Rachel: Is there anyone living rent-free in your head right now?
Have you been holding onto a grudge or found yourself not wanting to let somebody off the hook?
Maybe at one point or another, you've thought about forgiveness, but it doesn't come that easily.
This week, I'm speaking with Dr.
Steve Smith, a GP who specializes in addiction recovery.
He's worked with lots of people.
Who've experienced trauma, and he's joining me to talk about forgiveness, What forgiveness is and what it is not.
As we discussed forgiveness is not simply about letting somebody off the hook, but about letting them off your hook, not for that benefit, but for your own.
And it can be transformational when you do.
This episode covers some serious and sometimes dark topics.
But if you want to know how to begin to deal with past traumas, or even move through a difficult situation you're experiencing right now.
I highly recommend this conversation.
If you're in a high stress, high stakes, still blank medicine, and you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, burning out or getting out are not your only options.
I'm Dr.
Rachel Morris, and welcome to You Are Not a Frog
Steve: Hello.
I am Steve Smith.
I am a GP specialist in substance misuse.
I qualified over 40 years ago.
I'm now living in Lancashire, in the northwest of England, uh, where I work in a drug clinic in, in Blackpool.
And I've had a very varied career, worked overseas and worked in general practice, done a bit of ophthalmology.
Rachel: Wonderful to have you on the podcast today, Steve.
Uh, you originally contacted me because through your work with, with addiction, you've come across some really interesting sort of principles and things that you feel would make a huge difference, not just to people with addictions, but actually to all of us.
And having chatted to you about it, I'm absolutely fascinated in, in, in your thoughts and your experiences, which is why I asked you to come on the podcast.
Can you tell me a little bit about your own medical journey and how you came to sort of be working in in addiction therapy?
Steve: Sure.
If my younger self could see me now, I would've been flabbergasted.
'cause I remember being at medical school, the last thing I was, I would've wanted to have done was anything to do with psychiatry.
I hated psychiatry.
And, uh, after qualifying, I was very much into running on adrenaline.
And I trained as a general surgeon.
I loved surgery.
I loved working.
I remember working at King's College Hospital where the most common surgical emergency in those days was a stabbing rather than appendicitis.
I, I was always interested in working overseas, to help, working in, in a less privileged environment.
So I worked for, with my wife, we went to Pakistan, where we worked with an NGO for a number of years where I worked as a surgeon.
We had in mind that we would be there long term.
That was, that was our long term goal, but it didn't go well for us.
And in particular, my wife suffered very badly from depression whilst we were out there.
And we ended up coming back sooner than we had planned.
And at that point I then came back to, to, to work in a GP surgery in Bradford, in Yorkshire.
And, and I, I was working in a surgery that was dealing, treating people with opiate issues.
And, and discovered that over a period of time that working in addiction was something that really interested me, really fascinated me.
And that was, and that was quite a big part of our journey.
At that time my wife was also going on a journey of, of inner healing.
Something that neither of us had recognized that either of us needed, but, but it was interesting to see was it was life changing for her to see how certain things could w were, were transformative for her.
And, and one thing in particular was forgiveness and something that I then also saw the power of in my own life.
And it's become a big part of, of, of what we do now.
We, I now run a, run a, a charity, a registered charity in the UK called the Keys Project.
And we, we work in centers across the country helping, working primarily with churches, helping people to support men and women in their communities with addiction issues and, and, and forgiveness is one of the crucial aspects of, of, of our service and helping people to really find freedom from, from addiction, something that's not addressed at all well in, in health services, I don't believe.
Rachel: And that's really fascinating, Steve, 'cause I don't hear forgiveness being talked about very much in, in non-religious circles.
It seems to be something that sort of people have a bit of an opinion on, but we don't really talk about it that much or I haven't heard us talking about it that much.
Is it, and let's just just call that out this outright at the beginning.
Is it possible to, to do it?
'cause obviously your charity works, works with churches.
Is it just a purely religious thing or can people of any faith or no faith embrace the power of forgiveness?
Steve: Absolutely it is.
Yeah.
It, it, it, it is recognized for many people.
They see it as a, as a, as a, as a religious, religious issue.
But very definitely, it's a, it's a principle that applies to every one of us.
And I'm, I'm so aware of very many people of, of faith and of no faith whose lives have been transformed by forgiveness.
And, and we could just talk about some examples, but, but actually one, one of, one of the, one of my most favorite example of transformation through forgiveness is the story of the railway man.
I dunno whether you've seen the film, the Railway Man with Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth.
It's a totally true story.
And of, of a man called Eric Lomax, who was a British radio operator in, in, in, in, in, in Singapore, was captured by the Ja, by the Japanese when Singapore fell in World War ii.
And he was subsequently brutally tortured.
And he, after the war, clearly suffered with post-traumatic stress.
In, in the film, you see him lying on the, on his, on his bedroom floor at night screaming with, with, with the, with the nightmares.
And, and this was a real, a real representation of how his life was.
He had post-traumatic stress, disorder.
And it so happened at sort of 20 years after the war, he became aware of a man called Nagase, who was one of his torturers, who was actually the translator for, for the Japanese, who was now working in, in Thailand, in, in the very place where he had been imprisoned, and this, and this man Nagase was now working as, as, as a, as a guide, as a museum guide.
So, so Eric Lomax went out with revenge on his heart with his, you know, he, he actually, the, the film shows him carrying a knife.
And that is exactly what happened.
He, he, he went out there to get even to, to, to get revenge.
And remarkably they reconciled.
They, they somehow actually became really good friends.
And what is wonderful is, is that when he came home, his nightmare ceased.
His PTSD was, was basically cured.
And that's a, a wonderful example.
Nothing to do with faith, of, of where somebody has reconciled with their abuser and, and, and found peace and found healing and restoration.
Which, which, which was interesting actually, just because I was mindful that this conversation would come up.
I actually did a, I did a, a, a YouTube search.
I was trying to get the G Nagase's name, and I saw a little clip, a little clip of the two of them being interviewed.
It's very moving.
And, and, and Nagase is just talking about the peace that he now has.
He said, I think his words are that I can now die safely, i, I suppose he means peacefully.
So it was a very much a two-way thing that, so, so Nagase was probably tormented by, by guilt.
Eric Lomax was tormented by, by trauma and, and reconciliation was, was the path, was the path by which both of them got re uh, got a transformative piece that I don't think they could ever have got through medication or counseling or whatever else.
And it's not a one-off thing.
I think sometimes people think forgiveness is an act of saying, I forgive you.
And it, and actually the act of saying, I forgive you may be part of it, but I, I would say for nearly everybody, it's a, it's a journey.
And it's, it's gotta be something that you have to choose to do.
And it has to be not based on how you feel as well.
I think for a lot of people when, when forgiveness happens, it's something that's been considered for a while.
And, and I think it's also for very important to recognize what forgiveness is and what forgiveness isn't.
So that, that's for a lot of people that, that's the issue.
I think people have got an idea of what they, they've got a, perhaps a false idea of what forgiveness is.
Forgiveness for many people is, is letting somebody off the hook.
And, and, and what we try and do is help people to realize that whether or not somebody is gonna be punished for what they've done, the best thing that you can do is get them off of your hook.
Now, a lot, a lot of people think, well, why should I forgive?
They've done such a, this person's done such a terrible thing to me or to somebody else.
They don't deserve to be forgiven.
And, and, and maybe that's true.
Maybe we don't wanna let them off the hook, but surely there's a time when we wanna let them off our hook.
And that's perhaps the most important message of, of forgiveness, is that we do it for ourselves rather than primarily for ourselves.
I mean, we do it for the other person, but we do it first and foremost for ourselves to, to release ourselves from, from the pain, from the torment, from the trauma.
I, I've been in many situations where I've been working with with key workers and, and clients, and we've been talking about the, the trauma that people have experienced.
And the expression that I've often heard is you, is is the maybe the key worker or some saying, saying to the client, the patient, you know, that person is living rent free in your head.
And when we hold onto a grudge, when we hold onto bitterness and to anger, then, then we're that per that the person who perpetrated the, the trauma that we've experienced is, is, is, is in our head living with us.
And so that's maybe the most, most important reason to forgive someone.
Rachel: That makes a lot of sense.
I, I have heard the saying that that unforgiveness, holding on to unforgiveness is like drinking rat poison.
In order to kill the rat.
All you do is is is absolutely destroy yourself.
So you're saying that forgiveness is a decision that you make not to keep on being anger and bitter at that person.
Steve: Yeah, it's a decision you make.
And I think most people recognize that, that they, I think people who find real freedom do so when they recognize that they are tormenting themselves with, with, with the, with, with the pain of, of whatever has happened.
And, and so yeah, you, you're doing it for yourself.
I mean, it's, it's nice to think that in, in many situations, so, so Nagase and, and, and, uh, Lomax, they became really good friends.
So you're doing it for the other person as well.
And we know the, we know the five domains of mental health and, and one of, when we, when we bless other people, when we do things for the benefit of other people, that is also beneficial for our own mental health as well.
So, so it's a two-way street.
But what, what, what we, there's, there's lots of things that worth talking about, and what's really important to discuss is that forgiving somebody is not condoning, is not letting, is not, is not suggesting for a second that what happened wasn't wrong.
It's, I think it's always important to, to recognize what, what, what you did, what that person did was wrong, is wrong.
And, and, but I'm gonna choose to let it go.
And I think maybe for a lot of people letting go is perhaps a better word, is is, is is letting go of a burden that's on that, that's on their back.
I've, I've been interested in, in studies that have been done on people that have forgiven them and that have not forgiven it.
I think it must be very difficult to do a i it can't be possible to do a con, a double blind controlled trial for, for forgiveness.
But I know a lot of research has been done.
And I, I was interested in a study that I heard of done by a university in, in Rotterdam called Erasmus University.
And the, the researchers got a, a, a number of people to research to, to journal their, their stories of trauma.
And they were then, from, from the journaling of their trauma, they were able to recognize who had gone on a forgiveness journey and who hadn't, who was bitter and who would let the thing go.
And, and this sounds, sounds crazy, but they did some got these people then to, to jump and they measured their heights, how, how high they could jump.
And crazy as it seems, the people who had gone on a forgiveness journey were able to jump higher.
I think it was like, you know, sort of literally a, a, a new, a number of inches higher.
So it was, it was as though they were literally unburdened.
The, the weight of the forgiveness physically enabled them to jump higher.
So whether or not that could be substantiated with further research.
I don't know.
But there is a real sense that when you forgive somebody, you, you let go of a burden that's weighing you down.
And so you do it for yourself and you do it for yourself regardless of whether the, the person who has traumatized you, knows about the forgiveness, whether or not they're alive.
I mean, some, you know, sometimes we have to forgive people that have died.
And I mean, I, I remember as a, as an American author who wrote from the subject, he, he describe, called Philip Yancy.
And he describes after the World War ii a, a rabbi crossing the Atlantic and he decided that he was gonna forgive Hitler.
He had, I think this man had lost his family in the Holocaust, but he, he decided to forgive, forgive Hitler.
'cause he didn't wanna take Hitler with him to America.
And Hitler was dead.
But, but there was still this decision to let go of what had happened.
And so, yeah, let, I think letting go is probably a, a really good second word that we could use, second phrase that we could use for, for the term forgiveness rather than it is certainly not condoning, it's certainly not saying that what happened was, okay.
Rachel: Because I do think that is the image that most people, that springs to mind with most people when they think of forgiveness, it's someone coming going, oh, forgive me.
And then someone says, oh yes, I forgive you.
Then it's all okay.
But that's not what we're doing.
We're letting go of the burden of resentment and bitterness that we are carrying towards that other person.
So just our whole mental capacity isn't taking up and thinking about it all the time and plotting revenge and wishing that they would get their comeuppance and that that things were different.
Steve, I've got so many questions about this.
In a minute I'm gonna ask you how on earth can you just, just let go there?
'cause I'm thinking there must be some sort of process involved.
But firstly, is it, and, and there will be people listening to this that have had desperately difficult things happen to them and, and might have ongoing stuff happening to them.
For example, you know, someone having a malicious complaint that, that, that that's going all the way that they're having to defend and they're having to deal with it every day.
It seems pretty impossible to think that you could forgive that person that's actually still doing stuff to you.
Steve: Mm Okay.
Well, I, I'll give you a, a story in a second, but what, what I'd say is that remarkably, there are some situations where people have reconciliation and despite horrific abuse become good friends, and, and, and Eric Lomax in Nagase is an example.
But I think there are situations where there is ongoing abuse, where there is ongoing trauma, you can forgive someone and still do something else about, about the situation.
I'll, I'll give you a, a situation that I know about personally is a lady called Carolyn Bramhall, who's written a book about her own experiences.
Carolyn was horrifically abused as a child.
And, and she writes about that in a book, which is available.
People might like to read it.
It's called Am I a Good Girl Yet?
And it was, it was actually much later in life when she decided to, when she'd actually dealt with, with the, with with the forgiveness issue.
Interestingly, she had years of psychiatry, lots of a, a, a admissions to hospital.
None of those really worked for her.
The thing that really helped her was a journey of forgiveness.
But at the same time, she reported her father to the police.
So it was, it was much later in life that she reported her and, and her and her father.
And she, and she yeah, she testified against him.
So she was able to, on one hand, to forgive him and find freedom.
That was a massive part of her finding freedom from the pain of her childhood abuse, but at the same time testified against her father.
So, so, no, we, we, we don't let people off when we forgive them necessarily
Rachel: But if it's an ongoing situation, it's gonna be hard, but then again, I guess you have nothing to gain from carrying that burden even if, even if that person's still doing stuff.
You still have to put the boundaries in, you know, take the action that you need, you need to do, but it's just gonna be easier for you if you're not constantly resenting, feeling bitter.
And that must be so, so difficult.
I mean, I, like you said, it's, it's a journey.
It can't just be like a one-off.
Right.
I'm gonna forgive them boom oh, great.
That's gone.
I feel so much better now.
It must be, it must be really hard and take quite, quite a lot of work.
So how, how do you help people do that?
Steve: We, we talked earlier about the fact that it's a, a process.
It's a journey.
And so it's not, it's not a, a quick fix.
And, and I, I think, the, the successes we've had are when we've taken people on a journey and help 'em to recognize that, that that is a, it is a process.
And for many people, the first step is, is to actually be willing to forgive.
And that even is a hard thing for people to even consider.
So this might sound silly, but sometimes the best first step is to be willing to be willing to forgive.
And that, and that's a really good starting point from, so from there you can then explore several things.
You can explore the fact that you're gonna do this for your own benefit.
As, as you were talking earlier, I was, I was thinking of one particular patient I remember seeing in our, in our clinic who had terrible alcohol addiction and the, and his addiction was fueled by the pain of knowing that somebody who had assaulted him and actually taken one of his eyes, was still out there and, and, and he was unable to get a conviction for this person.
And he was just totally tormented by, by this situation.
And it was just so difficult for me knowing that somehow if this guy could somehow have learnt to forgive despite the fact the man had not, had his not, not been arrested and not been convicted of his crime, that he would've, that he would've been able to find some, some, some freedom.
So, so it's a, it's a journey helping people to, to, to make that decision, to be willing to forgive, to recognize that if they do so, that they're doing it for themselves, as you say, that they're gonna stop taking the poison that's, that's not gonna do anything to the person who, who assaulted them a, abused them, whatever.
And then also what's crucially important is to recognize that it's not something that you can do in relation to your emotions.
You, our emotions are terrible guides to, to what's right and wrong.
And, and sometimes we just have to do it with gritted teeth, despite the fact that we don't really feel any desire to forgive the person.
And then it, and then it's a process.
And, and it's something that people will have to do on many levels repeatedly.
Some period of times people will reach a point where they have forgiven someone, and then some, then, uh, then a, they'll, they'll, they'll be triggered later in life.
Something else will happen and they'll remember it.
And, and it's something that you have to go back to.
But another big important part of the journey is recognizing what you have come to believe as a result of the trauma.
And that, and this is probably one of the most important things that, that we help people to do, is that, that very, very often, this is one of the, one of the most powerful ways in which we help people find freedom is by addressing the belief that has arisen as a result of their trauma.
And, and, and it's, and, and that's the second part of the journey.
The second part of the journey is to look at what happened and how it made the person feel.
So with our program, somebody that's come to my mind is, is a lady who, who relapsed into drug use when her friend committed suicide.
And when, when we worked with her, we realized that she had, her life had become difficult for her when her father left her as I think she was about four years old.
And what she had grown up with was the belief that people that she loved would leave her.
And, and, and that sort of scenario is, is very common.
So somebody will be abused maybe as a child.
And I have this feeling that I'm dirty, that I, that I deserve to be, that I'm no good.
I I was abused 'cause I was bad.
And, and, and so if, if we can first help people to recognize that what happened was wrong, choose to forgive from that, we can then look at addressing the, the belief that has arisen as a result of, of, of the initial trauma.
And that, and that that can be really powerfully healing.
That's what's so often transformative, helping people.
No, I'm not, I'm not bad, and to address, so to address that for this lay I'm thinking of the, the, the, the, the lie that she had come to believe that people that love her, will leave her, that that's not a, that's not a truth.
It felt, felt truth, and it was a major factor in her relapsing into drug use.
That that was, that was also very transformative for her.
And that, that situation has, has often helped a lot of people.
But it's, it's, it's a process.
It's a long process, but a powerful one.
Rachel: That makes a lot of sense to me because I guess what happens when someone has done something to you or, or repeatedly doing it, is that when it's triggering that underlying belief of, yeah, if, uh, everybody will leave me because I'm not that likable or something like that, then whenever you think about that person, that belief is triggered again, so it just makes you feel totally awful.
And then you're blaming that person for make you fit, making you feel that.
And it's really unpleasant.
And so no wonder you get bitter and resentful.
So if you then do the work, presumably through therapy, CBT, all those sorts of things, you can then start to shift that belief.
Then when you think about that person, it's not gonna trigger that belief so much.
You can say, oh, actually they did it because of that, not because I'm unlovable or whatever.
Then it becomes a lot easier to let go of the burden.
So I can totally see how that, how that works.
Is there a particular type of therapy that, that you would use or a, a system that you'd use to try and do that?
Steve: Yeah, I mean, we don't formally do CBT, but, but CBT is very simple, isn't it?
And, and, and I can't remember whose triangle it is, but the, it is the triangle of what you, what you think affects the way you feel, the way you feel affects the way you behave, and that, that in turn then affects the way you think.
And so it's, it's a conscious decision to think differently and, but what works for, for many of us, I, I've certainly used it for myself, is, is, is affirmations where, where maybe on a daily basis, you, you will, uh, read, read through things and, and just reflect on some thoughts
that, address the way you've been thinking, which, which is CBT, so it's, it's a sort of an informal, an informal CBT, and it's powerful.
It works.
And, and, when we, when we recognize a, a faulty belief system that we've, we've been living with and choose to address that on a daily basis, I dunno what, what, what it is about 40 days, but, but, but what repeatedly, if people do it for at least a month and, and, and on a daily basis, just reflect on, on, on what, what was a faulty belief system and what now is the truth, things change.
Think things shift.
The new way of thinking will affect the way you feel, which will then in turn affect the way you behave.
I mean, CBT works and, and, and that's what we're talking about.
But, but forgiveness is, is, is a really powerful way of just initiating that process that is, is gonna be transformative for many people.
Rachel: We've been talking about people that have had like big traumatic things happen, you know, the, the rabbi in the Holocaust and somebody who was abused.
What about those of us that haven't had these really, really awful things?
But actually there are, there are lots of things that have gone on, gone on in the past.
You know, nobody's family is perfect.
Are they?
We all, we all muck our children up.
All those, all those sorts of things.
How does that work for us?
Do we still need to be thinking about forgiveness?
Steve: I I would recommend it.
And it doesn't need to be heavy.
It's the sort of thing that I would've been when I was talking about my earlier self, I would've been very dismissive about.
But I, I would, I would suggest that we would all absolutely benefit from going through the practice of forgiveness.
And you mentioned your parents.
So how many of us are actually living our lives on something that we've grown up to believe because of how we were, how we were treated?
And it may have been totally sort of seemingly innocuous, but so many of us are striving at work because we learnt as children that we've gotta work hard to please our mom and dad, to get their affirmation.
And that, and then, you know, decades later we're slo slogging, at work and our parents may have passed away or whatever, just to try and get the affirmation that we believe we will get if we work harder.
Something that's um, really powerful in our program is a process that we call the big green heart.
And, and, and I would absolutely recommend doing a process like this for, for everybody, whether or not you think you need it.
So one of our trustees, it's a lady called Priscilla Smith, and she's no relation, has come up with a very simple technique.
She's got a, she has a, has a picture of a heart, a green heart, she has black markers that are put on the heart and each one represents an emotion.
So people look at their heart and they look at the things on their heart that are causing them difficulty.
And, and, and as I say, some of us may not even think we've got much there, but if we look close enough, we'll realize we have.
And we'll try, try and work out where did that come in?
Why, why is that?
Where's that anger coming from?
Where's that, frustration?
Where's that irritation?
Whatever it may be.
And more often than not, there will be somebody that needs to be forgiven that, that is at the root of that particular unhealthy emotion.
And, and going through the process of taking that thing off the heart and putting it in a bin, simplistic as it may seem.
It's very powerful.
It, it, it works for a lot of people.
And so that's part of what we, we, we would recommend is actually having some sort of symbolic act because it does work.
I've heard of people doing, of different people doing different things.
Sometimes it's writing a letter, writing a letter, whether or not you're, very often, you're not even gonna send it.
Sometimes you're gonna write the letter, screw it up, put it in the bin, or, or write down whatever it is on a stone and throw the stone into the river.
But sometimes the symbolic act is, is, is, is really very helpful.
But, but going back to your question, who, whoever we are, however okay, we, we think we are, I, I would say most of us could, some, would sometimes benefit from a, a, a time of reflection and, and consider, you know, who do I, who do I need to forgive?
And the who, what, what emotion, what negative thought process is still impacting my life that is actually rooted in something that needs to be forgiven?
Rachel: So Steve, if I was to come to you and say, actually, you know, I, uh, there's something that's really been eating away at me, and I, I do think I need to forgive that person, but I just hate them so much and I, I, I really can't, every time I see them, my blood just boils, what would you, what would you do with me?
Steve: We, we would look at how it's affecting you and, and that you are hooked to that person, that person that has got their hook in you, if you like.
And again, it goes back to that whole business of the poison that you are drinking, hoping that, that, that might, impact them, whereas in reality, it's you that, that's being poisoned.
And um, help you to recognize that if you could choose to let that go, not to say that what that person did.
Is okay, but that you are going is is that you are going to accept what's, what's happened, not condone it, but you're gonna let it go, that will be the first step.
I'm, I'm working very much in the field of addiction and the program that our program makes use of the 12 steps.
I haven't been on a 12 step journey myself, but I think we've got so much to learn from, from the, the 12 step fellowships, and a big part of the, of, of the, of the 12 steps is, is is reconciliation.
But what I'm thinking about is in every, every 12 step meeting, they, they pray the Serenity Prayer.
And a lot of us are familiar with that prayer, but it's so, God, grant me the, the, the ability to accept the things I cannot change.
I've, I've not got the wording exactly right, and the courage to change the things that I can change.
It's, it's that internal fighting that that is what's is, is what's retraumatizing all the time.
You know, your blood's boiling because, 'cause you just want, want that person to get their comeuppance.
And that, and that's retraumatizing you all the time.
Rachel: I love the fact you brought that up, Steve, that we use this all the time.
The, the, the Serenity Prayer as a zone of power.
So it's, you know, recognize stuff that's in your control, what stuff that's out outside of your control.
And so often we just rail against those things that are outside of our control.
And what I love about the Serenity Prayer, and I only found this out recently, is, I looked up what the definition of the word serenity in that prayer is, because I'm like, I don't quite understand.
Grant me this.
I think it, it, the word is, the phrase is, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change.
Well, what on earth does that mean?
And I, I found somewhere that someone's interpreted it as.
Unclouded acceptance.
So the serenity is, is this unclouded acceptance.
And as you've been saying that, it's made me think that forgiveness is a way of having unclouded acceptance of a situation.
Because while you're unforgiving, you're rating against it, you are wanting revenge.
You are that you are holding that person to, to something that they've got to, you know, they owe you something, but the unclouded acceptance bit probably is making that decision to go, okay, I'm gonna absolutely let this go.
'cause because I can't do anything about it anyway.
And if I keep hold of it, that's just gonna cause me stress, 'cause that's what we get if we don't accept the stuff that's outside our control, we just get really stressed.
So forgiveness is a, is a massive part of that.
So I I, I really love that and I love the fact that you can have a, you can have clouded acceptance where you just, like, then, then you become very victim, like don't you?
Oh, poor me, I can't do anything about this.
It's everybody else's fault.
And, and this is not negating the fact that often it is other people's fault and there are, you know, there are real victims out there.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the victim mentality that's, I just have to put up with it.
I can't do anything about it, but unclouded acceptance is I can do something about the way that I accept the thing that I can't change.
Steve: Yes.
I mean, that, that term victim is something that was, was absolutely wanting to come onto because, because what we're doing from in, in the process of forgiving is moving from becoming, from being a victim to becoming an overcomer.
And, and, and, yeah.
Accepting, accepting the the, the what you can't change and choosing to change what you can change, you're changing yourself from victim to overcomer.
Rachel: Yeah, we often talk to people about power language, actually, when we talk about how to change the stories in your head.
So I guess what I'd try and do would be to make myself a bit of a power mantra.
So I'm choosing to forgive this person or let, let them off the hook, or maybe let it go.
Maybe I'm choosing to let this go so that I can just stop thinking about it all the time and get a peace, even if I feel quite annoyed and angry and they're not being punished or something like that, it's so that I could just keep saying that to myself or, or, or the more positive thing is, you know,
and I am not a bad person just because that person told me 20 years ago that I was, or, or, or whatever the thing I need to, need to, need to forgive for.
So it's, it's.
It's like anything, it's just a combination of loads of different things, isn't it?
Steve: And I think also what is very helpful, and I'm thinking now of the 12 steps, is that on one hand you are forgiving people that have hurt you, harmed you, but also you are recognizing that there are people that, that we have all harmed and impacted in a negative way.
So that, that's, again, that's gonna help us come outta that victim mentality.
And um, something that, that sort of just reminds me of is, is, is the massive importance of forgiving ourselves.
We need to go through the process sometimes of looking at what we have done to others, as a way of helping ourselves to forgive people that we need to forgive.
But at the same time so many people are tormented by the, the, the things that, that they themselves have done wrong.
And we need to forgive ourselves.
It's, I think every time you have, you, you consider something that you regret.
I mean, I've often, there's, there's a lot of things that I regret, a lot of things I wish I had done, I had done differently.
And I just have to, I, I, I like the expression I heard Gabor Maté say, you know, be kind to your former self.
Have compassion on the person that you once were, and forgive yourself.
You know, you like they, they muck us up, our mom and dad, but we ourselves do the same thing.
And, and we just have to let it go.
Let ourselves go, let ourselves off the hook sometimes that, that might, that might be the most important thing that, some of us have to do.
Rachel: Yeah, because it's gonna be very difficult to do that for other people if we are not doing that for ourselves.
Just, that's just unfair, isn't it?
Why should we let them off if I'm still beating myself up for what I've done?
Steve: Totally.
Yeah.
And that's probably a big part of the process.
Rachel: Gosh, Steve, we're out of time.
That, that's just been really fascinating.
There's probably lots, lots more that, that we could talk about.
If you were to sort of give three top tips for people that were just starting to explore the sale and thinking, yeah, there are probably a few people I do need to let go of, as it were, and forgive, what, what would your top three tips be for people?
Steve: Okay.
Well, to take time.
I listened to you talking about taking time out in the day recently.
Take time out in the day, and take time out in the week, have a have a day to, to rest and, and use that rest to just, to be still and to reflect.
So, so that's a big part of, of, of the journey that's, that's, uh, rest and reflect.
That's, that'll be two.
And the practice of affirmations, declarations to just to choose to believe the things that are gonna be transformative, that you know, that find, find some mantras, if you like, to put it that way, that, that are gonna help you think differently, the, the power thinking that you referred to earlier.
Rachel: I love what you said about the zone of power and the, the serenity prayer and just, uh, getting people to look at what does unclouded acceptance look like?
And that probably for a lot of situations will mean, will mean forgiveness.
So adding that into that arsenal of how do I, how do I just accept stuff that's really bugging me, but I can't do anything about
Steve: absolutely no.
It's, uh, powerful stuff.
I mean, and there's, so, as you say, we're outta of time.
There's so much more we could talk about there, but it, but it's, it's a, it's a massive principle.
It affects individuals, it affects nations.
And, and there's, it's, it's, it's, hopefully it's becoming a new way of thinking.
There's a whole area of restorative justice as well.
It's, it is something that's been sadly neglected in so many people's thinking, certainly in the medical sphere.
But hopefully as time goes by, we'll, we'll be more forgiveness focused.
Rachel: If somebody wanted to explore this more, where would you direct them to?
Are there any sort of good books or websites people could look at?
Steve: I mean the, the big green heart is, if somebody actually wants some help.
'cause a lot of people need help.
So, it's biggreenheart.org.
And if somebody wants some help in, in forgiving, you, you can, you can book a, a little session there, which, which a lot of people, many people have found really, really helpful.
Rachel: Steve, thank you so much for your time.
That's just been, been fascinating and we'll have to get you back on again at some point to talk to more about some of this stuff.
Steve: Thank you.
Well, it's been a great pleasure.
I've enjoyed your podcasts over, I think a few years now, so it's, uh, great to actually meet you on a podcast.
Thank you, Rachel.
Rachel: Thanks for listening.
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