- Hey everyone! Thanks for checking back.
Today's video is all about a very difficult topic
for many of us, and that's forgiveness.
So stay tuned.
So like I said, today's video topic is forgiveness.
And first I'm gonna talk about how to forgive someone else,
and after we go through that,
I'm gonna talk about applying it to yourself
because I know for many of us,
it's not about forgiving someone else.
It's actually about letting ourselves
off the hook for it, right?
And that can sometimes be the hardest part
because many times we'll give other peoples a pass
like, "Oh I understand, you're going through a hard time!"
But when it comes to ourselves, we're our worst critics.
So first we're gonna talk about forgiving someone else.
And this article I have written,
that's why I'll look down.
I have an article here that I really liked.
And there are six stages that they talk about,
and I really think these are really important.
And they kind of go in an order that if you are going
through a time where you're really struggling
with forgiveness that you'll notice makes sense.
It's kind of like chronological.
And the first step is calming down.
Now, I know myself.
If someone does something really hurtful to me,
and I'm really angry at them, I lash out.
We get really aggressive, we get really loud,
we may even shout.
And some of us may even go quiet, right?
Like we ignore them, we're like, "I'm not returning
your call because they were such a jerk!", you know.
My friend Liz uses a phrase and I can't even think of it.
It's like, "radio silence", is what she says.
Radio silence, we're not talking.
But we have to find a way to calm ourselves down.
We can get riled up, right? We have every right to be angry.
But now might be a time where we need to start calming.
You can use my relaxation techniques.
Wow, that was a mouthful.
But I have videos about the breathing techniques,
I do yoga stretches.
Do any of those things to start helping bring yourself down.
That's step one.
Step two, don't wait for an apology.
I know this sounds terrible,
but sometimes people don't intend to apologize to us.
As much as we would like to hear it,
they're not planning on it and we may be waiting
for a really long time.
And also I think,
and this is the most important thing.
I actually highlighted it.
Keep in mind that forgiveness in no way means reconciliation
with the other person.
You don't have to be all buddy-buddy again
with someone who really does something hurtful,
but you can forgive them.
Because really what forgiveness does, and we'll get into,
is it allows you to be calm.
It allows you to separate the situation to move over
and past it, like to process through it
and move past it.
It doesn't mean that we're like buddy-buddy again.
Not all the time at least, okay?
Now the third step that they talk about is
taking control away from your offender.
Many times we'll have something happen
and we will replay the situation.
I know I'm guilty for this.
I will replay a situation that was really hurtful,
like I'll call my mom first,
and I'll be like, "You'll never believe
what this person did!" And I'll tell her.
I'll replay it to her or I'll call Shaun.
"You're never gonna believe this! Oh my God!"
And I'll replay it to him. That's twice.
Then I'll call my friend Ashley or Liz
or my other friend or I'll text somebody at the same time.
I'm texting Joanna. I'm mean, really?
But we will replay it over and over.
And what that really does is gives our offender
power over us because our whole day is whirling around
this wronged-doing.
And it doesn't really get us anywhere, right?
That can be a way to help calm down, when we vent.
But to replay it ends up getting us more riled up.
So let's try to instead look for the love around us,
the beauty, the things that we're grateful for.
We can try to switch our mind
from thinking all about the offense
and back into, you know, our regular life.
Then the fourth one is try to see things
from the other person's perspective.
Now I know this is really, really hard,
but sometimes it can be so powerful to just think,
"Well, you know, they were probably upset
because of this and this.
They were acting out of ignorance.
Or they were acting out of love for this person
because they thought I'd hurt them."
We can start to see their side.
Now this doesn't mean you have to say
that their side is okay.
But it helps sometimes to look from their perspective
because then we can see out of our own perspective
and, "Oh, there are other things involved."
And it can kind of help us process through it
and make more sense of the situation, okay?
Then the next task is recognizing
the benefits of forgiveness.
That's something that we should just know
is that we sleep better,
we tend to have better relationships,
our anxiety level, our blood pressure, everything goes down.
We tend to be calmer people.
Forgiveness can be really, really good for us,
physically as well as mentally, right?
Healthy mind, healthy body. Ring any bells?
Now, the final one for forgiving someone else
is don't forget to forgive yourself.
Now, this can be the biggest challenge
and that's why I wanted to talk about it
and have a different article I'm pulling up right now.
Because something that I think is really difficult
for us is often distinguishing between
forgiving ourselves for a situation, like,
Katie, I'm gonna forgive myself for
being so angry that I lash out at the lady
at the grocery store and that just really wasn't
something that I needed to do.
I felt like I took it overboard.
So I'm forgiving myself for a specific instance,
a specific time and a specific person.
That little bucket of time.
Instead of what often we get caught doing
is trying to forgive myself for being me.
Like forgiving yourself for being you!
And I don't want you to do that
because you don't have to forgive yourself for being you.
You're wonderful, you're amazing, you're strong,
incredible people working hard.
And life is hard and stressful,
and we're gonna get in arguments,
we're gonna have to forgive people,
but make sure when you do this,
and I think this will really help.
This one I was like (gasping) Ping!
You know those commercials like (mimicking explosion noise).
Like my brain exploded because we have to get specific.
So when you're working on forgiving yourself
and you're doing that last step,
make sure you talk about that specific person,
that specific instance, and all the things that built up.
Like that little nugget.
I was running late and that's why I got upset,
and that really stressed me out and blah blah blah.
I want you to think of that exact line,
what happened, why you responded,
and I want you to forgive yourself for that situation, okay?
Now leave your comments below like always.
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and you're like, "Katie, where are you?"
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add me to your Circles, give it a thumbs up,
all those crazy things.
And don't forget to subscribe because I put out videos
five days a week!
I feel like that's like a Subway commercial.
Five dollar, no. But five days a week.
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You want to get the notifications.
So keep working with me as we move closer
in forgiving people,
and we work towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.