welcome back to this video on forgiveness this is another video in the cognitive behavioral therapy
nuggets series and i'm your host dr dawn elise snipes remember that forgiveness does not mean
that you agree with or condone the situation but you're choosing to stop giving that person
or thing your energy the benefits of forgiveness are improved health improved mental health
improved relationships improved productivity you know holding on to resentments is exhausting
forgiveness of other people may involve recalling the betrayal
remember what happened and remember it from multiple perspectives remember the four ps
fear exploration ask yourself what will happen if i let go of this anger
safety it's important to develop safety before you start taking steps to forgive
it's hard to forgive if we think that it's going to make us vulnerable
to harm so it's important to make sure that you're safe
visualize forgiveness as a gift to yourself
and your significant others the people that are important in your rich and meaningful life
forgiveness is a gift to them because it allows you to have more energy and be more
present for them instead of being focused on something that happened in the past
examine the situation the betrayal and look for the positive and that can be hard
but radically accept what happened maybe it taught you something about yourself maybe it
showed you how much courage you have try to find the yin and the yang in the situation
adjust your expectations of yourself and of other people forgiveness means accepting that
people are not perfect and sometimes we try to we want to try to think people are perfect
and it may be important to adjust your expectations about other people's perfectionism
or other people how perfect other people are and it's also important to adjust your expectations
about how they're going to behave you may forgive them and hope that they're going to change but
they may not and you've got to be prepared for that and know how you're going to deal with it
live in the and you can experience distress and have a rich and meaningful life it's important
to recognize that you know sometimes people aren't going to change you can forgive them
and even still keep them in your life however you may alter the way that they're in your life
you know maybe this is a family member that you know their family you're not going to cut them off
so you can live in the and recognizing that you know maybe they are not safe people to be around
maybe they're emotionally abusive um but you don't want to cut them off so how can you live in the
and how can you have a rich and meaningful life and not cut them off if that's what you want to do
start by forgiving smaller things it's easier to forgive
small things like somebody forgetting to send you a card on your birthday
than something that's much larger so start by practicing forgiveness with the smaller things
empathize with the other person without minimizing try to accept that they did the best they could
with the tools they had at that point in time and that can be really hard but it's helpful to you
to try to view their actions as ill-advised instead of malicious
share your feelings with the person who offended you if it's safe if you think it is necessary
sometimes it's not safe or necessary you may choose to share your feelings with your higher
power if you have one if not neither one of those sounds good empty chair and you know we do this
in counseling a lot we have an empty chair in the corner and we tell the person to visualize
whoever they want to talk to in that chair and say exactly what they need to say or maybe you
share your feelings about the situation with somebody else with your best friend with a parent
and then practice thought stopping if you've been holding on to resentment and anger for a long time
at someone then those resentments those thoughts of resentment and anger
may continually come back and try to knock on your little cognitive door so it's important to engage
in some of those thought-stopping behaviors that we talked about in one of the other videos
i hope this gives you some tips on ways you can start forgiving others to lighten your load
and free up some energy to help you continue to work towards that rich and meaningful life