Forgiveness

Episode number 88, forgiveness. Hello and welcome to the Fighting for Connection podcast. I'm Brett Nicolau, a husband, father and fun lover. Listen in as I share stories, tips and inspiration that will move you toward the connection that you want in your relationship. All right, welcome back to the Fighting for Connection podcast. Today we're going to be talking about a pretty big topic and I'm just going to take a very narrow slice out of this topic. So, while the title of this is going to be forgiveness, because I think that's what this podcast speaks to, please know that this is again just a very narrow slice of the topic as a whole, just like everything that I really talk about can just take very narrow slices out of some pretty significant topics. At least in the work that I do, and I can offer kind of my thoughts, my opinions and some of the things that I've learned and hopefully they serve you and you're able to apply them in ways that are helpful and useful for your life and your relationships.

And today I want to tell you about a time back in middle school. I think it was like cool or something. Maybe I had bad breath, I don't know what it was, but I loved having like all kinds of gum in my locker. That's kind of what I do is I'd stockpile a whole bunch of gum in my locker and at this particular time what I had in my locker was like a half gallon bucket of double bubble bubble gum a variety of different flavors. At the school that I went to the lockers even if you put a padlock on them. That was kind of like the cool thing. Once you got to middle school you got to put a padlock on your locker, which was kind of neat. You know, you paid 10 bucks for a lock and put it on the locker. However, the design of the lock was such that you could bend the metal pretty easily, bypass the padlock. You could just kind of like pull up hard enough it would open the locker. I think what we called it back then was jack the lockers and one of my friends discovered that I had this gum in my locker right.

So when this friend found out that there was a whole bunch of gum in my locker, well, it was tempting for a sixth, seventh grader at the time to have free access to a whole bunch of gum. And I came to my locker one day and out of that half gallon bucket of bubble gum. There was just a few pieces left and I was able to kind of put two and two together and deduced what had happened At the time. You know, right at the moment I was pretty upset. It was kind of a big deal. I couldn't just like turn around and get another bucket of bubble gum. I'd paid with my own money. At that time. I'm not sure if my parents were willing to get me another bucket or not. I don't remember getting any sort of replacement bucket. It was a loss.

I want you to consider this event and kind of what I went through there. It was something that was difficult for me at that time. I did end up getting to a place at some point in my life of forgiveness. I've forgiven that friend for this event. This friend and I that was kind of a school thing. So we don't have contact anymore.

But in my heart, if I saw him again, I would catch up on old times. I really believe that there'd be a friendship there from my side, which means this that I don't need him to do anything to kind of repay me, allow for me to be okay with what had happened, right. I don't need him to say sorry, I don't need him to pay me money. I don't need him to replace the gum. I don't need him to feel bad. I don't need him to be remorseful. I've completely forgiven him. I need no payment in return. And that really is how I simply look at forgiveness. We've forgiven someone when we don't need a repayment for whatever it is that they have done. If we get to that place of forgiveness, what it does is it allows for us to forget the debt that has been made against us, and that's really how I see like this idea of forgive and forget. We're forgetting about the debt that maybe is owed to us. We've forgiven them, we need nothing in repayment and we've forgotten about the debt that is there Now.

What I think is kind of misunderstood in this at times is that we would go back in time and pretend nothing ever happened. I don't think that that's actually useful. You know, in this kind of a situation. What I can learn from this is that my gum isn't necessarily secure in my locker, and to put that amount of gum in my locker puts me at a risk, and it's maybe a risk that I'm not willing to take, and a risk that would strain other relationships should the same thing happen again. Right, I can kind of understand that I don't have the capacity, at least in that moment, to just allow that gum to disappear time and time and time again and continue to forgive. So I can forgive the action that was taken against me, meaning I don't need anything repaid from that incident yet maybe I don't keep my gum in that locker any longer and I just bring a few pieces each day and I don't store in that locker where I would be put into that position where I have to forgive again and again and again. I would be amazing if I could, but maybe I would begin to experience some resentment. I would experience this inability to forgive because of my own humanness. I have to recognize that and really take care of myself in that. So maybe I'm not put in that position again.

The other person maybe won't feel like you've forgiven them, and that's okay. You know if you have meaning, you know if you need no payment in return. You have forgiven, you've cleared them of that debt and and you know if you have to protect some things that are important to you. Another example that I use with my clients a lot is like if I had you as a partner on my bank accounts and I found out that you were taking money from my bank accounts, I could forgive you, meaning I don't need you to repay my money in my account. Yeah, I might not leave you on as a partner on my bank account. I might remove you from that, because forgiveness and trust can be two different things. I might not have the ability to trust anyone on my account any longer because I see the risk that is there in that. Yeah, I can forgive you, meaning that I can just allow for that transaction to have happened. I don't need you to say sorry. I don't need you to be remorseful. I don't need you to say sorry. I don't need you to be remorseful. I don't need you to repay the amount. I don't need you to pay more than you took. Like, I don't need any of that. That event can remain as is. I've forgiven you for that and I no longer will have a partner on my bank accounts. I've forgiven that friend for the gum. I'll no longer store my gum in the locker.

Clarity around this is really important because I find so many people stumble over this. They feel like if they forgive, then they have to go back in time and allow for the same situation to happen again and again. This idea of forgiving and forgetting, meaning we're going to pretend nothing ever happened I just don't find to be useful. Rather, we can forgive from the heart and we can also learn from these experiences and recognize like, hey, maybe I'm not capable or don't have the capacity to allow these things to happen. And it's going to be a challenge for me to continually forgive people for stealing my gum and because of that I'm no longer going to keep gum in my locker.

Now, applying this to a relationship I like this example about the gum because I think you guys, as you're listening to this, you know how this applies to you and your situation and your life. But maybe it'd be helpful to just have an example from a relationship. So let's say that I'm in a situation where maybe I'm just being dumb and send a picture of me with like a really goofy face to my wife, because there's like that relationship there that I feel comfortable and confident enough to share that funny face with her. And then maybe what she does is takes that picture and she puts it on my family group me or her family group, me, or whatever and it's like a picture that you know I didn't really want to be shared in that way or whatever. It hurts. It kind of is like whoa, I didn't expect this to happen. It causes a conflict cycle between her and I.

We navigate through that conflict cycle, we get back to a place of repair and we can forgive each other. I'm able to forgive her, meaning I don't need anything from her, I don't need to retaliate against her, I don't need to take a funny picture of her and post it on our family messaging apps or whatever. Yet maybe I recognize that that's a vulnerable place for me and if I don't want those pictures to be circulated, the best thing I can do is just not share them, not send them. So I learn in that experience and I no longer am someone who does that right. It doesn't mean I haven't forgiven her. It means that I just don't know if I'm capable of continually putting myself in that position. I know my own capacity around that, my own vulnerability around that, and so I'm going to have nothing that I hold against Kelsey. Yet I now know that that's not something I'm going to do for myself. I'm not going to put myself in that position.

I find that my clients have a hard time seeing those two things as differently, but I really believe that we can forgive someone and we can change our behavior because we've learned how we're exposed in certain ways and where we're vulnerable in certain ways, and we can do things to protect ourselves against those vulnerabilities and those exposures and still hold a forgiving heart, meaning we need nothing in return from that person that maybe at one point we felt was indebted to us.

I hope this helps and I hope everyone has an awesome week and I hope all of you guys can in some way experience the peace that comes with forgiveness and you're able to, if you want, forgive those people that are the most important to you and you can care for them and you can love them. And you can care for them and you can love them and you can learn the ways that you need to protect yourself so that you don't go beyond your capacity to forgive if there's reoccurring situations or things like that. Have a great week everybody. Bye-bye, this has been the Fighting for Connection podcast. If you've enjoyed this podcast and want more content like this, check out my Connected Couples Campus, which can be found on my website, wwwpivotalapproachcom, and become the difference you need in your relationship ship.