Barbara J Hunt, coach and author, shares with us the power of forgiveness.
You can find the first two chapter of her book – FORGIVENESS MADE EASY
the revolutionary guide to moving beyond your past and truly letting go
free on her website: HOME (forgivenessmadeeasy.co.uk)
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Transcript
OK.
Hi and welcome to The You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us Barbara J. Hunt. Barbara is the author and she is here to share with us the power of forgiveness. Welcome to the show, Barbara. It's really nice to.
Have you here?
Thanks very much, Jill.
Lovely to be here.
So tell us your story.
Well, I'm a forgiveness nerd or specialist, as is probably more pertinent to say, and I am a coach and a speaker and ioffer workshops, and I'm a forgiveness.
Author and I am passionate about all things personal and spiritual development. I'm also a musician, but I don't make my money being a musician. But I sing about the same kinds of things as I teach in my workshops and.
In what Ioffer and I got very interested in the subject of forgiveness and it's quite contentious and I like the fact that it's quite contentious.
So I need to find forgiveness. I think it's a little different.
Well, one of the things I'm really interested in is why we find it so hard. And I think because culturally, especially us in the West, we have much more secular approaches to life.
Life that some of what maybe we would have learned about spiritually is excluded from our our lives. And I think this is a a great detriment. And I do teach about forgiveness as a secular ethics practice. But if you're on a personal and spiritual development path, then it really is.
A master spiritual practice and from my point of view.
It has enormous potential, not just for our own inner well-being and healing the past, but also in our current lives and healing our current relationships and potentially for the future. There's a lovely quote by the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died a few years ago.
And he said without forgiveness, there really is no future. And to me, when I look at the global situation, I just see Division, Division, division, resentment, hatred.
Period. Grievance ********. Hate speech. You know, it's like all of the things that would I as I would count them under the umbrella of resentment, are alive and well and we don't seem to have any strategies to cope with it.
And and because forgiveness is so misunderstood and there's there's people writing about toxic forgiveness or unforgiveness, or like all these different terms that are in the zeitgeist, which I think are just really unhelpful and even some of the most.
Inspiring stories of forgiveness that are gathered.
Are still talked about in a way that makes forgiveness seem either irrelevant because it's only necessary if you've had trauma or the the examples of it are so extraordinary that I think most people would just think how could you ever forgive that?
How? How are we ever gonna forgive the atrocities that are going on?
Or, you know this person who's been killed or this child who's been murdered or, you know, like we we we we think forgiveness is in that realm. But we don't think about our everyday forgiveness. And when I work 1:00 to 1:00 with clients I always we I I used to work on a retreat and we used to say if.
It's not one thing, it's your mother.
And always, as far as I'm concerned, we need to do forgiveness, work on our family of origin because although our parents were probably doing the best they could.
For sure, none of us had perfect parents, and apparently I wasn't a perfect parent either. Shock, horror. So you know, it's it's it's great to know that there's something that can be done to repair those relationships even though they're passed. So I'm I'm. I can go on and on and on, but I'd love to hear back from you.
I love to tell misuse it, they misunderstand what it's all about. They want it to be about. They confuse it with the the word excuse to excuse someone's behavior is different than to forgive someone's behavior. Excusing someone for what they've.
Is an outward gesture. It affects your relationship with them, and you can determine if you a want to excuse that behavior and you're going to let it continue.
Or if you want to forgive them, which is an inward expression of how you're going to deal with the situation, you reframe it for yourself so it no longer affects you, and you could become indifferent.
To the situation rather than have.
An emotional reaction to this situation.
When somebody says, forgive me what they really mean is, excuse me. They don't understand the difference.
That's a that's.
A really good point. It's a really good point and and often we think that forgiveness is letting somebody off the hook or saying that something is OK and that it means that we're relinquishing our bound.
Aries and forgiveness is exactly as you say. It's an inside attitude towards that other person. Am I gonna hold ill will against them for what they did or didn't do? And I I describe it a bit like this, where you're gathering up all the little grievances and the things that somebody's done wrong and we kind of like we have our log books as well. And we kind of hold.
All of these things against other people and the definition of forgiveness that I use, that I learned many years ago, is forgiveness is the absolute refusal to hold ill will against some.
On for what they did or didn't do. And so you're you're consciously choosing to relinquish your ill will, which is your judgement, your resentment, your hatred, your grievances against the other person. And it doesn't mean that they're not accountable for what they've done. It doesn't mean that you might want also for them to make amends.
But often what happens with forgiveness is we hope people will make amends.
And we wait with our grievances.
Until they do. And then we'll forgive them and and the trouble with that is somebody might die before they've ever apologized or they've made amends. And sometimes people don't have the same perspective about what they've done. And so you could be holding your ill will forever and never be able to let it go.
And that's why choosing to forgive being able to forgive is an act of empowerment. So you're the one choosing what goes on in your heart. And this is really important because we we like to think that we have autonomy and agency as individuals.
And the truth is that we're interconnected with each other all the time. But I am 100% in charge of my behaviour. I'm in charge of what I think about other people, how I choose to treat them, and what I carry in my heart if I wanna carry a whole log of grievances that I've kept through all the years.
Or I can choose to work through it and free myself so I can meet each moment with a free heart. And it's in. It's a subtle practice, but it's also, I think, a mental and emotional health practice. Being able to let go of that old material.
Because we sometimes, you know, we wake up feeling like ohh, I'm really depressed or you know or like, you know, if this is going wrong in my life or and we don't realise.
That there's a.
Whole backlog of of old material that we just haven't faced or worked through and and forgiveness.
Is it's so misunderstood. You know what we think it means? Things that it doesn't. We, you know, we think that there's, I mean, the idea of actually it being toxic to let go of your ill will is ridiculous. What could be toxic is staying in a relationship that's not healthy or abusive but that's not forgive.
Yes, you know, forgiveness is about not holding ill will against somebody. It's about not bearing the grudge, you know it's about. It's about choosing and you know ultimately to be unconditionally loving, which is, you know, probably a bit further along. Most of us just need a bit of help to just choose to just stop hating the people or resenting them or even being jealous. I was thinking about this today.
That sometimes.
What I would call resentment. I have a lovely big broad umbrella. Pretty much. Anytime you want something to be different from the way it is, I resent the weather in England. It's awful at the moment, you know? So. But what's the point in resenting it? I'm wanting it to be different. Pointless, because it is the way it is. And the same with relationships. If I feel jealous of a friend who's spending more time with an old friend.
You know, it's kind of like that's all to do with my internal world and my understanding my meaning making, which is why it's partly a mental health practice, because we have to understand that we're making up those stories and at the same time, it's the work.
Of the heart.
Because, you know we we we don't really do anything about our hearts. Even the fact that we talk about mental health and we don't say emotional well-being which is, you know, the two are different. Yeah, but it is hot health and it is relational health and we we're not taught anything about how to have healthy relationships. We're not taught how to communicate with each other.
Heart health.
We're not taught how to let go of grievances, you know, maybe when you're a kid, you know, your parents say, forgive your sister.
You know, we don't, we don't really have good teaching about our emotional well-being and and so my my mission really is to talk about forgiveness in a way that makes it accessible and to talk of it like a practice. You know, we talk about mindfulness practice or meditation practice or the things that you do, the body work practices you might do, like yoga.
Or Pilates or whatever. But equally we need to do the work of the heart. And you know, if we don't do the work of the heart as as a humanity, as one humanity, we will never overcome our differences if we don't.
Stand the dynamics that are going on inside our own hearts. There's point scoring, you know, something happens. So I have to make it even and we even say we have to get even. That's that's a an expression that we have when somebody does something you want to get even, which means you want to balance up, you want them to feel like you do.
You want them to understand actually, the impulse of that is, is you want compassion, you want understanding, you want them to know the impact of what happened to you. You want them to understand it, and you want them to take responsibility for it, and you want them to be accountable, and you want them to.
Make amends or apologise.
And so then you're waiting.
And sometimes until your deathbed. And it never calms. And so either that means you're the victim of all of the things that happen to you, or you can put your resentment down, you know, in a particular way. And that's that's what I teach about. I teach, teach a particular process so that people have a way of working through it.
Because a lot of the other teachings about forgiveness or the stories about forgiveness are amazing.
But the bit where it's.
And I forgave my mother. It's like, yeah, but how, what did?
You do you?
Know like. I mean suddenly. Well, and and So what I was trying to do was to discover what gets in the way and how can we unpack it so that it's then it's a bit like, you know, understanding a recipe.
Rather than going like here's the cake, it's like great, you know, cake. Lovely. But if you wanna recreate it, you need to know what the ingredients are and what order they're added in and how long you need to cook it.
It's really helpful to have somebody that can come alongside you and say this. This is the recipe for forgiveness because we don't. We aren't taught and some of us stumble on it, but very few you really have to be looking for it. And I think it starts with yourself. You have to learn how to forgive yourself.
Because if you can't forgive yourself.
And set your own boundaries.
And hold your boundaries to yourself. We we don't talk about these kinds of things, but they're so important. And you know, having holding resentment.
And and hoping that you can forgive somebody because they will ask you for this forgiveness, which really they if they if they recognize that they've wronged you, it's more likely that they want your you to excuse that behavior and they don't want to change. But if they if they genuinely recognize that they hurt you.
And and do genuinely want to repair the situation and ask you for forgiveness.
That's so rare. And then on the other side of that, people don't know how to accept forgiveness.
You know, not taught how to do that either.
Yeah, it's it. It's it's an interesting point actually, because I think there's three threads to forgiveness. So one is our need to forgive other people because of our own resentments. And what we gathered in our own hearts. Then there's our need to be forgiven for the things that we've done wrong.
Or things that we're responsible.
Before and then there is self forgiveness. And although I think lots of people think you do need to forgive yourself before you can forgive anyone, I don't like to put that restriction on start anywhere. If you feel like you can forgive somebody else 1st to go ahead, you know whatever it whatever it takes. But I, but I really agree that there's that that the combination of often even in the same relationship.
There's the need for all of those three different elements. If you like of forgiveness and and the way I teach it is as a a a process that you do yourself rather than.
And with another person. And it may be that after you've done the process, you then go to the other person and it's a bit like this, you know that these are all your resentments. It may be that there's one thing that you really need to have a conversation about like this is this is essential to the, to the health of our marriage. Quite a lot of this stuff probably isn't.
It's like me ******** about that and why don't you do the mowing and like, don't leave the lid on the toothpaste on, you know, on the side of the sink. You know, the little, you know, petty everyday things and more really about you. I mean, when I was doing some forgiveness work on my mother, I resented her for wearing pop socks. And that was entirely my fashion sense.
And nothing to do with her, so I wouldn't. I wouldn't expect somebody to sit down with me and let me tell them the full extent of my resentment because you just get defensive. You want? Yeah. But but I though I don't do that well, you know, you're you're sort of defending yourself as as opposed to just being able to listen. So that's why the process is done with the coach.
And not with the other person. And then maybe after the process you go and have a little chat, you say, how can we have a little conversation about this? It's very important.
But and and it may be that you have a really amazing heart opening conversation because you're not carrying all the resentment anymore. And and I I only have. I wish I had some more scientific evidence, although there are studies that have been done about forgiveness. But I I would love to do a study. So if there's anybody in your community who's a.
Like a neuroscientist or I would love to do more proven work that shows the transformation that forgiveness can create in somebody's life. But there are some studies that show that doing forgiveness work lowers your cortisol. It lowers your blood pressure, it improves your heart health.
Even the progression of some cancers, they've they've done some studies that that show that it slows down the progression, which is amazing. But most of my my proof if you like is anecdotal, but nevertheless the numbers of times when somebody has done a forgiveness process and then they've contacted me a few days later and go, you'll never guess what.
And I say I probably might.
And they go well. I heard from such and such, and they've never normally do that. Or they told me they love me. They've never told me before, you know. So there's something shifts and, you know, when you are stuck in a relationship and you move suddenly, the dance opens up and there's a a weird, you know, if you have spiritual beliefs, you'll know there's some kind of energetic connection.
That it's transformed when you rid your heart of all of the guts. If you're in. If your hearts like this open and available, then that makes it, you know, the transmission of connection between.
You change and that and that's true. I I even had feedback the other day that somebody who did some forgiveness work that I was facilitating on a grief course, that it it it she said it changed the trajectory of her life.
And that's powerful to be able to be able to feel like you can come to terms with something inside of yourself that you felt you that just was too late. There was nothing you could do about it if somebody's died or somebody committed suicide or, you know, like, there's these different experiences that people may have had that feel like, well, there's nothing I can do.
To being able to do this kind of work in, you know in a supported way it can be transformational.
It transforms not only the individual, but everyone around you, which is what I think you're saying and it.
I think it also changes history and this is going to sound weird but.
As you forgive.
A situation or a person. You change the stories that you tell yourself and that you tell others. No two people experience any event the same way and.
As you change the stories that go on in your head, because we all tell ourselves stories, we have brains and that's what our brains like to do. They have to entertain themselves somehow.
You don't have to react to every story that passes through your head, which was a weird eye opener for me. It's like ohh I can have thoughts and not have an opinion about those thoughts and it's the opinion about the thoughts you're having that cause you trouble and it does physically affect you when you.
The emotions generate chemical reactions in your body that will either help your body or hurt your body, and that's, you know, a lot of disease in our bodies comes from hanging on to these.
Emotions that we're having in reaction to thoughts we're having that may or may not be true and in most cases.
What is truth anyway? It.
You know, you may be harboring resentment against somebody they may not even have any idea that you're resenting them for it. So it's like swallowing poison and hoping the other person's going to die.
Because you know, and there is evidence around that there's a lot of evidence around that and and just.
Recognizing that not everybody has to take responsibility for how you feel or how you.
React to anything.
Taking personal responsibility, being your own, the hero of your own journey instead of being the victim. And when you were holding those little pens in the jar and talking about all the grievances sometimes, and this is something I do with my husband because, you know, there are petty things.
There's many things I do to bug him too, and sometimes I'll just go to him and say, hey, I'm going to be the victim here for just a minute. As fair warning, I'm going to be the victim of this discussion, and I'm just going to put it out there and you don't have to defend yourself. You don't have to even make amends for it.
I just want to air this and.
Or sometimes I'll just, you know, attack him and he'll be like, are you trying to be the victim here, or did you want to sell the problem which brings it back to, you know, what is the end goal of the discussion where I think.
Yeah, do that with your thoughts.
Yeah, it's it's a really, really good point and especially culturally, there's a lot of projection outside like you are responsible for, not, you know, triggering me as opposed to. I'm triggerable because I have unhealed.
Material that is is being accessed, you know and and and how amazing that that happens that if something if I'm being triggered in this moment, it could easily be that there's some old unresolved material that is wanting my attention. And so that's you know I should be thanking you not trying to change you so that I am not disturbed.
Because also the other thing there's so much culturally, again, emphasis on safety.
And and and about everything being sort of black and white and we we're missing nuance. We're missing. You can have your version of an event and I can have mine and neither one of us is necessarily got all the facts. You might not know really. What? Why I'm upset because you've said something that sounded exactly like my mother.
You know, but how are you supposed to know that? You know, it's like so, so, so so we have to take responsibility for our own emotional well-being and being honest about our own shadows is key. You know, we we need to to be honest about our dirt and particularly if we're in, you know, the personal spiritual development field.
I I heard this great quote from Louise Hay the other day which said honey, if you want to clean your house, you have to see the dirt.
And I feel that's a really good call to all of us. So rather than just being all sort of like LA, LA and kind of affirming how marvellous everything is that we look within and go, actually, I really am jealous of that friendship or I am, you know, resentful of that or I, you know, I resent the amount of time it takes me to look after my.
Sick mother, for example, you.
That owning and that this was one of the my part of my story with forgiveness, was admitting I resented my mum for having Ms. She was she was sick for 15 years from the time I was 15, until when she died, when I was 31. And that was like, what an awful daughter I am to resent.
How massive an impact that had on me, but it did and my best my best choice was to hold resentment against it because it was too painful to witness the loss of my mum that young and the swap over of me.
Me pushing her around in her wheelchair and feeding her and changing her. You know that pain, the resentment somehow helped to protect my heart and so understanding that we may be doing things for a very intelligent reason. You know, a very intelligent coping mechanism as Thomas Hubel might say, but.
At the same time, being willing to admit, yes, I resented it. I resented the fact that my mum didn't go shopping with me when I was a.
Girl, you know.
All of the things that I didn't have because she wasn't well.
So it's it's really important and especially you know again because we're we're getting to the ages where you know for for older women where you're looking after elderly parents, you know, if they if you didn't have an experience like I did. Now it's the time where you, you know, you're raising kids and you've got elderly parents and then you're spread like really thin and then maybe resentment.
And to be able to admit it and work through it can be really relieving. And like you said, I love the quote about the taking poison, but my other favorite is caring. Resentment is like setting yourself on fire and hoping the other person is bothered by the.
Smoke because we're we're in the incendiary device. You know, we're the fuel for the rage. You know, the rage in the in the unquenchable rage, you know, you're the fuel.
Yeah, I love that. It's so true, though. It it it's so easy to fall into those patterns and so difficult in a lot of cases to recognize when it's happening, like how, how helpful would it have been for you if you knew somebody that knew about forgiveness that could talk to you while your mom was still alive?
And and could have helped you and.
In dealing with that, coping with that in a healthy way that wouldn't impact you for like the rest of your life, which you know when you lose a parent that young, how can you help but not be impacted?
Yeah, exactly. And that and that's why I love having a way of working through that. So I I was lucky because about a year before my mom died.
I did understand I was like, you know, I learned a lot about forgiveness at.
Point and was able to do some forgiveness work, but even then, since she died, I've done other forgiveness work. You know, as as different things have happened and I became a parent and you know, kind of like that at different phases in my life and and that's the other thing about forgiveness is it isn't like oh, well, if you haven't done it then that's it that you you know you missed your chance. That's why I teach you as a.
A practice we don't say. Oh, I've done.
Yoga. You know, it's like, yeah. Yeah, exactly. For this week, you know, and the same with taking your bins out. You know, you take the the garbage out, you know, whenever you need to, you know, it's the same with our hearts. You know that that needs work. We need to be, you know, freeing our own hearts of the old material that just doesn't need to be in there anymore.
I took a shower.
And it takes a bit of work, you know, not tonnes, but you know it takes a bit of tension.
And but it's so worth it because my my hope really is and and and this is another really important thing that doesn't get talked about a lot about forgiveness is the potential of it. And this was one of the other reasons why I ended up writing my book because I was just so I was like, Oh my God, this is so exciting.
Like the potential like, imagine if everybody around the world did their forgiveness work. So you make your list and it may be long.
You know, and we used to say on the retreat, if it's not one thing, it's your mother. So you start there. Mum, dad, siblings. No siblings. You know, first heartbreak kids at school who are mean, you know, crabby boss yourself. So that's like 6, at least. I I got to #36 before I thought of my mum. You know, when it was my turn to write my list. So be generous.
And work through your list. So maybe say it takes a month to work through your list and it's like maybe an hour a day, but at the end of that time.
Like what state are you gonna be sort like this radiant being of unconditional love? And then if we all did it and I've, you know, I understand. I'm not so naive to think that everybody would do it, but we could be living in a completely different world, completely different in one month. I mean, that is the potential of forgiveness.
And then you then circle back to OK, well, if that's the potential, why aren't we doing it?
So yeah, I mean that is.
I don't know.
Definitely. And and also because it's I I think it's because forgiveness is seen in a particular way. I I feel like I'm trying to rebrand forgiveness and try and make it accessible and sort of like interesting and ohh yeah. I wanna do my forgiveness work. You know. Yeah, I wanna I wanna come to a class or I want to you know do someone want you know like I want to to engage with it because.
It's one of the most powerful and effective ways of doing your inner work, because you could be in therapy literally for decades and never do any forgive.
This work you could meditate for decades and never do any forgiveness work. Be as mindful as you like. Never do any forgiveness. Work bendy as you like. Never do, and you know, so it's it's, it's its own thing, and that's and that's what I'm trying to do, which is why I'm inviting myself on so many podcasts, because I really want to be able to talk about it.
And and the feedback that I tend to get as well is wow, I hadn't really thought about it like that. So that means that there's there's a conversation for us to have.
Yeah, I I agree with you on so many levels and I have thought a lot about forgiveness over the years and I have done a lot of forgiveness work. I, I've, I've felt wronged a lot in my life and I've.
It's just so personally freeing when you forgive others. It's like, does it really matter?
And it doesn't. And I have people in my life today that are.
Are angry with me and.
I want them to forgive me, but it's really it's up to them. I can't.
You can't make somebody forgive you, and so you know, I I can forgive them for not forgiving me. Exactly.
And you know, I can have a relationship with them at whatever level they want, and I hope someday that it'll change, but it doesn't have to. My happiness does not depend on the.
Yes, exactly, exactly. Which is why it's so empowering. It's to if you take full responsibility. So you do everything you can, you know, the people who are not forgiving you, you make amends, or you do whatever you can, you apologise or and if they still don't want to forgive you, then that's obviously up to them. And that's the, that's the other really important thing about forgiveness is you don't have to.
This afternoon.
You know I'm. I'm a, you know, massive fan and an.
Easiest and a nerd, but it doesn't mean you.
Have to do it.
But but if you end up on your deathbed, you will let go in the moment of your last breath because you can't take your resentment with you. But most people, I think what happens, and even I mean, this is an interesting thing that's.
Happening sort of at the moment.
Yeah. So the the most interesting thing is the conditionality of our resentment. So for example, with King Charles, he's been diagnosed with cancer and there's a slightly different. Oh, well, maybe my resentment isn't quite as relevant.
Because he's got cancer. So that kind of makes you then. Well, why was it seemingly so important if now suddenly someone may be dying sooner than you thought, that you think I could let that go? That in and of itself is very interesting because it sort of discredits.
The hell? The holding on of the resentment. And I was just saying about, you know, on the moment of your your.
Death. You know, like we we.
Resentment can be, in our experience, of dying, because either we're realizing the resentments that we're still carrying, and most people seem to want to make amends before they die. If they can, or the people who've been resenting them, like in that it's this example they're thinking, oh, well, maybe.
There's a reconciliation that can happen, or a some forgiveness that can happen cause you don't have to reconcile. You can forgive without reconciling, but there's something about the impending death that can change things. But that, to me, is fascinating.
It is. I think we at some level, no, it's one of those things.
We know but.
We really.
We never.
Birth and death.
Things that are always like pushed into institutions as though we're never going to experience them.
And all dignity is at the door.
You just check your dignity at the door when you're dying and you're being.
More or you're participating in it.
But so let me let me back up just a little bit because I know that you are a coach and you are an author and I want to know the name of your book and how you help people as far as coaching goes. How can they?
So this is my book forgiveness made easy. Well, technically it should be. Forgiveness made a bit easier, but that wouldn't have looked right. So no. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to undo the major obstacles to forgiveness so that by the time you get to trying to do the process.
It's easy, and that that's that's my whole kind of thrust is to make it as easy as possible. And as that accessible as possible. And sometimes people need a long run up. Sometimes you're not ready if you're really furiously angry, you know, like, for example, if you know, like, I would never say to somebody who's experienced a loss that immediately, like, they need to forgive. Sometimes people can do that, which is extraordinary.
But sometimes there's a bit of time where you know or or, you know, like a scab needs to form over the heart so that you know, there's when it's really tender. And then there's a kind of timing to it. And sometimes it can be like 30 years later when you're just thinking.
Yeah, I really need to let that go. So so people come to me when they know that they're ready to forgive, or they're willing. They're like, OK, I've. I've carried this for as long as I can or it's or it's impinging. I worked with somebody recently whose current relationship was being impinged by her resentment of her previous partner. And so she came and.
We did, you know, six sessions because actually imprint of the relationship is often your early years. So mum or dad is your first male or female relationship. And that takes a bit of working through. So it's it's kind of worth doing the work anyway. And if you're you're on some kind of personal spiritual development path really worth doing that little bit of work.
Yeah. And so I know that you offer a couple chapters of your book for free and they can find that on your website.
I do, yeah. Yeah. On my website whichisforgivenessmadeeasy.co.uk because it's a UK site. So forgivenessmadeeasy.co.uk and then the other thing that Ioffer is their online forgiveness fields. And so that's a practice space, a bit like a yoga class where people come and do their practice.
Together. So it's really cheap to come, much cheaper than working with me one to one because it's a group.
But also, there's something wonderful about the group field and I called them forgiveness fields for a couple of reasons. One was this lovely idea of that every time someone forgives, it adds to the field of forgiveness. So if you, if you're sensitive to energies or kind of like that sort of that kind of attunement, the quality of forgiveness.
As a particular it's it's. It is actually similar to unconditional love because you you have no conditions on whether or not you're gonna hold that ill will. You're choosing to let it go. So it's a very. It's actually, I would say, sacred space without being too kind.
Like because that because there's something about being willing to do that, to say, even though this really difficult thing happened, I choose to not hold my ill will against that person for what they did or didn't do. And that's incredible. And then the other reason I call them forgiveness fields is because of that beautiful, roomy poem that you may know.
He says out beyond ideas of right doing and wrongdoing. There's a field. I'll meet you there and I just love this idea. Like, beyond all of our ******** and moaning. And this, that and you. And is this like this open field where we can sit and.
And we can pour our darkness into space, you know, let that all go and and we work with microphones off. So it's actually zoom is great to do forgiveness work because everybody can work with their microphones off. So even though I'm guiding the group and they're speaking out loud and they're doing, you know, the the steps of the process.
They're in their own space, so they feel held and safe. They don't have to go anywhere and but it's it's it, you know, it's it's a powerful experience. You know, people are people are often quite surprised by how powerful it can be just so that's that's a 90 minute.
That that sounds like an amazing opportunity for people, especially if you're struggling with.
With forgiveness of of someone or something.
And most people know that they know at least one something that they're struggling with because you know, it's.
Yeah, yeah.
There's always, always something new that moves it, something old moves out this there's lots more space.
I mean, I'm not. I'm not really. It's. Yeah. And I. And I'm very generous about my, like, my definition of needing to forgive somebody is quite low because when you know, when I was first invited to write down my list, I thought, well, you know, pretty much everyone you know and. And I think if you have that kind of generous attitude towards your own resentment, then that, you know, keeps you entertained and even even literally today.
I was just thinking now I feel a bit jealous about a dynamic between two friends and I feel excluded and I'm like, OK, I need to do some forgiveness work. So it's.
Really good. I have it as a practice, you know, literally on the day my brother died recently, I was doing forgiveness work with about some other family members who are going to be there. You know, it's it's an incredible practice, a practical thing that you can do that helps to clear the field so that you can show up with your heart open 100%.
Really available to the needs of the moment.
It's powerful. It is very powerful so.
We talked about how they can get a hold of you and is there one thing that you'd really hope that they take away from this conversation?
Well, hopefully to be inspired to do their own practice. You know, one one thing that I do like to say really is that your forgiveness is an act of amnesty for the whole of humanity, and that's how we create peace on Earth, one heart at a time, starting with yours. And it really matters because I can't.
Change the political situation out, whatever. However, I would love to be a.
To do that, you know I have one vote and you know 1 voice, but I'm can be 100% in charge of what's going on in my own heart and hopefully inspire other people to do the same, because that's how we change things from the bottom up. We, we we release our release our hearts and say, OK, I I can't do anything about the war outside, but I can do.
Anything that I want about the war inside, so I make my own heart a garden of peace. So that's my invitation.
I love that and I.
Put my endorsement on it.
Because you feel the same way, it's like.
What you do for yourself and the people that you touch, your family, your neighborhood, your community, it matters. It matters a lot, and the more kindness you can show and kindness is the most important towards others.
Because you can forgive.
The little grievances that come up and and let them go, we could live in a world that was.
Beautiful and peaceful and kind and and made you feel good and made you feel important because as you start to take responsibility for yourself.
You allow others to take responsibility for themselves. Everybody can be responsible for themselves and show up being their best self. It's just like.
I I like to imagine what the world will be like at that point, and I'm really personally excited about it because I see it coming.
Yeah, me too, because it's like, well, what's possible on the other side of that? So, like, because I don't necessarily believe that you have to be in therapy for thousands of years, it's like when we get past the past. Now what? How do we show up? What do we Co create together? You know, what's possible for us as a humanity? You know, how glorious could we create things to be? And that's what excites me. But it does.
Involve us doing our housekeeping, you know, doing our little spring cleaning and and and like you said, it ripples out to our immediate families and everything. But also I just think it's like taking quite a radical and counterculture stand to say despite all that's going on in the world, I am going to be a role model. I am going to.
Be an exemplar.
Of love that is my sacred duty.
Yeah. And it starts with your thoughts and and forgiveness. I thank you so much, Barbara. This is an amazing conversation. Really enjoyed it.