How Do You Forgive The Unforgiveable?

What happens when the person you trusted most becomes the source of your deepest wounds?

In this unforgettable and profoundly personal episode of Friday Feelings, Jenelle sits down with her mother for a raw conversation about what it means to forgive the unforgivable. With courage, clarity, and compassion, they unravel a story marked by betrayal, generational trauma, and the long road to emotional liberation.

This is more than a story of survival, it’s a blueprint for healing.

Together, they talk through what Emotional Intelligence really looks like when the stakes are soul-deep: not the polished kind you read in a leadership book, but the kind forged in the fires of heartbreak, injustice, and loss. And yet, what emerges is not bitterness, but beauty.

💔 From infidelity and financial deception to devastating truths that emerged years later, Jenelle’s mother shares how she walked through a season of unimaginable pain…and made a decision not to let that pain define her future.

This episode is a masterclass in emotional courage, self-awareness, and the true meaning of self-management when triggered. It invites you into the hard truth: forgiveness is not weakness, it’s emotional mastery.

💡 In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• Why forgiveness is not the same as forgetting, condoning, or reconciling
• How rage and heartbreak physically manifest in the body and how to listen to those signals
• The difference between numbing emotions and navigating them with EQ
• What it means to actively forgive someone who continues to cause harm
• How to know if you’re still holding on to pain by asking: “Do I still need or  something from this person?”
• The power of choosing peace over retribution, because forgiveness isn’t for them, it’s for you
• Practical steps to begin your own forgiveness process no matter how fresh or how old the wound

“Forgiveness doesn’t change the past. But it frees your future.”

Whether you’re spiritual, religious, or not at all, this episode speaks to the universal human experience of being hurt… and the extraordinary resilience it takes to let go.

If you’ve ever whispered to yourself, I don’t know if I can move on from this - this episode is your invitation to believe that you can.

🎧 Tune in now, and take the first step toward forgiving, and purposely living in peace and redemption.

🔗 Linked Resources from This Episode

Forgiveness isn’t forgetting. It’s choosing to stop carrying what was never yours to hold. These tools, books, and resources support the journey of processing pain, reclaiming your peace, and healing from the inside out.

📖 Books & Foundational Teachings

• The Book of Forgiving by Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu: https://amzn.to/4cCPhoZ
• Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa TerKeurst: https://amzn.to/42ChW9h
• Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping: https://amzn.to/42GbIFz

🧠 EQ + Healing Tools

• I AM Statements for Healing
  Create personal, powerful truths to combat shame, rewrite self-worth, and take back your identity.
  ➤ Try: I am healing. I am worthy of peace. I am no longer a prisoner of what hurt me.
  ➤ Need help writing your own? Download a free I AM Starter Pack (coming soon—want me to build this for you?)
• Journaling Prompt (from the episode)
  ➤ What does forgiveness look like to me—not for them, but for me?
  ➤ What burden am I still carrying, and what would it feel like to set it down—even if they never say sorry?

🔊 Faith & Emotional Healing

• Scriptures for Emotional Release & Forgiveness
  ➤ Ephesians 4:31-32 –

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Friday Feelings, where we turn emotions into power, vulnerability into strength, and remind you to feel everything, fear nothing, and transform your life. I'm your host, Janelle Friday, and this episode is a very amazing, difficult, emotional, um, and somewhat of a spiritual podcast episode. So I'm gonna give you some context and warning before you get into this episode that we're talking about some complex issues that could be emotionally sensitive for listeners. So I just want to give that caveat before we dive in. Today we are talking about how do you forgive the unforgivable? And we are graced uh with my mom today, Kathy Swanland. Um, mom, thank you so much for being here and being willing to be vulnerable and talk about um some trauma that has affected all of us. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, absolutely. Well, um, you know, as we as we talk about forgiveness, I think it's one of those things that whether you're religious or spiritual or not at all, um, forgiveness is something that every human being on the planet has to face at some point in their life. True. And we've all been hurt. True. Yeah. So first of all, I'm gonna say that forgiveness isn't easy. We know that, but it is emotionally intelligent. And so um, we are here to talk about forgiveness, that it's not a weakness, it's actually emotional mastery. So, mom, um, can you lay the say uh set the stage for what we're talking about today?

SPEAKER_01: 1:39

Yeah. So I was in a long-term marriage with your dad, uh, ended up being 26 years at the at the end. Um, and uh there was difficulty with your dad having a problem with honesty, and uh that was created a toxic environment in our marriage. But after about the 24th year of marriage, I found out that your dad was uh well, I'll use the word cavorting. Uh, your dad was having um a more an unreasonable and an unhealthy relationship with uh one particular teenage girl that I knew about specifically. And I had the information confirmed through um an innocent walk looking for a pencil, actually, and opening up his briefcase to find all kinds of material that supported and confirmed that he was having this relationship with a teenage girl. And so that was the beginning of me realizing that um that the betrayal was more than I was willing to live with, especially because it was with a man who could not be honest.

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

Yeah, and you know, for those of you that do not know my story, um, this occurred what year was that, mom? 2022 or 2020?

unknown: 3:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:21

Right around 2002. Yes. We're now in 2024, so we're a little over 20 years, and it was in 2020 that the truth about dad being a pedophile um who molested myself, and um, there are other women in the family who have had similar experiences. So that was, I feel like the divorce was kind of a chapter of a much larger story.

SPEAKER_01: 3:50

Yes, because we at the time that the divorce happened, we had none of us had any idea that there had been other issues with children, even in our own family, that had been happening. It that had not come to the surface.

SPEAKER_00: 4:08

Yeah. So in plain talk, would we say that that's an unforgivable sin?

SPEAKER_01: 4:15

Well, you know, I would think for a lot of people, it is an unforgivable sin. And uh, I think the betrayal is um it's it cuts deep and it it cuts deep because it was like the final betrayal. And when you hang on and you hang on and you want to have, you know, the best of intentions of believing, you know, that that uh if if you if you are honest and you are open and you are communicative and you are hopeful that somehow this spouse who has a problem that started before you has occurred and continued with you, uh, is somehow going to find its way to come to a completion to a point where the relationship could go from toxic to somehow acceptable. I won't even say healthy, but acceptable. Um, and so I think that there's a lot of us as women, and and I and I came to the place to to to go through a a post-divorce uh support group of sorts to find out that there were so many women who were of the same uh had the same issues as I did, um betrayal of all kinds uh from men. And so, and and there were men there as well. So, I mean, of course, it's it is multiple exactly, exactly. But I did realize that that as women, because we're nurturers, because we, you know, look to our family as as being sacred a lot of times, um, and our children, and knowing that um there's that knowing that if if I move forward with this, I am the one who stands at the place to rip the family apart. You see it as that. If if I am the um the petitioner of the divorce, I am basically stepping out to say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna drag my children through the mud to get rid of their dad from my life, not knowing what it would do as far as your relationship with your dad. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I I think that's I think that's a difficulty because we want to hang on, we want to give it everything we've got, we want to keep the family together, we want our children to have, you know, the the advantages of of parents that we believe at least have the best intentions for our children. I I mean at that point I did not know all of the other stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 6:40

So um walk me through the emotions, right? Because we focus on emotions on Friday feelings, right? And the acceptance that emotions are normal, that emotions, deep-seated emotions like rage, like hate, like right, stress, incredulousness, horror, um, are real that we all feel. So can you help us understand the emotions, not just from the point that you were feeling, but what was happening to your body in those moments as well? Because we talk a lot about mind-body connection. And I think it's important to identify that if you can't name the emotions you're feeling, it's really difficult to move forward. And oftentimes our bodies give us indicators of those feelings.

SPEAKER_01: 7:26

Right. So the the stress was incredible. So what happened was I uh, because of the nature of your in dad, your dad's employment, um, and I was on the backside trying to keep all of the financial mechanisms for our home and our family together, I had to take several months to put together a financial picture that that separated me from his business and all of his finances so that when I moved forward with the divorce, I would not be dragging along this uh litany of debt and and and all of the other financial issues that were part of your dad's the way your dad did his business. So it took me a long time to prepare to uh come to the place to realize that, okay, I'm now at a place where I can actually make the move to separate and and divorce him. So over those months, knowing that, you know, I I've been betrayed in in every area of our life, and the the final straw, of course, was the intimacy. Um, and so I had already become so numb to my own feelings because of wanting to protect my children, my three children, and you know, wanting to believe that I was a strong enough person that, you know, I would be able to manage the aftermath of that uh fallout, whatever that was, and just you know, take it as it was gonna come. Uh, I think, I think the anger and the the fear, because there's fear doing that, fear of what's gonna happen to the kids and how are the kids gonna take it. So there were so many things at that time going through my my brain and body connection that I was disconnected. I was completely disconnected. And I would say, yes, I was angry. I hated your dad for what he was doing to our family. But I had also these blinders on that I think moms get where when there's an emergency and it involves your children, you have you have these blinders, and all you're focused on is what do I need to do so that my children can be transported through this process of whatever it is, whether it's a you know, it's an emergency, it's an accident, it's a it's a an out a boo-boo, it's you know, falling off the ladder, or um we we we close everything in. And so all we see is what's ahead, what's directly ahead concerning our children. And we really do, well, at least I do, um, I set aside all of my own emotions because I can't deal with all of those right now. I want my children to know that I'm there to be strong with them, to support them. So all of that closed in on me through those months that I was preparing to actually deliver the news to your dad. And so I had close, very close friends who um, and I and I will say the timing of this was also difficult because I my uh your brother, my middle child was in his senior year at high school, and I did not want to taint his graduation. It all happened like around February, was graduating in May. And so I was trying to hold on until after the graduation. But I had some very close friends who called it, called the question and said, you you can't do this anymore, because my whole being was being so negatively affected that the people who loved me and who who wanted my best were the ones who saw what was going on. They could tell that the rot that was starting within me was aching out in different ways at different places with different people, just just the way I was was starting to give them an indication that, you know, you're you're coming close to so let's can you can you give some specifics to help them understand? Well, you know, I'm a pretty light-hearted, happy person most of the time. Um, and that was so stressful that I I found myself having to spend so much in an ordinate amount of time preparing to deliver the news that I really was, I became isolated. I think it was isolating a little bit. I wasn't returning calls, I wasn't engaging with my friendships. I was, you know, probably a little bit shorter than I normally was. I wasn't um uh I wasn't coming alongside of anybody else, which would normally be the kind of person that I am, or you know, it's my gift to serve, and you know, definitely not having anybody over to our home. And what was happening in your body? So I wasn't sleeping. So you can you can tell. Um when you're not sleeping, you you're you're sliding down a slippery slope of all kinds of illness, of you know, uh it uh physical issues, skin issues, of um, you know, not just the bags under the eyes, but you can tell you either you gain weight usually, you lose weight. Um did you find moments that were difficult to breathe because of the emotions that were overwhelming? When when I finally came to the place, not at the point where I was uh where I was preparing, after the the point of delivery was where it would come to that, where I would be, you know, my my safe space to fall apart is in my car. And so, you know, that's that's where those kinds of things would happen where I would feel like I could just scream or I could, you know, drive to the water, to the beach, to the lake, wherever, uh, you know, to the to the pier, and um, you know, have those moments of release. But it wasn't until after the news had been delivered. And most of that, I think, was at the at that point, I was so done with all of the garbage that was part of the relationship that it was really the release of knowing that now I have to turn my sights towards you kids and and try and understand how I can um be in the moment with you kids, but still protective as a mom and not saying too much, and not wanting to, you know, I didn't want you to hate your dad, even though I hated him. Uh, I didn't want to involve you in any kind of a ping-pong battle between us that, you know, um would pit you against him at all. So then there's the concern of being overly careful of every word you say and of who's listening and all of what goes along with it.

SPEAKER_00: 14:16

Yeah. So um one of the reasons we're recording this episode now is because Good Friday is coming, Easter's coming. And whether you're religious or not, um, I think redemption is a good word to use for this idea of forgiving the unforgivable. So you had a moment in your car that I remember you sharing with me. Um, could could you talk about that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:41

I was outside Marshall's growth uh store, uh department store, and I don't remember uh if I had talked to somebody, but I remember sitting there. Um, and this would have been oh, probably months after um, because it was summertime, I it was warm, the windows were down, and I I realized that I finally came to the place where I didn't want to spend any more time chewing over all of what had happened, all of the past uh, you know, wrongs and hurts and betrayals that were just poison to me. And so I realized that I came to the place to not want anything from your dad, and I didn't need anything from him either. And so when I'm sitting in my car and I'm thinking, wow, I think actually I might be able to let this go and just allow myself the privilege of healing because I don't need him in my life, I don't have to have him in my life, and he offers me nothing anymore that is is going to add anything to my life. So I would say when I came to the place where I didn't want or need anything from him, then the door was open for me to say I can forgive him because it didn't matter to me if there was retribution. I'm not I'm not that kind of a person anyway. And I really believed that his retribution was gonna come more effectively from Almighty, the Almighty, than it was ever gonna come from me. I was just dragging around this cart full of toxins and poisons that was constantly spilling all over me.

SPEAKER_00: 16:36

Yeah, yeah. And I I think too, um, a lot of people have a different version of what forgiveness means. So maybe we can talk about what forgiveness doesn't mean. Forgiveness doesn't mean forgiving and forgetting, right? Um, there's no forgetting. Forgiving doesn't make the actions of what he did right. Correct. So we're not validating someone by forgiving them, right? And forgiveness does not obligate you to a relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 17:09

No, forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself to take yourself off of the of the merry-go-round that you are on, the toxic ride that continues to come around and it ends up slapping you in the butt. It ends up, you know, blinding you, it ends up hurting you. And so forgiveness is stepping off the merry-go-round to say, I'm done. I don't need it anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 17:37

So then what happens when you're triggered? When you have to deal with him because of the remember the credit card issue that happened that we had to talk about, right? It's after the fact and you're having to face that individual head on.

SPEAKER_01: 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:52

Um, that's a triggering moment, right? So you can go back and wallow in the anger and the hatred and feel all those feelings again, right? So, in those moments when you were triggered, what's happening in your brain to keep yourself level and reminding yourself that you've forgiven and you've moved forward?

SPEAKER_01: 18:14

Well, in that case, because he did not, he did, he was not honorable with uh, and what happened there was there was a one credit card that had not been used that I thought was shut down and it was not, and he picked it back up and he started using that. Um, and so I was connected to that. And so, of course, you know, he wasn't making the payments, and so they were coming to garnish my wages.

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

And remember, you called me freaked out.

SPEAKER_01: 18:39

I did, and I I did not have any relationship with your dad um after that that was anything but the nature of what he did needed for you. Kids, transactional, just very transactional. And um, so when that happened, no, it was it it was definitely a trigger to me again, because then it is a threat that he is now taking from me to uh to to affect my life in a negative way so that I could no longer potentially provide for myself, provide for you kids. Um, I still had two at home. Um and so that was a that was a fear marker for me. And that was a fear marker for me. And and I had to I had to go through the process again after that was was done, after it had, you know, come to light.

SPEAKER_00: 19:33

I think you And I'm flexing a little bit here, folks. I came in and basically I told my dad that if he did not make it right, that there would be drastic consequences for his business, uh, and he took care of it. So side note here.

SPEAKER_01: 19:46

Yeah, yeah. Um and so then I go through the process again. You know, that's that process of I don't need anything from him, I don't want anything from him, and I don't, I'm not looking for retribution, I'm not wishing upon him negative because as I do that, I'm dragging my children back into all of that again. So I also saw that process as being not just freeing for me, and it allowed the healing process to begin, but it was also holding my children out of that terrible toxic waste that I had carried with me that now has been dumped. I don't want you to be in a position as a as my child to be dragged back into that by constantly bringing that up or having that as part of my life anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 20:37

Yeah. So as we get into, as we've been in this topic of forgiveness, right? There's gonna be listeners listening to this that they didn't get to cut that person out of their life. Maybe that person is co-parenting, maybe that person is a family member that they have to see at holidays, right? How do you address forgiveness with an individual who's hurt you and continues to hurt you, whether that's on purpose or not? It's active forgiveness.

SPEAKER_01: 21:05

So, I mean, the hurt is a choice that you receive. If if I if I'm being hurt by someone, then I have to stop and ask, why is this hurting me? And then that goes to the question: Do I need something from this person? Is it hurting me because I need something else? Is it hurting me because I want something else? If I'm constantly asking myself, why am I hurt by this person that I have forgiven, that I don't want anything from or need anything from? Can I be a respectful adult knowing this is the father of my children? Now, and and I have to tell you, I mean, I so I've had a few, I've I've had some um, you know, interactions with him over things with you mostly, um, you know, medical issues and that sort of thing. And when I look at him, what I see is I want my children to have. The opportunity for a relationship with their dad that is not overshadowed by a mom who is holding this, you know, bully stick or you know, some kind of a uh weaponized. I didn't want the weaponization of that relationship to be unduly um thrust upon you. So what what he was gonna do from his side, you know, that that was a given anyway. I mean, it's the kind of person that he is. So then I have to ask myself too. The other question is okay, if I know this person and I lived with him for 26 years, fine. So I know what he is capable and what he's not capable of. So if I am looking at him and I'm thinking that I want to see something that I know he's uncapable of, but I'm asking, I'm thinking in my mind he should be able to do this, but I know in my heart that the experience I've had tells me he can't, then I'm the one who has unrealistic expectations. I'm the one who's expecting something that he's already shown me he's incapable of giving, incapable of producing, and capable of so that has to then come back to me. I have to be able to swallow and live in the truth of what is, what do I know is? And then after the divorce, as he makes his bed and he has to lay in his bed, then I am there freely able to comfort those who are hurt by that, freely able to come alongside and walk down that that road of difficulty because I know that if I live in the truth and if I am truly at a place of forgiveness, I have something to give.

SPEAKER_00: 23:42

That's so profound. And I mean, I think when I think about that, right, there's um there's a conversation I have with someone in my life on a regular basis, and there's hurt there because there's a relationship that they can't get out of. The um the relationship is very toxic. And my question to this individual is usually, what do you know to be true about this individual? Because I think it speaks to what you're talking about, which are unu expectations. We talk a lot about expectations, uncommunicated expectations, very clear and level expectations. And a lot of the time, emotional triggers force you to ask you the question, why am I triggered? Why is this emotion happening right now? Is this emotion relevant to the circumstances that I'm in? Am I being triggered because of the behavior or the words that someone's using? And it's triggering me because, oh, excuse me. That's what you get for live recording. Um, is this trigger coming from a different place? And I think this is also it ties directly in with my emotional triggers throughout my teens and 20s that I couldn't explain, couldn't put words to, couldn't grasp where all of that was coming from. And now that we know the truth, it absolutely makes sense, right? So active forgiveness is when you're in the middle of that circumstance and this person is hurting you, you're you what you're saying is in that moment to ask, what do I know to be true about this person? Are they rational? Are they level-headed? Are they remorseful? Are they aware that they're hurting you? Sometimes we hurt each other without realizing that we're doing so, right? So, so to to kind of bring this to a point where we say, okay, so we've kind of identified what forgiveness is not, we've identified that forgiveness is an active choice because we can wallow, right? We can relive those experiences. If you've been deeply wounded by someone that you love and you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed, it's easy to go back to those memories and sit in those emotions and be angry. Because sometimes, and I'll and I'll tell you this, um, it feels good to be angry. Well, it's an empowering emotion, right? So it so I remember when all of this went down and the divorce happened. I was living and sitting in that anger, angry for you, angry about the lies that we're being told, angry about the way that he was handling the whole circumstances, and just completely incredulous that this was happening in our family. And it took me a long time to let the anger go because it was so much easier to stay angry than it is to forgive.

SPEAKER_01: 26:34

Well, and justifiable anger is still toxic if it if it comes from a place that you dwell on it for the purpose of empowering you to have something over the other person. And that is never going to be healthy. Right. And so, I mean, I and I had betrayal from my own mother too. And so in that relationship, I had to always ask myself, is she, is she doing this on purpose? Does she, does she know what she's doing? And I had a, I had to have a kind of a come to Jesus moment with her to ask her, do, do you realize what it means to me when you say this or when you do this? And so having that conversation allowed me to to come close to uh to understanding more about her, what she saw, what she heard, how she reacted, so that then I could ask myself, when it happens again and again, okay, who is this person? What do I know is true? She's told me what's true. I why why would I want to go back into carrying my toxic waste with me? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean the relationship then is more important with someone who isn't aware, who, you know, who is uh who's wanting to be in a healthier relationship, but is has their own limitations. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:56

I mean, and I think that speaks to, again, when you have someone in your life who is hurting you that you love, and to your point, you are able to come to the table with grandma and say, are you aware that this is how this is coming across? That's a that's confrontation, that's difficult conversation, that's managing a difficult person. And conflict is something that I think most people shy away from. And so part of healing through forgiveness sometimes requires a difficult conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 28:25

It does. And it and for me, it has to come from a place where you've dealt with the hurt and you're looking for, you are looking for some restoration. You're looking for, let's let's come to a place so we can be at peace with one another because the relationship is much more important than the the differences or the difficulties that may or may not be um intentional.

SPEAKER_00: 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:48

And so, you know, I think there's that question that's always asked too. Um, you know, with your dad, there was no relationship. That was my choice. Yeah. Uh, and I made that choice for multiple reasons.

SPEAKER_00: 29:01

Yeah. Um I did as well. Yeah. You know, having to make the decision when the truth came out in 2020, ultimately trying to find peace, trying to understand what recon reconciliation could look like, um, putting out that olive branch to say there is a starting point, but these are my requirements for that starting point. When he stayed silent and then ultimately denied everything, it was a very clear, okay, then I'm done. Because you had shared kind of at that night that we were playing pinnacle with Karen, um, that your statement of, I don't need anything from you and I don't want anything from you. And that was your way of coming to peace because, right, self-management is one of those skills in emotional intelligence. And this is a self-management skill that says, you no longer get to control how I feel or show up in the world. And and all of those emotions that are tied to unforgiveness are a form of control. They have control over you. Um, your thoughts can manipulate your emotions. We already know that. And so um, I'm curious, you know, you talk about screaming in your car. Were there any other types of ways that you released those emotions?

SPEAKER_01: 30:18

Well, I'm a praying woman. So, yes, I mean, I I did pray a lot and I understood the power of learning to pray and connect with Almighty God. Um, I didn't really share a lot with other people at that point because I felt like there was a community awareness of some of your dad's the businesses that he had in the community. And so I wanted to be very careful um not to um to be the person who, you know, would be like gossip or, you know, to to slander him in any way. Um I didn't need to have that. And and really, I mean, when you come down to the whole thing of forgiveness and and to the other person, we have choices. We always have choices. And sometimes it's helpful um to be able to find people that you trust to say, hey, I, you know, I don't know what my choices are in this circumstance. And could you help me, could you help me think outside the box because you know, we become so closed in? Can you help me think outside the box? Help me understand what are my choices in this relationship? Like that because I want to be able to take back some of that choice to be a person who can say, yes, I overcame that not by myself, but because I had trusted people around me, because you know, uh, because I have a God who loves me and provides for me. But I think that the choice of seeing that I I can make the choice to step out. It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be scary, but then I have to ask myself, what is the value? What's my end game here? My end game is to continue to be a healthy mother, a healthier grandmother, a healthy part of my society, a healthy friend that engages in lifelong relationships that are not tainted by the anger and the toxic waste that that relationship had me carrying behind me. So if I'm looking forward, I'm wanting the best for my children in spite of, yeah, in spite of knowing that I was the one who opened the door for that, for the divorce to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 32:46

Um, so let's talk about today, right? You went through this um process of forgiveness and healing in the mid-2000s. Okay. So now when you look at your life and someone hurts you and you have to deal with forgiveness, what do you think has what do you think are the direct impacts to how you handle forgiveness today that are a direct result of the circumstance with dad?

SPEAKER_01: 33:12

So I think that so much of our emotional health we can see as muscle development. And so I see forgiveness as also being muscle development. It's emotional muscle development. And so the more that I came to the place to understand the power of forgiveness for me and for those who were connected to me, then I'm not gonna say it's easy, but it was easy, it's become easier because if I'm connected to someone and I know who they are, then I have a place to be able to say, well, maybe they're not aware, or like let's take grandma. Maybe they're not aware that that this is a trigger or this is a, you know, this is a hardship to me, or this is offensive to me. And the relationship's important enough that I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, hey, can we have a difficult conversation? Um, so I think strengthening those emotional muscles make it possible to have it not be so fearful. Like I'm not racked with fear anymore when it comes to the issue of forgiveness. Is it difficult? Sometimes it is difficult, yeah, but it doesn't it doesn't cause me to become um closed in and shut off from the world. Isolated. Not at all. Yeah, not at all.

SPEAKER_00: 34:24

Um, you know, we talk about relationship management. It's not just about how we interact with others, it's how we nurture our internal dialogue because forgiveness can transform our self-talk from I'm still hurt to I've reclaimed my peace. And so, mom, for anyone who's listening today who is resonating with you, empathizing with you, and in the middle of their own place of unforgiveness or struggling to forgive very deep, potentially long-term wounds, um, what's a practical piece of advice or a takeaway that you would want to share?

SPEAKER_01: 34:58

So I I mean, the first I would have to go back to the first thing that I realized is to ask myself, if I'm having trouble forgiving, for me, that means I want something or I need something from this person. What is that? It is it is an instantaneous message to me to stop, let the world go by, and make my stand right now to decide if this relationship is important to me, what do I want? What do I need? And how do how can I communicate that in a in a loving, um, unthreatening way? If it's a relationship like what I had had had with someone who's who's uh not going to be in my life anymore, then I have to ask myself, even though I'm so angry and maybe hurt, um, horrified, deceived, you know, whatever, all those things, if I'm feeling, if I'm feeling that way still, if I'm hurt or if I'm offended, or if I feel like I can't forgive them, I have to ask myself the tough question.

SPEAKER_00: 36:09

So then I would say I talk a lot about getting out of your head that that change, real change, doesn't happen in your brain. Sometimes we need a visual stimulus, and sometimes we need a reminder. Um, and so my question for you listening is what emotion or pain are you still carrying that maybe asking for a release? And maybe an actionable challenge could be that you write down the name of that person or situation. Um, and then you say aloud when you think about that person, you no longer get to steal my peace. I am reclaiming it. And and really what I want to leave our listeners with is a statement that's very clear and I think speaks to the heart of what we've said today, which is forgiveness doesn't change the past, but it frees your future.

SPEAKER_01: 36:56

Amen. Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 36:58

So um, mom, I'm I'm beyond grateful um because I knew that this could potentially be a difficult thing to record. Um, and and you and I have worked on our relationship throughout the years that kind of were um fueled through dad circumstances. Um, but I but I am so grateful to have you as an example on on forgiveness specifically, because it's such a hard topic, I think, for a lot of people, because some of us, most of us don't really know where to start. We've never really been taught anything other than, oh yeah, just read your Bible and pray, or you just need to let it go. Don't make me sing uh Elsa Frozen. But there's that approach of like, you know what, just you're gonna eventually get over it, you're gonna move forward, you're gonna stop thinking about it. And when trauma or wounds are so deep, scarred, you were I'm I'm scarred for life. I know I am, but I've allowed that scar to heal and I don't keep reopening it, re-ripping it open. But that's because I had people in my life and I've I've learned through EQ how to do that. And I think there are a lot of people still out there that have no idea. And so from my heart to one woman to another, from a child to a parent, from a human being to a human being, having living examples of you talking about forgiveness in a very tumultuous circumstance where it feels like that would be unforgivable is hope. It's hope for others, it's encouraging for others. Um, and so I'm very grateful for your time.

SPEAKER_01: 38:35

You're welcome, honey. Well, I so my last thing I would say is the phrase should not be forgive and forget. No, the phrase should be forgive and live. I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 38:46

Yeah. So if you're listening today, I'm gonna encourage you to forgive and live. And um, as we wrap today, like I always say, to be inspired to feel deeply. And if those feelings are feelings of rage and of hate and of anger and of sorrow and grief and pain, you have to feel them to get through them. You can't ignore them, you cannot bury them. They are still going to remain no matter how deep you bury them. And like my mom talked about, maybe you can set them to the side to survive the circumstance, but know that no matter how far you walk or travel away from that circumstance, those emotions will find you. And so, in order to get through the emotion, you have to feel them and go through them. I'm gonna encourage you to live fearlessly. And as we talked about fear today, fear is debilitating, fear is isolating. Fear can be the primary driver of so many of your emotions. And if you can face your fear to get to the other side, you'll find that freedom and to always be authentic to yourself. If you're feeling something deeply, don't let it go by without asking why. Those emotional triggers are built as a protective device that your internal ego, that person inside of you that works to protect you from all things, needs to address and to be authentic to that person. And so find an emotional release, whether that's crafting, I love to paint and create fun things, whether that's cooking, maybe it's you go for a walk with your dog, maybe it's you go into your car, you bring a pillow, you drive in the middle of nowhere, and you scream out loud as as loud as you can. Um, those emotional releases allow you to stay authentic. I'm gonna encourage you to keep leaning into those feelings because it is only through those feelings that transformation really starts from within. So I wish everyone a very happy Easter and I will see you all next Friday. Thanks for joining me.