13 | Dr. Silver Fawn Semegon: "Forgiveness is the greatest hope for our world."

Dr. Angelenia Semegon, or Silver Fawn, is a developmental psychologist and Native American spiritual leader residing in North Florida. 

Silver Fawn grew up in the Ocala National Forest learning to commune with foxes and allow in the nourishment of the trees around her, touching a relationship with nature that was so ancient and true to her roots as a daughter of a full Cherokee.

She shares her story of growing up unaware of her native people's way, her journey of leaving the woods and entering into the world of science and empiricism, and her initiation into embracing indigenous healing to eventually become a beloved, profoundly attuned, and highly-respected ceremony holder under the altar of the Lakota elder Basil Braveheart. 

Silver Fawn was my professor and mentor at Flagler College in St. Augustine FL, empowering me to understand the mechanics of the mind and supporting my thriving in the academic realm, and Silver Fawn has been my most trusted spiritual mentor and elder whose influence and care I credit so much of my maturation and evolution to. 

On this podcast she shares her teachings about balancing masculine and feminine energies for fullness of expression, recognizing the strengths of feminine leadership, as well as an immensely valuable explanation of the power of forgiveness: what it is, why it is important, and how we can begin to utilize it for our own peace and healing.

What an honor it is have her here. Her wisdom and knowledge has been one of the greatest resources of my life. I pray that her words stir the deepest knowings of your heart. 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/embody.faith/?hl=en

Transcript

Dr. Silver Fawn Semegon

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Welcome to the Remember Your Nature podcast. I'm your host, Faith Hannah Corbin, and today I have a great, great honor to have Silver Fawn on my podcast, who is also Dr. Angelina Semagon. And today we're sitting on her back porch. It's a little bit of a chilly day here in North Florida. And this really feels so special, this moment to be sitting across Silver Fawn. Because we have experienced so much together. We have gone through so much together. And I was just reflecting to her that besides my family, she is the most influential person in my life. Yeah, that's a lot. Wow. So thank you for being here, Silver Fond.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Thank you so much for this opportunity. You know, I want to start by just saying how proud I am of you and how much I've seen you grow and become, and to just to follow your deeper knowing, and you know, and I see you reaching out to so many additional people, so many people by you know creating this podcast and this way of reaching and sharing. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

And Silver Fawn is a developmental psychologist who got her degree in the University of Florida and was my professor at Flagler College, where she teaches now. And I took as many classes with Silver Fawn as I could. And it's really special, her and I, because um she often had reflected when I was in school this this special connection that we have of being bridged in both worlds in the spiritual world through um our practice of ceremony because not only is she a developmental psychologist, but her father is full Cherokee. Is that correct? And she is a spiritual leader that uh gives ceremonies in the Lakota tradition under the altar of Basil Braveheart and specifically focuses on women's teachings and giving ceremonies for women to connect to their own essence and remember our own power and uh the power and need that our voice, the need for our voice in the world. So it is really special because we've sat in very sacred spaces and we have sat uh face to face in your office for many hours discussing really cool ideas and creating um research projects and um we can nerd out as well as spirit out. So Silverphone's very special to me. Yeah. When we begin, I would love to just get to know a little bit more about you and where you come from and how you have gotten to this place in your life of deep, deep clarity and spiritual connection and sense of intuition and inner trust and a psychologist and a spiritual leader.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Um

growing up as a child speaking to the trees

SPEAKER_04 3:52

through a very circuitous route is how I got here, right? Um so you kind of you've already mentioned that I yeah, I went to UF, I studied to become a developmental psychologist. However, long, long, long before that, I think I had a real interest in in people, right? Even as a child, I was trying to figure out why people did things and how things worked. And um I think I was a little bit of an unusual child too because you know I would go off and sit in my grandmother's field for hours and hours waiting for to try and tame some animal.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

In your grandmother's field?

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Yeah, I had all these like you know, animal friends, including a fox and a skunk.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

Did you speak to them?

SPEAKER_04 4:47

I did. Um, yeah, I did. So again, I think um I was not the the the normal kid by any means. Um but I think uh again my early experiences, some of which involved um some really, really challenging things, um challenging experiences, uh traumatic experiences that I think very much could have led to a completely different path for me. And I credit my connection with nature. Wow. Yeah, I do. I couldn't that connection with just knowing there was something different. And when I say I was an odd child again, I would just go out and I and lay in the grass and stare at the sky for hours. You know, I'd be hugging a tree and come back and say the tree was, you know, talking with me or giving me some comfort. And so I think that deep connection is really what helped me to find my way to where I am now.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

And w would you say that like when you were navigating those difficult experiences in childhood, those traumatic experiences, you had that like kind of pervasive presence, like the presence of nature felt pervasive for you that you could retreat to during that time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

And again, I as a probably teenager backed away from that a little bit, you know. My logical mind got in the way, and I, you know, was trying so hard to fit in like everyone else, I think. And I think I lost my connection there to we never lose our connection, but I was not as aware of it, right? I was busy um trying to do all the things we're supposed to do, and you know, trying to stay on track with all of that, and um yeah, so I we never completely disconnect, but I was not as connected for a number of years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

So your dad is full Cherokee, but your mom is not native?

SPEAKER_04 7:11

At all. No, my mom is German and English.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

Okay. Yeah. That that um is evident by your blue green eyes. Yeah. Um, but your dad's Cherokee, but does were you did you grow up practicing any like indigenous ways or ceremony?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

I I didn't know that some of the things we were doing were indigenous. So my dad came up at a time where the last thing you wanted to do was be Indian. I mean, he had truly divorced himself or tried to from all things native, right? And yet I grew up in the Ocala National Forest, so we tracked deer and bear, and you know, that was part of a normal outing to do with my dad, right? Oh really? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. To go out and, you know, look for arrowheads or yeah, um, to go out and you know, learn how to track or learn what a paw print was, or to see bear, by the way, you just see like paw prints are in a straight line when they're walking in a certain way, right? Or to go out and find a mound that is where a um Florida Panther has marked its territory. So there were a lot of things that I just didn't I just thought were part of what people did. I didn't know them as something um indigenous, it's just what people do, you know. Um some of his beliefs I did not know were indigenous, they just were how they were. I was not raised on a reservation or anything like that. I was raised in Florida and very much in the you know normal, you know, mainstream world. And so I didn't realize some of his teachings were native. Um yeah. Yeah. Um

reconnecting with her indigenous roots

SPEAKER_04 9:10

in fact I was probably in my late 20s, early 30s before I reconnected with Indigenous Roots and connected with Indigenous Roots through um the Lakota people more so than Cherokee.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

What was like the first few moments of of can the first few instances, the times where like things really started to shift and and awaken? Oh um if there's I know I know I know or maybe like the feeling, like the feelings within you that started to to shift or awaken. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Um there's so many, but I you know, I ended up doing ceremony, going to ceremony with some some people that that spoke to me uh at the same time. I was also about the same time also going down to the Yucatan and under just the most incredible set of, and I'm making air quotes, coincidences, just really incredibly lining up with the teacher um in the Yucatan that um just we just crossed paths. It was oh really, oh yeah, like literally I would leave Florida, fly to where she was with no advanced warning, no way of getting in touch with her. You know, all my friends thought I was just completely crazy. I would just get on.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

You're just gonna go and find her.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Yeah, I mean, yeah. You know, over and over. You know, I would get on the wrong bus and the wrong bus where I would get off. Did I realize I was on the wrong bus? I would get off and to wait to head into a different direction, and then she happens to be working, filling in for her friend that day. Wow, it's like uh yeah, and so there's just such an alignment of over and over and over and over again, just this incredible alignment of yeah, yeah. Um so I think that's what really got me instead of dabbling, but got my feet back on the the red road and on the path, and so and again that's you know, 35 years ago. This is not I've been doing this a while, right? Um, but I think that's where I really started to learn and understand more of my father's beliefs um and where they were coming from, um, and not from him per se, but from other people as I learned along the way. Like I learned some of the things that we were doing. Some of the things I just didn't understand. I didn't have context, he didn't explain, but um I began to see them in a really different light, in a different way.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Um and

reconciling empiricism with felt-sense

SPEAKER_03 12:12

what about your relationship with like your your studies and being a developmental psychologist and how that weaves with you know the indigenous way, which is very much based on intuition and not needing evidence to know that something is true, and how does that all work together?

SPEAKER_04 12:31

That was such a great question and really challenging, right? Because I'm a scientist, I'm a researcher. You are and you know, I'm at UF where they have no interest in um intuition, you know. Um well that's not fair to say, but at least as researchers and scientists that was frowned upon. That was frowned upon. And so I felt like I had like just two different split lives, you know, there was my my education and my science background, and then this other walk. And that has taken me years to find a way to for them to overlap and combine instead of feeling like two separate things, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Totally.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

Uh it took years and years of again, very disseparate, very separate, very different worlds. You know, so I would be running a research project on Friday and then going to a ceremony on Saturday where it didn't matter what time it was, or there was no when are we going to finish, whenever we finish. There was just following the path, and there wasn't didn't seem to be a plan or logic. There was a plan, but we were following like a higher, we were being guided instead of following some step-by-step rubric. So again, took years to find that balance. And it's not always in balance even now. I do my best to bring who I am into the classroom. And in some ways, my education also informs some of the teachings, not ceremony per se, but some of the teachings. I see the teachings uh in, again, as a developmental psychologist, I see how there are stages of life that there are particular maybe skills or particular time for certain things. And I see how that's so true in the indigenous world as well. So there are certain things that I see again, just we're ripe. We're just ripe for certain experiences and certain understandings at certain times in our lives.

how developmental psychology supports her spiritual teachings

SPEAKER_03 14:55

I would love to lean more into that, how you're saying your research helps inform your teachings. Is there anything that comes to mind specifically that you could share about?

SPEAKER_04 15:06

I I want to say how my educational background informs the women's teachings.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 15:13

Yeah. Um, I guess when I was first exposed to some of the women's teachings, the indigenous women's teachings, they're not linear at all. Like you may be, or I was learning about, for instance, something um that was really more appropriate for late life stage first, and then you're maybe learning about something that is true for adolescent women, and now we're jumping to something that happens maybe in midlife and then back to earlier times, and so again, just being able to, in my the western part of my mind, just see those stages uh helped me to see things in a broader way and a bigger way. I think. Yeah. And I think the way it's helpful is that most of the people, most of the women that I work with, we still really have that Western mind, right? And so being able to organize things in a way that both brings in and respects the integrity of the women's teachings, but sort of organizing in them in a way that it makes them more accessible to that western.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

To be received and understood.

aspects of the western vs. indigenous mind

SPEAKER_03 16:44

What would you say are some um characteristics or constituents of the the Western mind? What what what is the Western mind like in relation to the indigenous mind?

SPEAKER_04 16:57

We want things to be in the Western way linear. I would say that's the biggest thing. Things are very linear, things happen in these discrete sections of time. Um, whereas an indigenous way is more about following things unfold. They're not as discreet in terms of time. Um the ceremony starts when it's time, and that's not based on the clock, that's when it feels right. Um, it ends when we're done, whatever time that is. And that's challenging in the world that we live in. It's it can be challenging, you know. We aren't all living together in community where we all just happen to get together after breakfast and then move on into ceremony. Instead, we have to set a time. People come from different areas and it's going to take them different amounts of time to arrive, and that all has to be planned. Um at the end, um we're not, yeah, we're we're very I would say the main way is the way we approach things in this linear, logical, discrete sections of time instead of this. Um I get I think the other thing is that we're also very focused on the end point and the objective. Instead of the path and the journey is rich with lessons. And sometimes when we're so focused on the end point, we're missing the beauty of the lesson that's unfolding in front of us.

on knowing and discernment

SPEAKER_03 18:42

Yeah, it makes me question because when we're describing the indigenous mind, you know, it's like we we do things, we move in a way that's natural, that's based on how things feel, you know, the the feeling, the it's like it's time is a feeling, or it's complete is a feeling, or it's time to move is a feeling. But I wonder what your thoughts are on what would you say like the Western mind's relationship to feeling is.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Well, I guess for me too, it's not even a feeling, it's a knowing. I know when the fire is ready, I know when the stones are ready. I don't feel the stone. Yeah, I have a knowing knowing.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Um thanks for that distinction. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Um I'm sorry. So what was your question then?

SPEAKER_03 19:35

So, like, well, I feel like the Western mind has a really hard time with knowing.

unknown 19:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Yes. With that kind of knowing. Um, yeah, I wonder if you have any thoughts about that.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

I do. I think one of the things that I stress in my teaching is discernment. And discernment for me is the difference between knowing what is our ego and what is our logical mind, and knowing what is true guidance. Um yeah, I I remember one time that, and this is from an author probably back in the 80s, Raquel Lerner, who once said, our we should trust our gut, it's never wrong. Our interpretation of what our gut is telling us can be completely wrong. And so being able to have that discernment about is this my mind? Is this my logic? Is this my bias? Is this my desire? Or is this true guidance? I think that's really one of the keys. And again, one of the things I teach is you know social psychology and so being aware of our biases, we are very biased and we don't even know it. We engage in confirmation bias, we look for confirmation of what we already believe, and we aren't aware of that, right? We we don't even know we're doing that, and so to have that discernment when we ask for it, you know, is it the right time? Is this the right path? Is this the right action? Our mind can trick us. And so having that discernment, you know.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Um Yeah, I think it's a really important thing to to chew on, a really important question to to think about of what is true guidance and what is just the trick of my mind, and I feel like there's a whole life journey there just contemplating that that that idea, that concept.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

And our feelings, right? We may have a feeling about something, but our mind Ciphers what that feeling is. Right? So, for instance, if you are really excited about something, your heart rate will go up, your galvanic skin response will go up, your breathing will go up. If you're really scared of something, your heart rate will go up, your breathing rate will go up, your galvanic skin response will go up, and so on. And it's our mind that says this is fear or this is excitement and surprise. And so being able to make that differentiation and stopping and truly checking in, there's so much more, I guess, than our mind and our feelings. And I think we I love that we're paying more attention to our feelings and how we feel about things, and yet at the same time, that's only a small tip of the iceberg. So

moving in balance according to the medicine wheel

SPEAKER_04 22:57

when we think about the medicine wheel, I learned that we should receive with the mind, give with the heart, take action with the physical body, and then our spirit, the spirit part brings all of those together, and our final decision is from spirit. And too often I think Oh wow. Yeah. I didn't tell you this before.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Wow, this is like Okay, wait. Receive from the mind, give from the heart, take action from the physical body, but decide from the spirit.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

And the thing is that sometimes we're in the wrong quadrant, right? We're trying to receive and think about something with the heart, right? Yes, I totally do that all the time. We make the decision with our feelings. Um yeah, and so and again, that's just something we're I feel like that's just changed my whole life. And to me too, I'm just about balance, balance, balance, balance, balance, right? And so when we're in balance using and applying the right aspect to the right situation through discernment, the path is just so much easier. So much easier. Um,

cohering the masculine and feminine dynamics

SPEAKER_04 24:30

and again, that takes us to, we've talked, I know you and I've talked many times about sort of the divine feminine energy and the sacred masculine that's within all of us. And again, sometimes we are out of balance by focusing too much on one or the other instead of finding the balance and walking through that, or knowing when the right time, the right situation to be more in that feminine, divine feminine energy, or more in the masculine, sacred masculine energy. It's not an either-or, but there are situations and times where one is leads us better than the other, and not an either-or. And again, so discernment in terms of knowing is this time for to be more in our feminine energy or more in our masculine energy is just key. It's essential. And if that's still, if we're still allowing ourselves to be controlled by that, we are just kind of free-floating, right? As opposed to being able to discern and call upon our masculine energy when we need it. Our feminine energy when we need it.

the journey of uncovering her feminine consciousness

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Do you think you've always been connected to your feminine energy? I'm just I'm just thinking about you. Yeah, exactly. Like as the as the hard worker that you are, as the psychologist that you are, you know, a single mom and at a certain time and doing all of that getting like how how did you start connecting to the divine feminine? Because now we are giving ceremony, you know, you're giving ceremonies in divine feminine.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

Um that is an awesome question, Faith. I'm really, really glad that you brought that up. I have great faith and hope that your generation is really starting to shift this and it gives me hope in the world. But I I came up in a time when what was valued was doing things in that really masculine way. I came up, I was truly disconnected from my feminine strength and gifts because what I learned to value was the masculine way. And I think um women did that, I mean, we gave away our power by trying to enter into the masculine world and then play using their strengths and tools, and those aren't ours. Right? And so again, yes, I was a single mom in grad school working. You know, I was very proud of being able to work 60, 70, 70 hours a week and do X, Y, and Z. It was all about achieving and overcoming and very, very masculine energy. Um I am not proud of this. I did not particularly even like women, had very few women friends because I thought they were weak. I'm not, I'm yeah, I'm not yeah wow. Um, you know, I was uh roll up your sleeves and get on my way, and you know. Um yeah. Um that began to shift for me as I began again, just began on my journey through through ceremony. Yeah, and through the women's teachings around learning the value and the strength of women, the strength of women who weren't trying to use masculine energy. We have amazing strength and gifts that we sort of naturally use. We can use male strengths, but

the natural strengths of feminine intelligence and leadership

SPEAKER_04 28:34

they we are naturally good communicators. We're naturally good at multitasking. And again, there's research even based on this. We have some differences in our brains as women in terms of the things that we're good at. We're good team players when we are in charge, when we are leaders with groups of people, we have a tendency to inspire them to line up with the vision if we hold it. And that is not the masculine way, that's not how they lead.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

So what would you say are some characteristics of feminine leadership?

SPEAKER_04 29:19

All of those things, right? Um we again being good listeners, um, building relationships, being able to see the bigger picture and the importance of the relationship, being able to take care of everything.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Seeing other people's strengths and seeing maybe where they fit.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Exactly. And again, being able to encourage communication, um valuing feelings, multitasking, um again, women in and I don't know if it's innate or it's just a cultural societal construct. We are taught from the time we're little, little children to, as women, to value and protect the relationships.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

We teach, and again, this is I'm dropping back into Dr. Semagon mode now, right? We teach, and this is developmental psychology, right? We teach our little boys from the time they're toddlers, their job is to get things done. Um, and the way, again, both mothers and fathers, things that they teach their sons and the things that they teach their daughters are just embedded in the way that we approach life. So then we take that into our when we're in balance, right? We we take those strengths into the business world, into academia, into those places as they're needed.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

Political leadership.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm hearing the wind chimes in the background, it's really sweet.

the experience of feminine consciousness through ceremony

SPEAKER_04 31:24

And I think for me, as I understood the strength of women in a very different way through ceremony, in a very different way, tapping into Mother Earth and that deep nurturing and strength and power that is every bit as strong, every bit as persistent as a man, but in a different way. In a different way.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

Does that make sense? Is there any way so you can like describe what that might feel like

conscious leaders are connected to the pulse of life

SPEAKER_03 32:48

connected?

SPEAKER_04 32:51

Connected, connected to I love that! But connected to everything. So not only connected to the other people around, but connected to the trees and connected to the grass and connected to the flowers, connected to the wind, connected to the sparkling of the sun. But to me, when we're in that place that we call Metakui Ayasin, right? We are all connected, that doesn't mean just we people are connected. It means we're connected to everything. Um so am I in that space all the time when I'm in the leadership role? Absolutely not. But in that space, everything flows. Everything flows.

only unity can satisfy our heart's yearning

SPEAKER_04 34:34

We're separate from one another, we're separate from the earth, we're separate even from that higher power from God, it we're separate from it. We're not one and connected with everything. And so I think oftentimes we're just searching for that deep, deep connection. You know, we feel this hole, this longing, this hole in us that we try to fill up with everything, right? We just we're so distracted in in our world today. And so we just try to fill it up, fill it up, fill it up. That deep longing for connection that is truly everywhere around us all the time. All the time.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

There's this saying that I've been that has come up was that you know, we can only get to God the Father through the mother. And it feels like, you know, in all of that disconnection and all of that fear of of what happens when we when we get still, for me, it feels like the key is learning how to embrace the feminine, the fr the feminine principle and that feminine energy. And to be able to because I feel like she is the way we can connect to that that that heart yearning that we are that we all are experiencing. What is what do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Um I noticed that even in the the language it's still like two separate entities, one female and one male. Instead of one, that is both. And so when you were asking me a minute ago about like leaders, some of my most incredible teachers are male who are very balanced in their sacred masculine and divine feminine energy.

unknown 36:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:39

I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

Yeah. Um I mean if we believe we're all one, there's not a a father and a mother. It's they're both. Ooh. It's one. And I know in our language, it's just that it's just the way we English separates, it separates things. We're very noun-based in the English language, and things are even our language separates things. And in order for us to be able to process the information, we still talk about these things in these discrete ways.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

Yeah, what I thought was striking was that when learning about a little bit about indigenous languages, how there or Mary said that there's no nouns. Everything is like a verb, everything is like an action, a movement.

SPEAKER_04 37:33

It's very, very verb-based. And Lakota, anyway, is one of the most complex languages in the world. And so everything has multiple languages or multiple meanings. So it's sometimes really challenging to explain something in a way that someone intellectually gets. So instead, it's really about experien experiencing it, right? And that's what we do in ceremony, right? Is experience. We we it's experiential. We put all the explanation and the thinking aside and just step into this place of being. And I think of being with a capital B-E.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_04 38:14

Instead of, I think we're human doings most of the time. And I really just want to try my best to be a human being more often. But ceremony allows us just to step into this place of being. And of course we can we don't have to be in ceremony to be in that space of being.

forgiveness liberates us

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:53

Um yeah, it truly is but because of a vision and two visions actually that came from ceremony. I am my I truly am dedicated to forgiveness and uh bringing that to as many people as I can, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:18

Um why is forgiveness important for us?

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Um it frees us. It completely frees us, right? Forgiveness is a gift that we give ourselves. And I think so often in the world, especially today, it seems like we're very focused on blame and just escalating things. And that keeps our energy wrapped up. It keeps us cut off from being, it keeps us cut off from our divine connection. If our our energy and our focus is outside, out there, blaming. Um again, I do not in any way want to suggest anybody should forgive. That is not what this is about at all. Forgiveness at its heart is about choosing and choice and personal choice and freedom because of it. We tie up so much of our energy by holding on to hurts and mistakes that we've made, even right, but we hold on to that and our energy gets so tied up. I didn't make this up, I don't know where I originally heard this, but I heard at some point that when we don't forgive someone, like someone has hurt us or they've done us wrong or they've cost us dearly, maybe even capital T trauma, right, traumatized us. Our energy is tied up around what they did and what they could do, and what that we want them to apologize, and we want them and what they've cost us, and it's all outside of us. And so what I heard was when we do that, it's like us drinking poison, thinking the other person will suffer because of it. Well, our energy is tied up and what how this person has hurt us, not theirs. They're not thinking about how they've damaged us or how they've hurt us or how they wronged us. Our energy's tied up. So forgiveness for me is about empowering ourselves. It's about taking our energy back and freeing it up. It's not about, it doesn't take anything from the other person, the person who's hurt us. It's beautiful and powerful and healing when they are involved and when that person can admit that they've caused harm and when they can take responsibility and maybe even some restitution. That can be really powerful, but it's not necessary for forgiveness. Forgiveness is about compassion and grace for ourselves. It doesn't take anything from the other person at all. Um, and again, it's amazing, incredible when you can talk with someone else and say this is this is how you hurt me or this is what you've cost me, and they can hear it and acknowledge it. That can be really powerful for the relationship. And when they can't, when they're not there, when they won't take responsibility, and some people never will, they can't, that becomes something else than that we can let go of. Right now we're tied up with they won't, they won't apologize, they won't this, they want that. And so again, taking our energy back and again, it's a gift to ourselves. And sometimes I think the person the person that um curious are sirens at this point in our conversation. Um taking that energy back, again, it just frees us and it gives so much more uh room in our hearts. It allows us a deeper level of compassion and connection and love in the world. And again, that forgiveness does not. mean that the person it that we let go of any responsibility or that they we put ourselves in the same situation to be hurt again that's not what it's about forgiveness comes from a Greek word that just means letting go let go and again we should never do it until we're ready ever forgiveness is not something to be forced or pushed forgiveness is something that happens when things aren't working for us and we realize that and we're like huh maybe maybe if I focus on just releasing that that that will give me some peace and so the reason we should forgive I don't want to use should I shouldn't say should the value of forgiveness is that it brings us peace. The value of forgiveness is that it frees up our energy and brings us some release to move to a completely different level um again another saying that I read recently was about um we shouldn't forgive people it forgiveness is not about the person deserving forgiveness. It's about us deserving peace.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

So man I think that it's so powerful and I experience in my life as I've been given these teachings and understand a little bit more about what true forgiveness actually is being okay being okay even if others project even if their failures their unconsciousness their unawareness you know affects us that you know we're we're unconsciously hurt by them because they don't they don't know how to show up in love you know they don't know what love is or you know even if they intentionally hurt us um or even you know with ourself it just feels like there's forgiveness and this like depth of forgiveness this true forgiveness brings so much spaciousness around it that independent of all of that like I am okay yes you know I'm okay even if someone can't love me in the way that I want

you are perfect exactly as you are

SPEAKER_03 46:33

yes but I would suggest you're more than okay you are perfect exactly as you are you know and I kind of looping back around um all of those things and again I have a a pretty um dark childhood background history and all of those things brought me to where I am today all of those things brought me here um maybe even the gratitude that comes from those experiences exactly in the way that it has helped me choose the knowing or to choose that to know that I am perfect and whole as I am that actually increases in my personal power.

genuine forgiveness arises through authentic processing

SPEAKER_04 47:40

Exactly exactly and it you know I it took a long time to get to that space and I never want to suggest ever ever ever that someone should not do you know not process their feelings and let me back up I actually did that when I was probably close to your age I was just going to forgive everybody and do the Christian thing and forgive everyone and wish them well and have a good life and it wasn't I I wasn't there though. I hadn't done the work I hadn't released I hadn't I hadn't acknowledged the depth of the trauma and the pain I hadn't acknowledged the feelings I hadn't acknowledged the um this dysfunctional ways that I was acting out that pain I hadn't acknowledged all that so I was really engaged in the spiritual bypassing where I was just gonna jump past forgive everybody and life was going to be good rainbows and unicorns and what do you think is the effect of that oh it's so damaging it's so damaging and again now I'm doing to myself I am re-traumatizing my spirit right it looks good on the outside for a while until you you know lose a sock in the dryer one day and you're just devastated right um again we're just it's not authentic we're just completely cut off from who we truly truly are completely cut off from our being our gifts our connection um and forgive from each other is an authentic act and as you said in ceremony it's even a selfish act yeah yeah in the best selfish in the best way right selfish as in forgiveness is a gift for me it forgiveness when I forgive something else someone else it's comp I'm giving myself compassion and grace and energy and freedom and peace. That's for me it's not for the other person really being visited by cardinals Yeah so it took a long time to get there and I think um I wouldn't want anyone to feel like I I wouldn't want anyone to feel invalidated like they have to they have to jump to this other space or they should be grateful for horrible things that have happened in their life oh no no no no I mean I wasn't and it took a long long time to you know move through that for me to get to the place that um I can see the gifts that developed from that early trauma I can see those today well yeah yeah

forgiveness as our greatest hope for the world

SPEAKER_04 51:10

in our dominant culture why do you think forgiveness could be valuable and important if we all understood a little bit more about what that was how do you think that could change things I think it would change everything like literally everything um I see the smallest act of kindness the smallest act of compassion or forgiveness making like this ripple effect that just goes out and out and out and out into the world and every time one of us you know makes that ripple it just increases in its intensity and its reach right so one of my little ripples touches somebody else's ripple which magnifies and touches more and more and more I think that's our greatest hope.

SPEAKER_03 52:11

I think that when we do understand true forgiveness and we really forgive ourselves and we can embody that energy of wholeness and perfection that I am perfect exactly as I am and we can go out into the world and to strangers hold that energy in our hearts you know strangers that most of us are operating from a place of feeling that we are not whole and perfect exactly as we are if we can show up in that love and in that forgiving energy I think that's like one of the greatest gifts that we can give to someone that doesn't believe that they are perfect.

SPEAKER_04 52:55

And therefore to ourselves again right I mean if I do that I'm creating a better world for me right I'm creating a better world for the people I care about and for the planet.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

So I also believe that this is the most important work. Yeah yeah I do it's truly yeah it's given me so much power and so much peace and wow to know that even if there is conflict you know with my especially like the family stuff you know I've done so much work with my family to know that you know they've done the best that they could and maybe there are some things that that are doesn't mean that it's okay but it means that I have a choice to to recognize the opportunity in it for myself.

SPEAKER_04 53:59

Exactly exactly and that's important it doesn't mean that that it's right or okay for other people to hurt anyone it doesn't mean that we don't hold people responsible for their actions um it means that we have choice around how we use our energy and how free we are and how much peace we have for our energy and how we'll use it in the world. Yeah yeah

leveraging our sovereign attention

SPEAKER_04 54:35

and again I don't want to get too far off on this but you know right now in our world there's just so much fear we are and we can choose where our attention is right and I don't mean we should all bury our heads in the sand and not and pretend everything's wonderful and fine and you know and we have we can choose where we want our attention to go and I can acknowledge there's something unjust and hurtful in the world and then I can either focus on that or I can choose to focus my energy in a different way. I can choose to focus my energy in a way that lifts people up in the world that that creates more space more freedom more peace and more appreciation in this now moment more appreciation in this now moment and so it's up to us we all all day every moment we have choice choice choice and another choice and you know if we're in fear if we're in anger and fear and anger is most of the time just covering up fear most of the time not always right but if we're in anger if we're in fear and we're acting out of that we're reacting um we perceive things in a certain way that in reinforces that anger and that fear and that higher level of of um dysregulated dysregulation but as our emotional it as we are more regulated and and at peace and at one it also changes how we perceive things completely changes our perception of things and allows us to respond instead of react thank you for being a holder of this vision and this wisdom um I I just I feel like I don't there's no other choice for me, right? I mean of course there's a choice for me but I you know I I was given the vision and and I'm absolutely dedicated to it. It's my my life's work. And along with that I realized pretty early on that helping people but women in particular you know gather some of the the teachings and the skills that would support them in doing similar kinds of work is um the other piece of the forgiveness work. Yeah. I don't even want to say work I want to quit using that word because it doesn't describe it.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

It's service word service I think that for those that have the ears to hear they will hear this they will hear this and I feel that this is the most important thing to hear right now. And I hope it does land upon the ears of many I'm so grateful that you would share this life work with us.

SPEAKER_04 58:05

Just thank you again so much I just am just I don't I don't even have words for how proud I am of you and what you're doing and you know and how you're just doing your best to share these important messages with others to encourage other and inspire other people to you know reach for their own highest good right like you inspire them to see that and know that so I'm just truly grateful for to you today for for giving me an opportunity to just talk about a few things I've learned along the way and hope that some of them any one of them will speak to someone and make a difference for them make their journey lighter easier more joyful kinder more at peace yeah so thank you Pila Maya Hiya I love you