go means.

Now, I want you to understand, and we've talked about this before, and I should talk about it again, because it's such a big piece of starting over and rebuilding a life. Forgiveness is a process, it's not a moment, it's not a light switch.

So when something unfair has happened, and forgiveness is a piece of that process, it's a journey, and it's okay that it doesn't happen overnight. It's okay that it takes time to let it go.

I don't want you to set unrealistic expectations for yourself. I don't want you to get emotional and caught up in a moment and say, I forgive, and you feel so guilty tomorrow when you realize it still hurts. This is a process, this is a journey.

Letting go, forgiveness, it just takes time. One of the things you can do is let go of a why that may never get answered. I think when something's unfair, we ask the question why.

Why did that happen to me? Why? And letting go of why.

Letting go of that question that most likely you won't get an answer to. I will never know why I was in that auto accident and lost my fingers.

There's some things, if somebody betrays you, cheats on you, you might go down a rabbit hole and figure out the why, you may not. We've got to let that go. It's not going to help our mental health to hold on to why, to look for the why.

And I get that it's human nature. And if you are wondering, why did this happen to me? I want to reassure you that that's normal, that's natural, that is 100% human nature.

But you got to let it go. Because that answer probably will never come. And holding on to it isn't going to benefit you or help you.

All right? I also want maybe for you to look at this through a different lens. You know how when you change the lens on a camera, and you can do it on your phone, they have a lot of different filters and lenses that you can take pictures through.

So some pictures will focus on the background and kind of blur the foreground if you set it that way.

And then on the opposite end, some settings on the phone, the lens that you look through in the camera, will really focus, sharp focus on what's in front, like maybe people in an image, right?

And then the background, the trees, the whatever landscape is a little more blurred. So different settings, right? You can change the lens and it changes where your eye is drawn on the photo.

The photo can look drastically different just by the lens you use to take the picture, right? Well, let's maybe reframe and take a different lens when we look at this unfair issue. And what if releasing it is a way to bless your future self?

More than you honor your past pain. So we honor our past pain, and it's not a beautiful religious thing, okay? I know I'm using that word.

Sometimes, some of us, I know it has happened, make almost an idol out of our pain, and we honor it, and we subject so many things in our life to this point of pain.

Everything has to go through that, and we maybe sacrifice other relationships at the altar of the pain of what we endured in our past. And letting go of that past pain, I promise you'll bless your future self.

In five years, do you still want to be bitter and resentful over what happened? Or in five years, do you want to be happy, healthy, whole, and thriving? A lot of that depends on letting go of what feels unfair.

And it's just looking at it through this different lens. It's saying, have I made almost like an altar? Have I made an idol out of this thing that happened to me that was unfair?

Am I sacrificing things because this happened to me? And if I let it go, what would my future look like? Am I blessing my future self by letting this go now?

Just a thought exercise, something to think about, all right?

22:16

Reframing Your Story

Now, I want to talk about choosing what you carry forward. So we know we want to release things, right? We know we have to let go of what felt so unfair.

But you don't rebuild a beautiful and amazing life while your hands are full of resentment. We know that. So when you look at this situation, ask yourself, what lesson do I want to keep?

Maybe ask yourself, what identity or belief do I want to release? Maybe ask yourself, who am I becoming because of this? Okay, so if we take the thing that my ex has been cheated on me, what lesson do I want to keep from that?

I want to keep that I am a resilient, strong woman. I want to keep the lesson that, oh my word, negative things, unexpected things can happen to me. My world can blow up.

All the pieces can be tossed off the game table, and I can still pull it back together and make it work. Being strong and resilient is a lesson that I want to keep. I want to know that I am...

I know that now. Nobody can take that away from me. I have this deep confidence that no matter what happens, no matter what curve ball gets thrown at me in life, I'm going to be okay, because I've done it before.

I've done it a few times in my life, and I know without a doubt, by the grace and help of God, I will be able to handle anything that comes in my future, and that is the lesson that I want to take away from that.

Okay, continuing with that example, my ex has been cheated on me. What identity or belief do I want to release? What did I need to release from this unfair event?

I needed to release that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't worthy. That whole situation put on me this idea that I was unworthy and that I wasn't good enough, and I had to choose to release that.

I had to acknowledge it, I had to call it what it was, and I had to say no. And it took a long time, but that's what I chose to release from this situation.

I refused to hold on to the belief that I took hold of as a result of this situation, and the belief was I wasn't worthy, and I wasn't good enough. I let go of that. Who am I becoming because of this?

Well, like I said, it kind of goes back to the first one. I am becoming a very strong, confident person who can handle the curve balls and the different situations that life throws at me. And that is who I want to be.

I want to be strong. I want to be capable. I want to be confident.

I don't want to be some fainting flower that can't handle things. And now I have the confidence and the strength to know I can't. I can handle highly stressful situations.

I know that now. I can handle chaotic situations. I can handle traumatic situations.

I can handle gut deep emotional situations. And that gives me confidence, because life isn't always going to be rosy. I've built a pretty amazing life, and right now my life is really good, and I'm happy.

But I know that whatever life does throw at me, if it does have another curve ball or an unexpected event, I'll be able to navigate it. And I think I'll be able to navigate it pretty well. And that is the person I am becoming.

And I like that. I'm a person of more compassion, of more grace, of more confidence and strength. I have more compassion, because as I went through that, not everybody knew exactly what I was going through.

And now I have this compassion that somebody else may be dealing with something very significant that I'm unaware of. So empathy and compassion definitely rose up to a higher level than it had been before, all right?

I want you to maybe think about reframing what has happened. And instead of saying, this ruined everything, you know, he cheated on me, our life blew up, this ruined everything, this unfair event ruined everything.

Instead of saying that, I want you to maybe just change it a little bit and say, this unfair event changed everything. And now I get to choose what I build next.

Just sometimes wording matters, and rephrasing it from ruined everything to changed everything. When it changes, it was unexpected, it wasn't what you wanted, but you get to build an amazing life. It's not ruined.

And just that shift in the way you talk to yourself makes a difference, especially over time.

So, as you choose what you carry forward, as you choose what, I'm going to let go of this negative belief, but I'm going to carry forward this lesson as you're thinking about it. I want you to focus on growth.

I want you to focus on gratitude without denial. Hope is grounded in reality. So, we know that hope deferred makes the heart sick.

That is a scripture verse I quoted so much. Hope deferred does make the heart sick, right? So, let's not hope in things that are unrealistic.

I'm not going to hope in the fact that I'll win the lottery. That is not realistic. So, as you look at your life and what unfair situation happened, and as you rebuild, let's have hope but have realistic hope.

Hope in, I can get my finances on track. Hope in, I can change diet and exercise and become healthy. Hope in, I can work on gratitude and affirmations, and my mental health can shift to a more positive place.

Hope in God, because he's there for you, and he is faithful, all right? So hope grounded in reality, and gratitude without denial. I'm not asking you to pretend that what was unfair didn't happen.

I'm asking you to find gratitude in what surrounds you. Real things like, I remember after I moved me and my children into a new home, it was a much smaller home. It wasn't as nice of a home.

I was upset, all this stuff, you know, my life had been topsy-turvy. And I remember having to remind myself to be grateful that I had a home.

Every time it felt unfair that I moved from a nice home to not as nice of a home, I had to remind myself, be grateful that you have a home.

You don't have to deny that it is a much older, smaller house than what you had before, but you can be grateful you have a roof over your head for you and your kids. Because I kind of wondered where we were going to go. It was stressful.

You know, things look different, but the bills are paid. Things look so different, but we have food to eat. Find what you can be grateful for.

Don't deny what's going on. Don't pretend. I'm not asking you to pretend that that didn't happen.

But what can you be grateful for that is happening?

29:55

Practical Release Steps

All right? So, as we close, let's just come up with a few things that maybe you could do this week. Please, by no means do them all.

No, that's not it. But maybe one of these will resonate with you and help you in the process of letting go. So, the first thing I would suggest is write a letter you never send.

I've written hundreds of these over my life. It's very cathartic to write a letter that you don't send. You let your emotions out.

You can say what you think. It is helpful and healing. It's not a light switch, but it is helpful.

Maybe say it out loud. If you're home alone or in the car by yourself, say out loud, it is unfair this happened, but I am choosing peace. Say it out loud.

Let your ears hear, it was unfair, but this is what I choose. I choose a path of peace. I choose a path of health and wholeness.

But say it out loud, it's okay to say, it is unfair this happened, but this is what I choose. Maybe create a ritual of release. So write the letter out, and I mean hand write it out.

Write a letter to somebody that you're never going to send, and then tear the paper up. Maybe that would be your ritual, is tearing the letter up.

Maybe you journal about it, and you write all about it, it's unfair that, blah, blah, blah, and you really just pour it all out, and then when you close the journal, that's your ritual of release.

Maybe you speak it out loud, and then you go for a walk, and the walk is the kind of ritual of release. But if whatever it is, and it can be very different for different people.

But once you find it, and you're like, that felt like a release, like tearing up the paper or just firmly closing your journal or going for a walk, whatever it is, once you realize, I felt a little bit of release when I did that, do it again,

reinforce that. If that is what works for you, keep doing that, okay? I definitely always encourage you to pray about the situation and surrender control. I don't know how many times I prayed about some big situations like that.

And I surrender control, and the next day I picked it right back up. Once again, just like forgiveness, letting go, surrendering control is a process. Don't feel guilty.

If you lay it all down before God, I surrender control God, I trust you, I let it go, I lay it down, and then you pick it up the next day. Sometimes we have to lay something down before God many, many times.

But each time, it gets a little bit easier to lay it down. And before you know it, over time, you don't pick it back up.

So don't feel bad or beat yourself up if you pick it back up again, if you surrender control and you lay it down, and then you find that you're worrying about it again or you're upset about it again. Just keep going back to laying it back down.

I promise, over time, before you know it, or maybe it might be a longer process than that, but eventually, one day, you lay it down and you don't pick it back up.

The practice of continual surrender is necessary, I think, in letting go of these things that are unfair. Letting go of what feels unfair is not weakness, I promise you.

It may come across, and there could be certain segments of our society that would view it as weak, but I promise you, it is strength. It takes a lot more strength to let something go that is deeply hurtful and unfair.

It's way easier to hold on to bitterness, I promise you. It is strength to let it go. It's choosing not to let injustice or heartbreak define the rest of your story.

You deserve peace, you deserve forward motion, you deserve a future that isn't chained to what hurt you. Okay? You may not have chosen what happened, but you do get to choose what happens next.

I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear how you're letting go. And it's a journey, it's a process.

But what helped you let go? You can find me online, www.workingonamazing.com. You can also find me on social media.

I hang out on Facebook the most. It's just a page, Working on Amazing. You can send me a message, a DM.

Let me know what you're doing to let go. I would love, love, love to hear from you. Thank you so much for joining me today.

I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.