November 7, 2022 • 46 mins
Hosts Tracy T. Rowe and Cara Pressley break down toxic forgiveness with the Red Table Talk community. Anthony Thompson shares about his emotionally and physically abusive relationships with his parents and how he was able to forgive his mom and why his dad has not earned his forgiveness. Licensed marriage and family therapist Kati Morton joins the virtual red table to break down why forgiveness may or may not be the healthiest choice.
Hosts Information:
Cara Pressley
@thecareercheerleader Cara’s Instagram
@TheCareerCheerleader Cara’s Facebook
@the1cheering4U Cara’s Twitter
@FeelinSuccessful Cara’s TikTok
Tracy T. Rowe
@tracytrowe Tracy’s Instagram
@troweandco Tracy’s Facebook
@tracytrowe Tracy’s Twitter
@tracytrowe Tracy’s TikTok
----
#LRTT
Listening and loving the show? Please be sure to rate and review.
Have a question you want us to discuss on Let’s Red Table That? Email us at:
letsredtablethat@redtabletalk.com
-----
LET’S RED TABLE THAT is produced by Red Table Talk Podcasts. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Jada Pinkett Smith, Fallon Jethroe and Ellen Rakieten. PRODUCER Kyla Carneiro. ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Yolanda Chow. EDITOR AND AUDIO MIXER Stepfanie Aguilar. MUSIC from Epidemic Sound. LET’S RED TABLE THAT is in partnership with iHeartRadio.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, y'all, Hey, what's up? And welcome to Let's Red
Table that I'm Tracy t Row and I'm Carl Pressley.
How are you feeling the day, Tracy? You know I'm
feeling every day amazing, and I know you're feeling successful, successful,
any other way to be Ben Well, I'm telling you
you know, this episode was also just absolutely amazingly successful.
(00:23):
They had the opportunity to talk about toxic forgiveness. Now,
first of all, I didn't even know that was a thing,
did you come, didn't know de term at all. I
had no idea what was going on. But after watching
an episode, it made me start thinking about even toxic optimism.
So I mean, clearly you can have too much anything minute.
(00:45):
I am that friend who's like, oh you're sad, let's
get over it. And I just I had to remember
sometimes people need to just feel it. Me feel yea,
and maybe I need to just sit in it and feel.
So you know about that talking about that needing to
just ner and sit in and work through your feeling.
And whether it's grief or happiness or sadness, we like
(01:07):
sitting in happiness and we're constantly looking for the happiness,
right but when grief comes up, sometimes you gotta deal
and sometimes you allow yourself to believe something that isn't
true in pursuit of being happy. Hello, come on, I
think that was part of what we saw in this episode, Karen.
I have some scenarios of our own where we're going
to talk about if we will forgive or not right,
(01:29):
and we obviously want you to join in on the conversation.
So send us an email at let's red table that's
at red table talk dot com and let us know
if you agree or disagree with us. All right, come on,
let's get it, Tracy. Would you forgive a sibling that
sleeps with a partner on your wedding day? Okay? So now,
(01:53):
I just I can't wait to get this. This is
the wait. What if my sibling sleeps with my partner
on my wedding day? It's a big bat hell to
the note. I'm not I'm not forgiving that. I'm not
forgetting that. So now would you forgive? It's a no,
it's a note for me. It was the wedding day
for me because didn't we pay for this? I just
(02:15):
I can't he's going on the honeymoon now, I mean
all right. Now, the next question. Your child gets expelled
from college, pretends to still be in school, and you
find out on the day they're supposed to graduate. Okay,
let me say something to you. It's the audacity for me, real,
real clear. There are two parts of this, and it
(02:39):
all depends on the funding. If I have been funding
your education and you have been lying saying that you're
in school and you are not, and then you have
lied and say that you're graduating and you're not, that
is going to be a major problem for me. Okay,
I'm going to ultimately be able to forgive it, but
(02:59):
it would be see it for me to forgive it.
If to you funded your own process and you dropped
out on your own dime, then sure that's your life.
You do you bo I definitely understand that perspective. You
know on this one. I'm gonna forgive. I can forgive.
I told my son when he graduated high school. Listen, well,
I'm having a cookout in Juil, so you're gonna be
(03:20):
a guest or a graduate. But I'm eating a hot
dog and a Hamburger, So I can forgive, and I'm
gonna still celebrate and go out to eat because it's
your journey. So create the life that you want. You're
gonna have a hot operational plate. Whether he had high vibration,
come on that right, because he got a low vibrational
situation going on, and that's his business. And now the
(03:40):
last one. Your parents has had a secret family. Oh
this happens all the time. Your parent has had a
secret family and you don't find out until you're an adult.
It's a tough one. How many funerals are we talking about? Listen,
I'm not gonna put my whole family's business out there,
but I definitely have experienced this, and I definitely would forgive.
(04:01):
But I will say it is hard to look around
that people at the reunion, like y'all had all this
going on. I'm just gonna say that, Okay, in this case,
the family is something that is truly a treasure and
a gift, and I would forgive. Although I would have
a lot of questions, I didn't have a lot of questions.
I wanted all of them. I want the answers and
I need all the information. Just sit at the table
(04:22):
and just be ready, open yourself up, and just answer it. Now.
The question I want to know from y'all is what
would you do? And then this is real deal. So
I know some of you all have just found your
sister and brothers and uncles and cousin. So send us
an email at Let's Red Table that a red Table
talk dot com. We can't wait to hear the responses
or listen. I think this would be great. I'm just
(04:42):
gonna go ahead and put out there a good speak
pipe send us a voice memo and tell us yes,
ma'am or no, sir, I cannot do or I would
definitely forgive you know what. That's right, okay? And so
our speak pipe is speakpipe dot com slash Let's red
Table that we're gonna get that. That's what we're gonna
get that. We're going to take a quick break, but
(05:04):
when we get back, we'll be joined by two incredible
guests from our Red Table Talk community. All right, we're
bringing two fellow our t T community members to the
Virtual Red Table today. I am way excited. Carl Anthony
Thompson is joining the Virtual Red Table from North Carolina,
(05:25):
and he's here to share about his emotionally and physically
abusive relationship with his parents, including how he's able to
forgive his mom and why his dad has not earned
his forgiveness. Anthony, thank you so much for joining us
and sharing your story with us. No, thank you, thank
you for giving me the opportunity to come and share.
I appreciate that. Yes, we appreciate you. And our second
(05:47):
guest has been on our podcast before. Katie is a
licensed marriage and family therapist, YouTube creator, author, speaker, and
a passionate psycho education facilitates her. Okay, love all the
titles and the titles for me. But she first shared
her expertise as our mental health expert for our very
first mental health moment, And now Katie's joining us for
(06:10):
a full episode because we need it and we're going
to talk about toxic forgiveness. So welcome Katie. How are you.
I'm good. It's great to be backing. So good to
see you, Katie. So glad to have you with us
at the virtual Red Table. Alright, guys, so this is
(06:32):
the part of the show where we reveal which moments
made us pause, rewe listen again and say what's wait? Wait,
stop altogether Okay, so many moments, just like Red Table
Talk has been delivering off season. It's another heavy episode,
but necessary episode. We're gonna try to bring some life
(06:54):
to this, but let's get into it. I'm gonna kick
it off. What about Jada talking about her and re
sharing a journal. We had a journal that we would
send back to one another. Oh right, just kind of
expressing things to one another that might not have been
easy to talk about face to face. Yeah. I actually
(07:15):
loved this piece of the episode. What did you guys think?
I thought it was great too. I just like the
fact that they have this sisterhood and they're so comfortable
talking about it. But I know it was pretty rough,
and I thought the idea was really creative to be
able to say, let me get out how I feel
so that we can still communicate and then be able
to develop what we need to do for Tray because
that was the focus. And I love that. Yeah, putting
(07:37):
the kids first, it's got to be hard when there's
so much emotion involved. And I really appreciated the fact
that they both were willing to work on it, and
they both admitted I think right up front. When I
was listening to this, I was like, Oh, they just
jumped right in, like right up front there, like we
had trouble, and I overstepped, and I overstepped, and this
is what I did, and the other people are like,
you did right, wait right, wait, yeah, But in the moment,
(08:02):
there's a lot of emotion at play, and I really
appreciate the fact they were able to kind of step
aside and put the kids first, which I mean, it's nice.
It's hard to get out of your own way. And
I was so impressed. Oh no, I loved that is
the absolute truth, Katie. That is so true. We often
talk about different vehicles for communication, right, what's the best
(08:23):
thing that works for us? And number one, I liked
that they both realized, they comprehended that family was the goal,
the kid was the goal, the child was the goal,
and they decided, this is our vehicle. We are going
to use this journal to really help us get out
the things that we need. I just thought it was
so successful. I hope someone else incorporates it into their life.
(08:45):
It reminded me sometimes when me and my son aren't
saying out, we will text each other because you just
sometimes you just don't want to hear that person's voice
in the moment. So I love it, And don't you
think like writing it down slows it down sometimes face
to face because you can't take things back right then
we're in another level of forgiveness. We already got this
one beef going on and we're like layer and it's
(09:07):
just too much. And I think sometimes when you have
to write it and you look at the words, you
can think twice before this is what I want to send,
or this is what I really want to say. Another
weight what moment was when Janna sharing that she forgave
her husband for cheating the first time because she thought
I cheated before and never forgave myself, So I'll forgive
(09:28):
him as if forgiven him with give her healing. There
were flags in the beginning he had cheated, you know,
a month into dating. But I'm like, it's okay. I've
cheated in past relationships and I didn't forgive myself for it,
So I'm gonna forgive you. I can make this work.
We can grow together and in the marriage too. Every
time he cheated, first, second, third, however, many times like
(09:50):
I like, I forgive you. Wait, what what have you
ever felt like you had to forgive someone because you
had the same mistake in the past. I don't know
if I would say that I forgot save, but I
probably would have had a little bit more grace in it,
because forgiveness means I'm just going to throw it out
the window and let it go. Now, I'll still be
looking a little sideways, like I remember when you did
(10:10):
that a couple of months ago. Now, don't don't act
crazy now. But I don't know if I would say
forgive that's a little bit more strong. Interesting. Yeah, I
agree with we have more understanding when you know you've
been there before. Yeah. I think the grace is a
perfect word, Anthony. It's like you can see from that perspective,
and so you might say, hey, it didn't mean anything
to me. I'm sure it didn't mean anything to him,
(10:32):
and you can make those kind of concessions or a
different understanding which maybe could allow you to do that
more easily. Okay, Now, I just want you to know
whether I cheat it or not. If I cheat. If
I cheat, it, shame on me. If you cheat on me,
shame on you. And if you forgave me that, shame
on you too. Because I'm not I'm not forgiving you.
(10:53):
I'm not showing you grace. I'm done. It's wait, what
really you said we don't do cheating around here. It's
truly Wait what that part very adamant. It's a it's
a zero tolerance policy over here. It is over here too.
I definitely understand that though, Yeah, because he kept cheating.
And the thing that was interesting to me about it
(11:13):
when she said that, she said that he cheated the
first month in right, and so he had been cheating, right,
He had been cheating. He cheating. He was probably cheating
the day they got married. Flaming red flag. I know,
it's leave him before it's too serious, absolutely before a month.
Then he can hold it down. I mean, so, I
(11:35):
don't know if that was when she said that was
the first time, but I mean he was like a
serial cheater. Well that's the first time she caught him. Essentially,
there it is, and that's what that is. When I
think it was, Jada said to her, so he's cheated
on you, like with twelve or thirteen, and I was like,
that's a lot. Right. As soon as she said more more,
I was like, lord, clutching pearls and everything clutched the pearls.
(11:59):
Gather your things and get the f outs her heart.
You know this. It reminded me, though, watching her. We
want to hold on so bad, just a little bit
of something for a fear of having nothing altogether. I mean,
and I have done it before, not not like that
we weren't married, of course, but you know, you just
want something. She's had a whole idea. Clearly they've gone
(12:22):
through a whole wedding and we can't stop now, why
can't you? And she she was worried about her kids.
Remember she said, I grew up in a broken home.
And I think if we don't process our own trauma before,
this is part. I know people don't like this, but
to get into a relationship when you haven't worked through
your own stuff first is very dangerous territory because we
(12:46):
can repeat behaviors without realizing we're doing it because that's
what's comfortable. And for her, that was the dream. The
dream was we get married, live happily ever after, and
come hell or high water. I'm holding onto that, even
though by holding onto it she was like drowning herself.
You know, it's like the same. It's one of my
favorite quotes is you can't let yourself on fire to
(13:07):
keep someone else warm. And it was like it was
kind of that feeling that I got from it where
it was like she's wounding herself to keep this thing
that doesn't exist, and it's the one she wasn't on
fire in other ways from all that cheating, I was wondering,
but that part, I think she was just really holding
onto who she thought he could be rather than who
(13:28):
he really was. That was one of the biggest things
that I noticed, and that was what I was feeling.
I was like, Yeah, he's showing you who he is,
but you're still trying to get him to be who
he's showing you he can't be. That's a lot of
the dream a lot of times a lot of people,
and I'll do that. I'm guilty. I've done it too.
And see the more excuses he had, the more excuses
he had, the more time she was willing to forgive him. Yeah,
(13:49):
it was interesting. I think it was Shari said at
the beginning, using a man to define who she was.
I think Janna set it up front and then they
all said yeah, yeah, yeah, me too, me too. And
I think sometimes we can get caught up like that
where we think, hey, this relationship defines me. She said,
I would put it out there. We've been public and
we've been public about him getting better, and I think
(14:09):
there was this maybe confusion around like work in real
life and perception and reality. And I think she might
have even not to say that this happened necessarily, but
I wonder if she might even tricked herself. Right, you
say it enough times you start to believe it. So
my husband's gotten better, he's better, just recovered. He's doing this,
and I think she kind of drank her own kool aid,
(14:31):
and then it's just hard probably also not even probably,
they're definitely making money off of this success right in
their love life, which kind of takes us to the
last weight. What moment Jana sharing that her ex husband's
excuse for cheating with he says the podcast was a
catalyst for more of his cheating because it made him
(14:51):
feel like he always had the spotlight on him. So
then I felt like it was my fault because if
only we didn't have that podcast, he wouldn't have spot
light is onto me, has to cheat. I'm confused, and
he felt pressure to be this like perfect, and not
if I wanted to be perfect, I don't think i'd
be cheating. I'm just saying, so that's what it's kind
(15:15):
of like the point where we're just making like maybe
she was doing her work and clearly he had a
false perception of his reality. Sir, you're married. I don't
know if you've forgot, but you're married. How did you
guys feel about? Let me say this and then I'm
just gonna move my non grace giving self out the way. Okay,
how are you going to say? With the pocket? And
(15:35):
I could just hear it like that in that Baby
Baby and pease for baby Baby please. A podcast is
just just it's serving like a catalyst. It's just making
me feel like I gotta cheat even more because it
just all we're talking about, like what they're throwing it
at me? Get out of here, right helong war By.
I think he was. I felt like he was out
(15:57):
of excuses at this point. He was just grasping at
anything because I'm like, it doesn't make any sense. I
can understand him saying I do feel pressure to be
the perfect husband and that's why I lash out or
that's why I don't do this or that. But to
say that them talking about their past and how hard
it was and how you've worked through it, I'm like,
(16:19):
what make that make sense? To me, I'm a very
logical person. I don't see the logic and I don't
even see the emotion in it. I don't understand. We're
just being honest about what you actually want. You don't.
I don't think you want a family, sir. I don't
think that's not the traditional type of family and or
why did you marry into it? But there are a
lot of people out here trying to live the dream.
(16:40):
That's really not your dream. You got to define your dream,
I guess totally. Don't try to be something you're not
what the expectation is and married with two point five
kids in the pick ad fence idea, Yeah, that doesn't
work right right two point five? What did you think
(17:03):
about this episode? But for me, I thought it was
a great episode. I love seeing Shari and Jada talk
by like seeing that dynamic because it's so unheard of.
It's almost like it's not real that it's really happening
that Will's ex wife and current wife are having a
conversation and they get along and they have family time together,
and they built this substantial relationship that even started to
(17:24):
exist outside of Trey. So I think that's awesome to see.
But I gotta admit I had some emotional moments, especially
when it got towards the end and Sharie had her
emotional moment and she was talking about her and Trey
and how Trey said to her that she didn't care
about his feelings, and I identified with that so well,
dealing with my situation with my mother growing up, where
(17:47):
my mother was so focused on survival and she was
taught that being a woman meant being strong, and what
strong meant was being hard. And I started to literally
see my mother and see my dynamic with my mother,
to which I didn't have those kind of conversations with
my mother until I was grown because I couldn't all
those times. So that was the part that got me
(18:08):
a little bit. I was like, wait, let me dab
the corners of my eyes a little bit, because it's
a real thing to have your parents not validate your
feelings or understand your feelings or you have the open
space to be able to share how you feel. And
I went most of my childhood not being able to
talk to my mother and my father about my feelings.
So it got me a little emo when I was
(18:30):
watching it. Yeah, No, there was a lot. There's so much.
Anthony touched on a lot of the same things that
they resonated with me as well, especially that I put
in my notes toxic strength, because we're talking about toxic forgiveness,
but the feeling or the belief in our society, and
this applies to men and women that you have to
buck up. This means being strong. I mean I was
(18:51):
raised by a lot of stubborn, strong women, but that
can also mean forgiving when you shouldn't and being a
little bit too harsh on yourself on others. And I
think sometimes we don't recognize that. And to that point,
my next like kind of note was just like, we
are so uncomfortable sometimes with anger, upset and dislike that
(19:13):
we rushed to move past it. And when we're a parent,
I think, and I'm not a parent, so I'm not
pretending to know. I haven't birthed any babies, but if
I'm uncomfortable with it, then I'm going to encourage them
to be uncomfortable with it because I want them to
move more quickly through it. And I can do that
to my friends, to go to my husband, I can
do that to people because I don't want to sit
with it, and I think That's what really got me
(19:36):
about this episode was just the ability to sit with
the discomfort. And I think that's a muscle that, like,
I know personally I need to work on, but I
think everybody does, because forgiveness isn't acceptance, It isn't condoning behavior.
Forgiveness is for you. And if you can't and I'm
saying this to myself mostly I can't admit when thing
(20:00):
are hurtful, and I can't communicate my upsets and and
let somebody hear it, then how do I expect to
process through it. I did love that they mentioned that
it was like a process, not a choice, because forgiveness
it's tricky, right, But I've always thought forgiveness, let's me
off the hook because I don't need to keep thinking
about this. That was what stuck out to me is
(20:21):
we don't need to get it muddied. Forgiveness is not acceptance.
Forgiveness is not condoning behavior, and forgiveness most importantly is
not reconciliation. That's good And I liked when even Nedra
said that forgiveness was about your emotional process as an individual,
and I was like, I've never heard it in that way.
(20:42):
I've heard people say many times that forgiveness is for you,
but it's some kind of light bulb went off when
she put it in those words in that form, and
I was like, let me write this down. That was
good to me and for me to be conscious of
when I have to go into a place that possibly
forgiving somebody for something that's the table. I feel like
just the no understanding of different perspectives is helpful and
(21:05):
for me personally in my relationship with my son. My
son said the same thing to me the trade said
to Shari, which was interesting because I just think it's
just your household, right, You really truly think you're the
only one going through Yeah, my son said, it feels
like you don't care about my feelings. And when he
gave his examples, I'm like, I need I need an example.
Please help me. He was like, you just if I
tell you there's an emergency going on, and it's like
(21:26):
an emergency to him, it's not that much of an
emergency to you. And I told him, I was like,
I truly need you to understand. I am trying to process.
What I need to do next is a mom are
you bleeding? Are you about to die, or we need
to go to the hospital where the insurance card. I'm
literally going through so much in my mind. Somebody has
to be calm. You're already screaming, So I just need
(21:48):
you to know it's not that I don't care. That's
how I process. Some people processed by screaming with you.
They're on the floor bleeding with you. All of a sudden,
soon as you say, that's just not how I work. Now,
when you were too, that is how I was, and
my anxiety got so heightened. Something had to change. So
this show episodes like this conversation with people like you.
Thank you all so much for coming on help me.
(22:10):
Just to continually see time helps things. Your perspective can change,
your understanding can change. But conversations have to be hit.
So yeah, those conversations are important, Yes, so important. Red's
Able Talk asked the community what is something that's unforgivable
to you? And infidelity was at the top of the answers,
(22:31):
So we know Tracy was already in that poll. We
know her. How would you have answered this question? What
is something that you all feel is unforgivable? I'm up
there with the infidelity, and the infidelity was it for me,
I'm with Tracy because I mean, I'm sure there's other
things in my life, Like I don't like liars period.
(22:53):
It's hard. I know the truth is hard, but I'd
rather be hurt by the truth than hurt by a
lie that I have to find out later, because then
that erodes the foundation for me. But the infidelity, I
feel like it's one big lie. It would get me
feeling like my whole life was a lie, the whole
relationships a lie. Everything you said, every love you, every kiss,
every hug, it's a lie. And I feel like even
(23:15):
saying it, I get myself worked up because I would
feel like my whole life was coming unraveled like below,
and I just don't that to me would be unforgivable.
I know I couldn't move past it. I mean, I'm
like a burn his stuff in the law and change
the locks, get out, Like I'm I'd go zero to
a hungred you slugger to both head lights. I'm carrying
(23:36):
underwood in a situation, right A Right, I love that.
I think I kind of agree with that to it.
For me, it's not really infidelity, right, Like I've been
single for a while, so I look your relationships, just
like holistically, so even just amongst friends, Like it's not
so much cheating amongst friends. I just called it playing
(23:58):
in my face altogether. Any type of manipulation or saying
what you think you need to say to get me
to go in the way you want me to go,
there's a problem for me. I need you to be upfront.
I need to know who you are as much as possible.
Please be your transparent self because I am working every
day to do that. So if you can't, you've got
(24:19):
to go over there. And my Rose Island voice, yeah,
please go over there and stay over there, over there
and stay there. I love that too, because like manipulation
to me is like another form of line. You're not
telling me what you really want or what you need
or what you're asking. Just say to fairy tale, it
(24:40):
into the ending you want. And that's not stop fairy
taling me. I don't even know if that's the word.
I've made it up, fairy tale and I like it.
Stop telling me, not gas lighting with fairy taling. That's it.
That's it established today. So far as we know, we
we create. We create at the virtual red table too,
(25:00):
Yes we do. After that you've experienced treatment from your
mom and dad that some people may consider unforgivable. Can
you tell us about those experiences and what's made you
choose to forgive your mom and not your dad. Great question.
So for my father, he was verbally abusive. My father
was cursed me out many times, and it's only when
(25:22):
his emotions came into play. He didn't know how to
manage his emotions well, he still doesn't, and it often
came out in violence or verbal abuse, and so much
that he actually abused my mother physically and beat her
up when I was a kid. And my father has
never owned up to the things that he's done. Even
as a kid, hearing the stories about him abusing my
(25:44):
mom and all the details of it and then asking
him and for him to not own up to it
and talk around it was an issue from me because
being raised the way that I was raised, I was
taught that adults take ownership and responsibility and accountability for
the things that they do, and my father just refuses to.
(26:06):
For years, me and my father haven't talked. We just
started talking again when his father passed. My grandfather passed
and I had not seen my father in many years.
We stopped talking. My mother would always ask that your
father text you happy birthday, wanting to just hope that
there is a connection still there or hoping it could
still happen, and nothing. My father just stopped connecting with me,
(26:28):
and in turn, I found out recently he did the
same thing to my sister and my younger brother. So
it's not even just me. And it's sad to say that.
It made me feel better because as a kid, you
feel like it's just me, it's something wrong with me
that he talks to me in this way or he
treats me in this way. But to find out that
he did the same thing to my sister and brother,
(26:49):
it gave me a little bit a breathing room. But
I have not forgiven my father, and I've just learned
to accept that he is who he is. He's going
to communicate the way he's going to communicate, and he's
not going to change until he decides to change. But
with my mom, that's the one where it was physical abuse.
But I already painted the picture I sold you. My
(27:09):
father beat up on my mother. Then my mother ended
up taking it out on me so that when she
saw me, she saw him, she saw where her life
could have been if she did not listen to her
first love saying, let's keep this baby boy, and we're
gonna have this this great, amazing family, and let's do
all these things. And all she saw was the broken
(27:30):
promises that never came to fruition. And now she has
to take care of this young baby boy at the
age of nineteen by herself. And in my adult age,
I can start to understand perspective. Do I agree that
she should have been as physically violent as she was
with me? Absolutely not, But I do understand my mother
was nineteen and she just and when I say beat
(27:52):
me up, they called it spanking. Back in the day,
they would have the belts and all that kind of stuff.
I got the belt, welts on the leg, my either
called dhs. She would grip me up by my chest,
punch throw me to the ground, choke around the neck,
punching the stomach, very physical things a lot of the
time as a kid. But I thank God for my
(28:15):
mother taking ownership and changing. See, my mother took ownership
to apologize for all the things that she's done, not
making any excuses for it at all, just stating facts
and then apologizing, and she started to listen, and she
started to do the work of unraveling a lot of
her own traumas, whether it was childhood trauma, the way
(28:35):
she was raised, my father and triggers that dealt with that,
And me and my mother had the best relationship now
to the point where she told me this week, I'm
parenting her so And it's crazy how the roles will
switch like that as you get older. But that's why
I forgave my mother. I appreciate that you were able
to sift through that journey of understanding and perspective, Anthony,
(28:59):
So thank you for your bravery and willingness to work
on that relationship. Though how many people just harden and
just say I'm not even blocking it out or what
have you write? Um, Katie, I'm sure you see and
or hear things like this all the time. What factors
do you take into consideration before coaching a client through
forgiveness and reconciliation with someone? I think it depends on
(29:22):
where they're at. A lot of it has to do
with where my clients at, what they what they want,
and a lot of times I think when it comes
to parents and family, I think we talked about this
last time. I was on about like feeling that responsibility
or expectation to reconcile. And I love that, Anthony, that
(29:42):
you've been able to separate those things right, a relationship
with your father, like you don't have to forgive him
in order to have him in your life in the
way that he's able. But that takes a lot of carving,
That takes a lot of boundaries, That takes a lot
of work on your part to even have him around, right,
And that's your priority. And so the first thing I
do with my patience is figuring out what their priorities are.
(30:05):
It's not for me to put my beliefs or thoughts
into it. And as a therapist, a funny part of
me is I get I'm a protector kind of I
get like Mama bearish, where I'm like, I can't believe
they'd hurt that? How dare that yet? Dada? And I
can get that way, but I don't. Like all therapists,
we lock it down, talk about in our own therapy
to our own thing. But it's for you to decide
what you want and then for me to help you
(30:27):
do that in a healthy way. So if the goal
is reconciliation, then what are the boundaries you can put
in place to ensure that you aren't hurt again. If
the goal is to forgive so that you don't keep
ruminating about it, you want to let that go. You're
not going to reconcile. Maybe you don't even want them
in your life. How can I move you in a
place where kind of to Anthony's point about talking about
(30:48):
the understanding, sometimes understanding helps us let go of that
anger and forgive. It's amazing your mom was able to
apologize and ask for forgiveness. That takes a lot of
Most abusers aren't able, essentially to put themselves aside and admit.
If someone is able, we can give them the opportunity,
We can communicate, we can hope for it and see
(31:11):
what happens. And I try to navigate my patients through. Okay,
let's imagine, best case they apologize, worst case they tell
you to screw yourself. Most likely case, what do we
think is going to happen? And we just prepare them
for that and give them some language they can practice
it out with me. I can play the role, be
kind of gruff, be kind of soft, and yeah, it's
it's really about them meeting them where they're at. Mm hm.
(31:34):
I love that. I love that. How does the act
of forgiveness because again, Anthony, we we are just proud
of your bravery and your understanding and your work right,
because again, you really could have chosen to harden up
to say I don't I just don't care, or act
like it wasn't a thing. But how does the actual
act of forgiveness affect your mental health? And maybe even
on both sides, like even Anthony's mom, the act of okay,
(31:57):
he forgives me for moving forward? How does it impact
us on both SATs? Yeah, I think for the person who,
like for Anthony, let's say, for the person who was
harmed by something and needs the forgiveness, I think that
that it can be a release, right, It can let
it let us off. It can allow us to not
ruminate and not wound ourselves with it again, because often
(32:19):
we take old pains and it's one of my favorite
postal service songs. Just such a random band, but they
have these lyrics it won't heal right if you keep
carrying out the sutures. And I always think of that
when it comes to old things that we don't want
to forgive, and we don't want to let go for ourselves,
we just keep hurting, and we keep opening that wound
up and touching around in there and then being like,
(32:39):
I don't know why I hurt so bad, And so
I think for us, yeah, because you do, you go
and examine again. Let me think about this again, let
me replay this one conversation, right, And then sometimes if
you dig around in it too much with dirty hands,
it gets infected. In fact, that Rampart didn't even put
the gloves on. Go ahead, Tracy people exactly. And so
(33:03):
that's how it wounds us as the person who was
already harmed. Right, we already have the wound we're trying
to stitch up. But when it comes to the other
people in our lives, I think in the case of
your mom, Anthony, like I said, it's it's almost not
to say it's rare, because I hate that it is,
but it is to have someone own up and for
you to offer her forgiveness, right, it was a gift
(33:24):
you gave her. You didn't have to offer that, and
it was a gift that she asked for it. To write,
it was this giving him receiving and when that happens,
it's beautiful for both because if she or if any
person who has harmed us has any remorse or empathy
or understanding or acknowledgement that they did hurt, that lets
(33:44):
them off the hook. Because if anybody has anxiety like me,
and you wake up mill of night, you're like that
thing I said ten years ago could hurt somebody's feelings,
Oh my god, then it would be nice for someone
to say, like that was fine, or I forgive you
any big deal that stops me from opening up my
own wound. And so I think in general it's it's
it's good for both, but both have to be able
to meet each other there. And that's the hard part,
(34:07):
emotionally unshackled that part. So I like that too. I
still have conversations with my mom. There may be some
random questions I think about from my childhood that I
opposed to her. But the amazing thing is that she's
open to answer. She's not responding and aggressively or emotionally.
And she told me one time because I asked her,
I said, how do you feel when I asked those
questions randomly? And she said like, and she said it
(34:29):
catches me off guard. But the reason why I like
it is because I don't have time to think, and
it gives me the opportunity to be more authentic and
honest about it. And I can appreciate that so much. Man,
we've come light years. It's it's often crazy because people
will see pictures of us together like, y'all are like
best friends, How this happened? I'm like, if only you knew,
And some of them, even my family members, are like,
(34:50):
even when they see our relationship now, we're like, I
remember when, and I'm like, no, I remember you on
what our relationship was like. And it's been a journey,
but we're still working through it. I imagine that has
to be some measure of catharticism for your mom that
as you come up with these new questions for her,
that gives her a fresh new opportunity to kind of
(35:12):
free herself in her own experience with you, so that
she can continue to grow and evolve in her healing
journey too. One of the things that she's always said
is that she appreciates that we're able to talk now
because as a kid, I couldn't share my feelings at all.
Like I said, I was like, Tree, you don't care
about my feelings. And it's funny. We were talking about
how Jada and Shari wrote in a journal to each
(35:34):
other to share and communicate, and I did that as
a kid no Mother's Day cards, and any card that
I would give her, I would write my feelings out.
And my mother has always been nostalgic and holding onto
those cards, and I would just say, Mommy, I just
want you to listen to me. You don't have to
hit me. I just want you to understand how I feel,
and all that kind of stuff and cards. And she
(35:54):
said at the time she couldn't connect with it because
of her not being emotionally mature, But now that she
has it to go back and look back on, it's
been a little bit more therapeutic for her. But it's
also sad at the same time because she's like, dag,
my baby had to say this to get my attention,
and I still couldn't see it. I still couldn't connect.
(36:16):
So she kind of beats herself a little bit up
about it, but she's getting better at letting it go,
and I'm helping her with that. I'm like, look, it
is what it is. It happened, but let's not dwell
on what happened. Look how far we've come. We're going
to take a quick break, but our conversation on toxic
forgiveness will continue when we return. And then, how have
(36:40):
you come to terms with your relationship with your father
now that you've made a decision that you're not forgiving him,
Where are you emotionally with that? Honestly, when it comes
to my father, I really don't have as much emotions
about it, and I think it's because most of my
childhood my father has been in and out of my life.
My father kind of disconnected from me once my mom
(37:03):
got married to my stepdad because in his mind, of course,
it's territorial. He was very territorial, which is why he
was physically violent with my mom. But now he felt
as though he was being replaced by my stepdad. And
to this day, me and my stepdad don't have a
close relationship. So I'm thirty five. They got married when
I was ten, so that's twenty five years. If you're
(37:26):
not being part of my life where we could have
had a great relationship, but you were so stuck in
here on what you thought of what anybody else might
have said so. Because I've had so many years of
absence from my father, it's almost like I don't think
about it. I don't think about having the relationship. I
don't think about bad things, and never since the pandemic.
He'll send me pictures through text message when I was
(37:48):
a kid and things like that. That's his way of
kind of going back through nostalgia at adults, and I'm like, yeah,
going back down memory lane. I'm like, yeah, I remember
this and all that, and it's pleasant and I'm okay
with that. But I'm not looking for him to technically
be dad. I'm thirty five now, I don't really need
him to. I don't care. You say that you don't
(38:09):
have a relationship with your stepdad is well, and I don't.
We are very cordial, it's very hi and by. We
don't talk on the phone, we don't text other than
it's happy Birthday or Happy Father's Day. The reason why
we're not closest because he didn't want to intervene between
me and my father, and for me, that started this
(38:29):
place of feeling not worthy, creating insecurities that nobody sees me,
nobody's going to choose me. My mother didn't choose my feelings.
My father didn't choose me, and he decided to just
let me go. And then my stepfather sees that my
mother is physically abusive sometimes, and I don't see him
checking her or stopping her. I don't see him trying
to build a relationship and do things that I see
(38:52):
him do with his nieces or when his son came around.
So it's we we just never had that connection. I
used to yearn for it, but I also had to realize, yes,
he takes care of me, and I'm totally grateful for
it and all the things that he's done, But at
the end of the day, there's a kid here that
needs some emotional connection from somebody, and I'm not getting
(39:15):
it from those that I'm supposed to be getting it from,
like my own parents and you as a step parent
or bonus parents part Katie, I'd love to know your
thoughts on this. How can you mend or even just
move past relationships without forgiving What are some of your
advice there? Yeah, I think in general, it's boundaries. I
always tell people, make a list of what you want
(39:37):
and what they're capable of, and then we're gonna have
to spend some time, unfortunately grieving the difference, right, And
I think that's kind of where you start. And then
when they're capable of you have to decide again. It's
like back to what we want, what we're able to
allow in our lives. People get privileged to us, right,
get the privilege of knowing us. Then we have to
(39:58):
decide if what they're capable of is going to be
enough for us, and we move forward with that that
it's hard, and like that grief I just talked about it,
like but it it takes work and it's sad. But
I think that a lot of times, especially with parents,
we think our parents can do anything. We think that
they know everything, they can fix anything. I think my
dad could fix anything. And then as we get older,
(40:20):
we realize you're just like me. You don't know what
you're doing, you don't know what's happening in it. When
you're friends and you start to have kids, you realize
just how much we're going in it. And I think
that realization can be hard. But again, if we can
just kind of come to terms with what our dream is,
what they're capable of, and if we're okay with what
(40:41):
they're capable of then I always encourage my clients to
work on reconciliation in a way that feels okay and
safe for them is the healing for me. I needed
that answer. Do you all realize that, Cara Anthony, we're
having a free session here, Okay, We're getting we are
(41:01):
getting a full fledged free session with Katie Morton. Okay,
because the fact that she just gave us so many
other nuggets, but this nugget of recognizing where someone what
your expectation is and then identifying the reality of what
their capacity is to give you and are you satisfied
with that or not? It was a missing piece for me.
(41:23):
It's something I learned recently because you know what we do.
We instead we identified what we want from them, and
then we get mad they can't make the jump shot,
like we're waiting for them to like Michael Jordan's get
up there, and really they just gonna stay right here.
It's just ok And if you were expecting me to
jump shot, and I'm telling you, I got that needs
the Janna wishing her husband would not And no matter
(41:45):
how many books they women more more, it was there
were more than women. Let's make sure we're honoring what
she said. There are not enough books, there are not
enough podcast I don't care how many interviews you do.
The man was cheating. I'm gonna say this, and I
don't know if we're gonna be able to keep this
saying or not, but I'm gonna tell you what a
friend of mine told me about a friend of hers
(42:05):
who she was in a relationship that was cheating. You
want to hear it, here it goes. She said, you
gotta let a home be a home. That's it. Period,
mic drop period, And Jana was trying to make a
whole of husband. That was yeah, because they talk about
the housewife. Let's go ahead, let's let it do it.
(42:27):
It's the husky. So that look, Jim, we just got
from you Katie that that is applicable all across the board.
And I love it powerful Seriously, Anthony, how have you
worked toward healing within yourself after experiencing so much trauma
from your parents? Yeah, that's a good question. I I
(42:49):
can't leave it up to me. Like India r has
saved my life and many times when it comes to
her music, even in my older years, I'm reading books
more and it's this book. It's funny that we were
talking about. I think, Katie, you mentioned how figuring out
what they want and what they have the capacity to do.
And I'm reading this book called Adult Children of Immature
(43:11):
Parents and Emotionally Immature Parents. Excuse me, and when I
tell you that book has helped me because I realized
now in my older age, my father didn't have the capacity.
And I actually said to my little brother, and I
said to my cousin who has experienced the same kind
of abandonment with her father, which is my father's brother,
(43:33):
and I told him, I said, we should be grateful
that they weren't part of our lives. And they were
like what, And I said, they didn't have the capacity.
They probably had the capacity to ruin us rather than
what we actually experienced. And I know it's something that
we don't I know, it's not something that we want
to hear. And everybody may not be at the place
(43:55):
where they're able to receive it, but it doesn't stop
it from being true. So acknowledging and knowing that my
father didn't have the capacity and no longer putting the
pressure on myself to have that relationship with my dad
has been really big. So that's kind of helped me
on this journey of freedom, um, not necessarily forgiveness, but
freedom with them myself, and not only free of myself,
(44:18):
but freeing him of the obligation that he couldn't fulfill.
I just had to let it go. I couldn't keep
holding it anymore and put it on a T shirt,
just moving it over and just moving on with my life.
And it's been the best thing for me. I think
you're trying to get a COMMA L M F T
behind your name to Anthony Thompson. I think so that's
(44:47):
a that's some good work right there, Car and I
could talk to you both for hours and hours and hours,
and I say this I think every episode. But it's
so true that once again a phenomenal topic that needs
to have awareness, toxic forgiveness is happening. We do it
and we don't know it. I'm grateful for bringing this
(45:08):
to the table and having brave souls generals brave to
share her truth. It has a lot about a person
to say that. So we also know another brave soul,
and that is you, Anthony Thompson. So unbelievably brave, major, major,
major kudos to you and gratitude for sharing your story
and journey with us, And to you Katie for navigating
(45:31):
us through and giving us the right language to help
us along and putting some good tools in our tool belt.
So thank you both for being here at the virtual
Thank you, thank you for letting me, thanks for having us.
We appreciate you both. We wantn't know how you're feeling
about this new season or Red Table Talk. We are
open to talk about anything with you all, so sending
(45:53):
your questions at Let's Red Table that at red table
talk dot com or leave us a boy smell you
already know. We got a new system gonna speak pipe
and that is speak pipe dot com slash Let's Red Table. Then,
thank you so much for listening. Make sure y'all hear me,
Make sure you subscribe on I Heart Radio app, and
(46:16):
please rate this podcast on Apple Podcast Up five. We'll
be back next week for another episode of Let's Red
Table that I beg Thank you to our executive producers
Jada Pinkett Smith, Ellen Rackitton, and Balin Jethrow. And thank
you to our producer Kyla Kanaru and our associate producer
(46:37):
Yolanda Chow. And finally, thank you to our sound engineer,
Stephanie Aguilar. Let's spread table that. Let's table that
Hey, y'all, Hey, what's up? And welcome to Let's Red
Table that I'm Tracy t Row and I'm Carl Pressley.
How are you feeling the day, Tracy? You know I'm
feeling every day amazing, and I know you're feeling successful, successful,
any other way to be Ben Well, I'm telling you
you know, this episode was also just absolutely amazingly successful.
(00:23):
They had the opportunity to talk about toxic forgiveness. Now,
first of all, I didn't even know that was a thing,
did you come, didn't know de term at all. I
had no idea what was going on. But after watching
an episode, it made me start thinking about even toxic optimism.
So I mean, clearly you can have too much anything minute.
(00:45):
I am that friend who's like, oh you're sad, let's
get over it. And I just I had to remember
sometimes people need to just feel it. Me feel yea,
and maybe I need to just sit in it and feel.
So you know about that talking about that needing to
just ner and sit in and work through your feeling.
And whether it's grief or happiness or sadness, we like
(01:07):
sitting in happiness and we're constantly looking for the happiness,
right but when grief comes up, sometimes you gotta deal
and sometimes you allow yourself to believe something that isn't
true in pursuit of being happy. Hello, come on, I
think that was part of what we saw in this episode, Karen.
I have some scenarios of our own where we're going
to talk about if we will forgive or not right,
(01:29):
and we obviously want you to join in on the conversation.
So send us an email at let's red table that's
at red table talk dot com and let us know
if you agree or disagree with us. All right, come on,
let's get it, Tracy. Would you forgive a sibling that
sleeps with a partner on your wedding day? Okay? So now,
(01:53):
I just I can't wait to get this. This is
the wait. What if my sibling sleeps with my partner
on my wedding day? It's a big bat hell to
the note. I'm not I'm not forgiving that. I'm not
forgetting that. So now would you forgive? It's a no,
it's a note for me. It was the wedding day
for me because didn't we pay for this? I just
(02:15):
I can't he's going on the honeymoon now, I mean
all right. Now, the next question. Your child gets expelled
from college, pretends to still be in school, and you
find out on the day they're supposed to graduate. Okay,
let me say something to you. It's the audacity for me, real,
real clear. There are two parts of this, and it
(02:39):
all depends on the funding. If I have been funding
your education and you have been lying saying that you're
in school and you are not, and then you have
lied and say that you're graduating and you're not, that
is going to be a major problem for me. Okay,
I'm going to ultimately be able to forgive it, but
(02:59):
it would be see it for me to forgive it.
If to you funded your own process and you dropped
out on your own dime, then sure that's your life.
You do you bo I definitely understand that perspective. You
know on this one. I'm gonna forgive. I can forgive.
I told my son when he graduated high school. Listen, well,
I'm having a cookout in Juil, so you're gonna be
(03:20):
a guest or a graduate. But I'm eating a hot
dog and a Hamburger, So I can forgive, and I'm
gonna still celebrate and go out to eat because it's
your journey. So create the life that you want. You're
gonna have a hot operational plate. Whether he had high vibration,
come on that right, because he got a low vibrational
situation going on, and that's his business. And now the
(03:40):
last one. Your parents has had a secret family. Oh
this happens all the time. Your parent has had a
secret family and you don't find out until you're an adult.
It's a tough one. How many funerals are we talking about? Listen,
I'm not gonna put my whole family's business out there,
but I definitely have experienced this, and I definitely would forgive.
(04:01):
But I will say it is hard to look around
that people at the reunion, like y'all had all this
going on. I'm just gonna say that, Okay, in this case,
the family is something that is truly a treasure and
a gift, and I would forgive. Although I would have
a lot of questions, I didn't have a lot of questions.
I wanted all of them. I want the answers and
I need all the information. Just sit at the table
(04:22):
and just be ready, open yourself up, and just answer it. Now.
The question I want to know from y'all is what
would you do? And then this is real deal. So
I know some of you all have just found your
sister and brothers and uncles and cousin. So send us
an email at Let's Red Table that a red Table
talk dot com. We can't wait to hear the responses
or listen. I think this would be great. I'm just
(04:42):
gonna go ahead and put out there a good speak
pipe send us a voice memo and tell us yes,
ma'am or no, sir, I cannot do or I would
definitely forgive you know what. That's right, okay? And so
our speak pipe is speakpipe dot com slash Let's red
Table that we're gonna get that. That's what we're gonna
get that. We're going to take a quick break, but
(05:04):
when we get back, we'll be joined by two incredible
guests from our Red Table Talk community. All right, we're
bringing two fellow our t T community members to the
Virtual Red Table today. I am way excited. Carl Anthony
Thompson is joining the Virtual Red Table from North Carolina,
(05:25):
and he's here to share about his emotionally and physically
abusive relationship with his parents, including how he's able to
forgive his mom and why his dad has not earned
his forgiveness. Anthony, thank you so much for joining us
and sharing your story with us. No, thank you, thank
you for giving me the opportunity to come and share.
I appreciate that. Yes, we appreciate you. And our second
(05:47):
guest has been on our podcast before. Katie is a
licensed marriage and family therapist, YouTube creator, author, speaker, and
a passionate psycho education facilitates her. Okay, love all the
titles and the titles for me. But she first shared
her expertise as our mental health expert for our very
first mental health moment, And now Katie's joining us for
(06:10):
a full episode because we need it and we're going
to talk about toxic forgiveness. So welcome Katie. How are you.
I'm good. It's great to be backing. So good to
see you, Katie. So glad to have you with us
at the virtual Red Table. Alright, guys, so this is
(06:32):
the part of the show where we reveal which moments
made us pause, rewe listen again and say what's wait? Wait,
stop altogether Okay, so many moments, just like Red Table
Talk has been delivering off season. It's another heavy episode,
but necessary episode. We're gonna try to bring some life
(06:54):
to this, but let's get into it. I'm gonna kick
it off. What about Jada talking about her and re
sharing a journal. We had a journal that we would
send back to one another. Oh right, just kind of
expressing things to one another that might not have been
easy to talk about face to face. Yeah. I actually
(07:15):
loved this piece of the episode. What did you guys think?
I thought it was great too. I just like the
fact that they have this sisterhood and they're so comfortable
talking about it. But I know it was pretty rough,
and I thought the idea was really creative to be
able to say, let me get out how I feel
so that we can still communicate and then be able
to develop what we need to do for Tray because
that was the focus. And I love that. Yeah, putting
(07:37):
the kids first, it's got to be hard when there's
so much emotion involved. And I really appreciated the fact
that they both were willing to work on it, and
they both admitted I think right up front. When I
was listening to this, I was like, Oh, they just
jumped right in, like right up front there, like we
had trouble, and I overstepped, and I overstepped, and this
is what I did, and the other people are like,
you did right, wait right, wait, yeah, But in the moment,
(08:02):
there's a lot of emotion at play, and I really
appreciate the fact they were able to kind of step
aside and put the kids first, which I mean, it's nice.
It's hard to get out of your own way. And
I was so impressed. Oh no, I loved that is
the absolute truth, Katie. That is so true. We often
talk about different vehicles for communication, right, what's the best
(08:23):
thing that works for us? And number one, I liked
that they both realized, they comprehended that family was the goal,
the kid was the goal, the child was the goal,
and they decided, this is our vehicle. We are going
to use this journal to really help us get out
the things that we need. I just thought it was
so successful. I hope someone else incorporates it into their life.
(08:45):
It reminded me sometimes when me and my son aren't
saying out, we will text each other because you just
sometimes you just don't want to hear that person's voice
in the moment. So I love it, And don't you
think like writing it down slows it down sometimes face
to face because you can't take things back right then
we're in another level of forgiveness. We already got this
one beef going on and we're like layer and it's
(09:07):
just too much. And I think sometimes when you have
to write it and you look at the words, you
can think twice before this is what I want to send,
or this is what I really want to say. Another
weight what moment was when Janna sharing that she forgave
her husband for cheating the first time because she thought
I cheated before and never forgave myself, So I'll forgive
(09:28):
him as if forgiven him with give her healing. There
were flags in the beginning he had cheated, you know,
a month into dating. But I'm like, it's okay. I've
cheated in past relationships and I didn't forgive myself for it,
So I'm gonna forgive you. I can make this work.
We can grow together and in the marriage too. Every
time he cheated, first, second, third, however, many times like
(09:50):
I like, I forgive you. Wait, what what have you
ever felt like you had to forgive someone because you
had the same mistake in the past. I don't know
if I would say that I forgot save, but I
probably would have had a little bit more grace in it,
because forgiveness means I'm just going to throw it out
the window and let it go. Now, I'll still be
looking a little sideways, like I remember when you did
(10:10):
that a couple of months ago. Now, don't don't act
crazy now. But I don't know if I would say
forgive that's a little bit more strong. Interesting. Yeah, I
agree with we have more understanding when you know you've
been there before. Yeah. I think the grace is a
perfect word, Anthony. It's like you can see from that perspective,
and so you might say, hey, it didn't mean anything
to me. I'm sure it didn't mean anything to him,
(10:32):
and you can make those kind of concessions or a
different understanding which maybe could allow you to do that
more easily. Okay, Now, I just want you to know
whether I cheat it or not. If I cheat. If
I cheat, it, shame on me. If you cheat on me,
shame on you. And if you forgave me that, shame
on you too. Because I'm not I'm not forgiving you.
(10:53):
I'm not showing you grace. I'm done. It's wait, what
really you said we don't do cheating around here. It's
truly Wait what that part very adamant. It's a it's
a zero tolerance policy over here. It is over here too.
I definitely understand that though, Yeah, because he kept cheating.
And the thing that was interesting to me about it
(11:13):
when she said that, she said that he cheated the
first month in right, and so he had been cheating, right,
He had been cheating. He cheating. He was probably cheating
the day they got married. Flaming red flag. I know,
it's leave him before it's too serious, absolutely before a month.
Then he can hold it down. I mean, so, I
(11:35):
don't know if that was when she said that was
the first time, but I mean he was like a
serial cheater. Well that's the first time she caught him. Essentially,
there it is, and that's what that is. When I
think it was, Jada said to her, so he's cheated
on you, like with twelve or thirteen, and I was like,
that's a lot. Right. As soon as she said more more,
I was like, lord, clutching pearls and everything clutched the pearls.
(11:59):
Gather your things and get the f outs her heart.
You know this. It reminded me, though, watching her. We
want to hold on so bad, just a little bit
of something for a fear of having nothing altogether. I mean,
and I have done it before, not not like that
we weren't married, of course, but you know, you just
want something. She's had a whole idea. Clearly they've gone
(12:22):
through a whole wedding and we can't stop now, why
can't you? And she she was worried about her kids.
Remember she said, I grew up in a broken home.
And I think if we don't process our own trauma before,
this is part. I know people don't like this, but
to get into a relationship when you haven't worked through
your own stuff first is very dangerous territory because we
(12:46):
can repeat behaviors without realizing we're doing it because that's
what's comfortable. And for her, that was the dream. The
dream was we get married, live happily ever after, and
come hell or high water. I'm holding onto that, even
though by holding onto it she was like drowning herself.
You know, it's like the same. It's one of my
favorite quotes is you can't let yourself on fire to
(13:07):
keep someone else warm. And it was like it was
kind of that feeling that I got from it where
it was like she's wounding herself to keep this thing
that doesn't exist, and it's the one she wasn't on
fire in other ways from all that cheating, I was wondering,
but that part, I think she was just really holding
onto who she thought he could be rather than who
(13:28):
he really was. That was one of the biggest things
that I noticed, and that was what I was feeling.
I was like, Yeah, he's showing you who he is,
but you're still trying to get him to be who
he's showing you he can't be. That's a lot of
the dream a lot of times a lot of people,
and I'll do that. I'm guilty. I've done it too.
And see the more excuses he had, the more excuses
he had, the more time she was willing to forgive him. Yeah,
(13:49):
it was interesting. I think it was Shari said at
the beginning, using a man to define who she was.
I think Janna set it up front and then they
all said yeah, yeah, yeah, me too, me too. And
I think sometimes we can get caught up like that
where we think, hey, this relationship defines me. She said,
I would put it out there. We've been public and
we've been public about him getting better, and I think
(14:09):
there was this maybe confusion around like work in real
life and perception and reality. And I think she might
have even not to say that this happened necessarily, but
I wonder if she might even tricked herself. Right, you
say it enough times you start to believe it. So
my husband's gotten better, he's better, just recovered. He's doing this,
and I think she kind of drank her own kool aid,
(14:31):
and then it's just hard probably also not even probably,
they're definitely making money off of this success right in
their love life, which kind of takes us to the
last weight. What moment Jana sharing that her ex husband's
excuse for cheating with he says the podcast was a
catalyst for more of his cheating because it made him
(14:51):
feel like he always had the spotlight on him. So
then I felt like it was my fault because if
only we didn't have that podcast, he wouldn't have spot
light is onto me, has to cheat. I'm confused, and
he felt pressure to be this like perfect, and not
if I wanted to be perfect, I don't think i'd
be cheating. I'm just saying, so that's what it's kind
(15:15):
of like the point where we're just making like maybe
she was doing her work and clearly he had a
false perception of his reality. Sir, you're married. I don't
know if you've forgot, but you're married. How did you
guys feel about? Let me say this and then I'm
just gonna move my non grace giving self out the way. Okay,
how are you going to say? With the pocket? And
(15:35):
I could just hear it like that in that Baby
Baby and pease for baby Baby please. A podcast is
just just it's serving like a catalyst. It's just making
me feel like I gotta cheat even more because it
just all we're talking about, like what they're throwing it
at me? Get out of here, right helong war By.
I think he was. I felt like he was out
(15:57):
of excuses at this point. He was just grasping at
anything because I'm like, it doesn't make any sense. I
can understand him saying I do feel pressure to be
the perfect husband and that's why I lash out or
that's why I don't do this or that. But to
say that them talking about their past and how hard
it was and how you've worked through it, I'm like,
(16:19):
what make that make sense? To me, I'm a very
logical person. I don't see the logic and I don't
even see the emotion in it. I don't understand. We're
just being honest about what you actually want. You don't.
I don't think you want a family, sir. I don't
think that's not the traditional type of family and or
why did you marry into it? But there are a
lot of people out here trying to live the dream.
(16:40):
That's really not your dream. You got to define your dream,
I guess totally. Don't try to be something you're not
what the expectation is and married with two point five
kids in the pick ad fence idea, Yeah, that doesn't
work right right two point five? What did you think
(17:03):
about this episode? But for me, I thought it was
a great episode. I love seeing Shari and Jada talk
by like seeing that dynamic because it's so unheard of.
It's almost like it's not real that it's really happening
that Will's ex wife and current wife are having a
conversation and they get along and they have family time together,
and they built this substantial relationship that even started to
(17:24):
exist outside of Trey. So I think that's awesome to see.
But I gotta admit I had some emotional moments, especially
when it got towards the end and Sharie had her
emotional moment and she was talking about her and Trey
and how Trey said to her that she didn't care
about his feelings, and I identified with that so well,
dealing with my situation with my mother growing up, where
(17:47):
my mother was so focused on survival and she was
taught that being a woman meant being strong, and what
strong meant was being hard. And I started to literally
see my mother and see my dynamic with my mother,
to which I didn't have those kind of conversations with
my mother until I was grown because I couldn't all
those times. So that was the part that got me
(18:08):
a little bit. I was like, wait, let me dab
the corners of my eyes a little bit, because it's
a real thing to have your parents not validate your
feelings or understand your feelings or you have the open
space to be able to share how you feel. And
I went most of my childhood not being able to
talk to my mother and my father about my feelings.
So it got me a little emo when I was
(18:30):
watching it. Yeah, No, there was a lot. There's so much.
Anthony touched on a lot of the same things that
they resonated with me as well, especially that I put
in my notes toxic strength, because we're talking about toxic forgiveness,
but the feeling or the belief in our society, and
this applies to men and women that you have to
buck up. This means being strong. I mean I was
(18:51):
raised by a lot of stubborn, strong women, but that
can also mean forgiving when you shouldn't and being a
little bit too harsh on yourself on others. And I
think sometimes we don't recognize that. And to that point,
my next like kind of note was just like, we
are so uncomfortable sometimes with anger, upset and dislike that
(19:13):
we rushed to move past it. And when we're a parent,
I think, and I'm not a parent, so I'm not
pretending to know. I haven't birthed any babies, but if
I'm uncomfortable with it, then I'm going to encourage them
to be uncomfortable with it because I want them to
move more quickly through it. And I can do that
to my friends, to go to my husband, I can
do that to people because I don't want to sit
with it, and I think That's what really got me
(19:36):
about this episode was just the ability to sit with
the discomfort. And I think that's a muscle that, like,
I know personally I need to work on, but I
think everybody does, because forgiveness isn't acceptance, It isn't condoning behavior.
Forgiveness is for you. And if you can't and I'm
saying this to myself mostly I can't admit when thing
(20:00):
are hurtful, and I can't communicate my upsets and and
let somebody hear it, then how do I expect to
process through it. I did love that they mentioned that
it was like a process, not a choice, because forgiveness
it's tricky, right, But I've always thought forgiveness, let's me
off the hook because I don't need to keep thinking
about this. That was what stuck out to me is
(20:21):
we don't need to get it muddied. Forgiveness is not acceptance.
Forgiveness is not condoning behavior, and forgiveness most importantly is
not reconciliation. That's good And I liked when even Nedra
said that forgiveness was about your emotional process as an individual,
and I was like, I've never heard it in that way.
(20:42):
I've heard people say many times that forgiveness is for you,
but it's some kind of light bulb went off when
she put it in those words in that form, and
I was like, let me write this down. That was
good to me and for me to be conscious of
when I have to go into a place that possibly
forgiving somebody for something that's the table. I feel like
just the no understanding of different perspectives is helpful and
(21:05):
for me personally in my relationship with my son. My
son said the same thing to me the trade said
to Shari, which was interesting because I just think it's
just your household, right, You really truly think you're the
only one going through Yeah, my son said, it feels
like you don't care about my feelings. And when he
gave his examples, I'm like, I need I need an example.
Please help me. He was like, you just if I
tell you there's an emergency going on, and it's like
(21:26):
an emergency to him, it's not that much of an
emergency to you. And I told him, I was like,
I truly need you to understand. I am trying to process.
What I need to do next is a mom are
you bleeding? Are you about to die, or we need
to go to the hospital where the insurance card. I'm
literally going through so much in my mind. Somebody has
to be calm. You're already screaming, So I just need
(21:48):
you to know it's not that I don't care. That's
how I process. Some people processed by screaming with you.
They're on the floor bleeding with you. All of a sudden,
soon as you say, that's just not how I work. Now,
when you were too, that is how I was, and
my anxiety got so heightened. Something had to change. So
this show episodes like this conversation with people like you.
Thank you all so much for coming on help me.
(22:10):
Just to continually see time helps things. Your perspective can change,
your understanding can change. But conversations have to be hit.
So yeah, those conversations are important, Yes, so important. Red's
Able Talk asked the community what is something that's unforgivable
to you? And infidelity was at the top of the answers,
(22:31):
So we know Tracy was already in that poll. We
know her. How would you have answered this question? What
is something that you all feel is unforgivable? I'm up
there with the infidelity, and the infidelity was it for me,
I'm with Tracy because I mean, I'm sure there's other
things in my life, Like I don't like liars period.
(22:53):
It's hard. I know the truth is hard, but I'd
rather be hurt by the truth than hurt by a
lie that I have to find out later, because then
that erodes the foundation for me. But the infidelity, I
feel like it's one big lie. It would get me
feeling like my whole life was a lie, the whole
relationships a lie. Everything you said, every love you, every kiss,
every hug, it's a lie. And I feel like even
(23:15):
saying it, I get myself worked up because I would
feel like my whole life was coming unraveled like below,
and I just don't that to me would be unforgivable.
I know I couldn't move past it. I mean, I'm
like a burn his stuff in the law and change
the locks, get out, Like I'm I'd go zero to
a hungred you slugger to both head lights. I'm carrying
(23:36):
underwood in a situation, right A Right, I love that.
I think I kind of agree with that to it.
For me, it's not really infidelity, right, Like I've been
single for a while, so I look your relationships, just
like holistically, so even just amongst friends, Like it's not
so much cheating amongst friends. I just called it playing
(23:58):
in my face altogether. Any type of manipulation or saying
what you think you need to say to get me
to go in the way you want me to go,
there's a problem for me. I need you to be upfront.
I need to know who you are as much as possible.
Please be your transparent self because I am working every
day to do that. So if you can't, you've got
(24:19):
to go over there. And my Rose Island voice, yeah,
please go over there and stay over there, over there
and stay there. I love that too, because like manipulation
to me is like another form of line. You're not
telling me what you really want or what you need
or what you're asking. Just say to fairy tale, it
(24:40):
into the ending you want. And that's not stop fairy
taling me. I don't even know if that's the word.
I've made it up, fairy tale and I like it.
Stop telling me, not gas lighting with fairy taling. That's it.
That's it established today. So far as we know, we
we create. We create at the virtual red table too,
(25:00):
Yes we do. After that you've experienced treatment from your
mom and dad that some people may consider unforgivable. Can
you tell us about those experiences and what's made you
choose to forgive your mom and not your dad. Great question.
So for my father, he was verbally abusive. My father
was cursed me out many times, and it's only when
(25:22):
his emotions came into play. He didn't know how to
manage his emotions well, he still doesn't, and it often
came out in violence or verbal abuse, and so much
that he actually abused my mother physically and beat her
up when I was a kid. And my father has
never owned up to the things that he's done. Even
as a kid, hearing the stories about him abusing my
(25:44):
mom and all the details of it and then asking
him and for him to not own up to it
and talk around it was an issue from me because
being raised the way that I was raised, I was
taught that adults take ownership and responsibility and accountability for
the things that they do, and my father just refuses to.
(26:06):
For years, me and my father haven't talked. We just
started talking again when his father passed. My grandfather passed
and I had not seen my father in many years.
We stopped talking. My mother would always ask that your
father text you happy birthday, wanting to just hope that
there is a connection still there or hoping it could
still happen, and nothing. My father just stopped connecting with me,
(26:28):
and in turn, I found out recently he did the
same thing to my sister and my younger brother. So
it's not even just me. And it's sad to say that.
It made me feel better because as a kid, you
feel like it's just me, it's something wrong with me
that he talks to me in this way or he
treats me in this way. But to find out that
he did the same thing to my sister and brother,
(26:49):
it gave me a little bit a breathing room. But
I have not forgiven my father, and I've just learned
to accept that he is who he is. He's going
to communicate the way he's going to communicate, and he's
not going to change until he decides to change. But
with my mom, that's the one where it was physical abuse.
But I already painted the picture I sold you. My
(27:09):
father beat up on my mother. Then my mother ended
up taking it out on me so that when she
saw me, she saw him, she saw where her life
could have been if she did not listen to her
first love saying, let's keep this baby boy, and we're
gonna have this this great, amazing family, and let's do
all these things. And all she saw was the broken
(27:30):
promises that never came to fruition. And now she has
to take care of this young baby boy at the
age of nineteen by herself. And in my adult age,
I can start to understand perspective. Do I agree that
she should have been as physically violent as she was
with me? Absolutely not, But I do understand my mother
was nineteen and she just and when I say beat
(27:52):
me up, they called it spanking. Back in the day,
they would have the belts and all that kind of stuff.
I got the belt, welts on the leg, my either
called dhs. She would grip me up by my chest,
punch throw me to the ground, choke around the neck,
punching the stomach, very physical things a lot of the
time as a kid. But I thank God for my
(28:15):
mother taking ownership and changing. See, my mother took ownership
to apologize for all the things that she's done, not
making any excuses for it at all, just stating facts
and then apologizing, and she started to listen, and she
started to do the work of unraveling a lot of
her own traumas, whether it was childhood trauma, the way
(28:35):
she was raised, my father and triggers that dealt with that,
And me and my mother had the best relationship now
to the point where she told me this week, I'm
parenting her so And it's crazy how the roles will
switch like that as you get older. But that's why
I forgave my mother. I appreciate that you were able
to sift through that journey of understanding and perspective, Anthony,
(28:59):
So thank you for your bravery and willingness to work
on that relationship. Though how many people just harden and
just say I'm not even blocking it out or what
have you write? Um, Katie, I'm sure you see and
or hear things like this all the time. What factors
do you take into consideration before coaching a client through
forgiveness and reconciliation with someone? I think it depends on
(29:22):
where they're at. A lot of it has to do
with where my clients at, what they what they want,
and a lot of times I think when it comes
to parents and family, I think we talked about this
last time. I was on about like feeling that responsibility
or expectation to reconcile. And I love that, Anthony, that
(29:42):
you've been able to separate those things right, a relationship
with your father, like you don't have to forgive him
in order to have him in your life in the
way that he's able. But that takes a lot of carving,
That takes a lot of boundaries, That takes a lot
of work on your part to even have him around, right,
And that's your priority. And so the first thing I
do with my patience is figuring out what their priorities are.
(30:05):
It's not for me to put my beliefs or thoughts
into it. And as a therapist, a funny part of
me is I get I'm a protector kind of I
get like Mama bearish, where I'm like, I can't believe
they'd hurt that? How dare that yet? Dada? And I
can get that way, but I don't. Like all therapists,
we lock it down, talk about in our own therapy
to our own thing. But it's for you to decide
what you want and then for me to help you
(30:27):
do that in a healthy way. So if the goal
is reconciliation, then what are the boundaries you can put
in place to ensure that you aren't hurt again. If
the goal is to forgive so that you don't keep
ruminating about it, you want to let that go. You're
not going to reconcile. Maybe you don't even want them
in your life. How can I move you in a
place where kind of to Anthony's point about talking about
(30:48):
the understanding, sometimes understanding helps us let go of that
anger and forgive. It's amazing your mom was able to
apologize and ask for forgiveness. That takes a lot of
Most abusers aren't able, essentially to put themselves aside and admit.
If someone is able, we can give them the opportunity,
We can communicate, we can hope for it and see
(31:11):
what happens. And I try to navigate my patients through. Okay,
let's imagine, best case they apologize, worst case they tell
you to screw yourself. Most likely case, what do we
think is going to happen? And we just prepare them
for that and give them some language they can practice
it out with me. I can play the role, be
kind of gruff, be kind of soft, and yeah, it's
it's really about them meeting them where they're at. Mm hm.
(31:34):
I love that. I love that. How does the act
of forgiveness because again, Anthony, we we are just proud
of your bravery and your understanding and your work right,
because again, you really could have chosen to harden up
to say I don't I just don't care, or act
like it wasn't a thing. But how does the actual
act of forgiveness affect your mental health? And maybe even
on both sides, like even Anthony's mom, the act of okay,
(31:57):
he forgives me for moving forward? How does it impact
us on both SATs? Yeah, I think for the person who,
like for Anthony, let's say, for the person who was
harmed by something and needs the forgiveness, I think that
that it can be a release, right, It can let
it let us off. It can allow us to not
ruminate and not wound ourselves with it again, because often
(32:19):
we take old pains and it's one of my favorite
postal service songs. Just such a random band, but they
have these lyrics it won't heal right if you keep
carrying out the sutures. And I always think of that
when it comes to old things that we don't want
to forgive, and we don't want to let go for ourselves,
we just keep hurting, and we keep opening that wound
up and touching around in there and then being like,
(32:39):
I don't know why I hurt so bad, And so
I think for us, yeah, because you do, you go
and examine again. Let me think about this again, let
me replay this one conversation, right, And then sometimes if
you dig around in it too much with dirty hands,
it gets infected. In fact, that Rampart didn't even put
the gloves on. Go ahead, Tracy people exactly. And so
(33:03):
that's how it wounds us as the person who was
already harmed. Right, we already have the wound we're trying
to stitch up. But when it comes to the other
people in our lives, I think in the case of
your mom, Anthony, like I said, it's it's almost not
to say it's rare, because I hate that it is,
but it is to have someone own up and for
you to offer her forgiveness, right, it was a gift
(33:24):
you gave her. You didn't have to offer that, and
it was a gift that she asked for it. To write,
it was this giving him receiving and when that happens,
it's beautiful for both because if she or if any
person who has harmed us has any remorse or empathy
or understanding or acknowledgement that they did hurt, that lets
(33:44):
them off the hook. Because if anybody has anxiety like me,
and you wake up mill of night, you're like that
thing I said ten years ago could hurt somebody's feelings,
Oh my god, then it would be nice for someone
to say, like that was fine, or I forgive you
any big deal that stops me from opening up my
own wound. And so I think in general it's it's
it's good for both, but both have to be able
to meet each other there. And that's the hard part,
(34:07):
emotionally unshackled that part. So I like that too. I
still have conversations with my mom. There may be some
random questions I think about from my childhood that I
opposed to her. But the amazing thing is that she's
open to answer. She's not responding and aggressively or emotionally.
And she told me one time because I asked her,
I said, how do you feel when I asked those
questions randomly? And she said like, and she said it
(34:29):
catches me off guard. But the reason why I like
it is because I don't have time to think, and
it gives me the opportunity to be more authentic and
honest about it. And I can appreciate that so much. Man,
we've come light years. It's it's often crazy because people
will see pictures of us together like, y'all are like
best friends, How this happened? I'm like, if only you knew,
And some of them, even my family members, are like,
(34:50):
even when they see our relationship now, we're like, I
remember when, and I'm like, no, I remember you on
what our relationship was like. And it's been a journey,
but we're still working through it. I imagine that has
to be some measure of catharticism for your mom that
as you come up with these new questions for her,
that gives her a fresh new opportunity to kind of
(35:12):
free herself in her own experience with you, so that
she can continue to grow and evolve in her healing
journey too. One of the things that she's always said
is that she appreciates that we're able to talk now
because as a kid, I couldn't share my feelings at all.
Like I said, I was like, Tree, you don't care
about my feelings. And it's funny. We were talking about
how Jada and Shari wrote in a journal to each
(35:34):
other to share and communicate, and I did that as
a kid no Mother's Day cards, and any card that
I would give her, I would write my feelings out.
And my mother has always been nostalgic and holding onto
those cards, and I would just say, Mommy, I just
want you to listen to me. You don't have to
hit me. I just want you to understand how I feel,
and all that kind of stuff and cards. And she
(35:54):
said at the time she couldn't connect with it because
of her not being emotionally mature, But now that she
has it to go back and look back on, it's
been a little bit more therapeutic for her. But it's
also sad at the same time because she's like, dag,
my baby had to say this to get my attention,
and I still couldn't see it. I still couldn't connect.
(36:16):
So she kind of beats herself a little bit up
about it, but she's getting better at letting it go,
and I'm helping her with that. I'm like, look, it
is what it is. It happened, but let's not dwell
on what happened. Look how far we've come. We're going
to take a quick break, but our conversation on toxic
forgiveness will continue when we return. And then, how have
(36:40):
you come to terms with your relationship with your father
now that you've made a decision that you're not forgiving him,
Where are you emotionally with that? Honestly, when it comes
to my father, I really don't have as much emotions
about it, and I think it's because most of my
childhood my father has been in and out of my life.
My father kind of disconnected from me once my mom
(37:03):
got married to my stepdad because in his mind, of course,
it's territorial. He was very territorial, which is why he
was physically violent with my mom. But now he felt
as though he was being replaced by my stepdad. And
to this day, me and my stepdad don't have a
close relationship. So I'm thirty five. They got married when
I was ten, so that's twenty five years. If you're
(37:26):
not being part of my life where we could have
had a great relationship, but you were so stuck in
here on what you thought of what anybody else might
have said so. Because I've had so many years of
absence from my father, it's almost like I don't think
about it. I don't think about having the relationship. I
don't think about bad things, and never since the pandemic.
He'll send me pictures through text message when I was
(37:48):
a kid and things like that. That's his way of
kind of going back through nostalgia at adults, and I'm like, yeah,
going back down memory lane. I'm like, yeah, I remember
this and all that, and it's pleasant and I'm okay
with that. But I'm not looking for him to technically
be dad. I'm thirty five now, I don't really need
him to. I don't care. You say that you don't
(38:09):
have a relationship with your stepdad is well, and I don't.
We are very cordial, it's very hi and by. We
don't talk on the phone, we don't text other than
it's happy Birthday or Happy Father's Day. The reason why
we're not closest because he didn't want to intervene between
me and my father, and for me, that started this
(38:29):
place of feeling not worthy, creating insecurities that nobody sees me,
nobody's going to choose me. My mother didn't choose my feelings.
My father didn't choose me, and he decided to just
let me go. And then my stepfather sees that my
mother is physically abusive sometimes, and I don't see him
checking her or stopping her. I don't see him trying
to build a relationship and do things that I see
(38:52):
him do with his nieces or when his son came around.
So it's we we just never had that connection. I
used to yearn for it, but I also had to realize, yes,
he takes care of me, and I'm totally grateful for
it and all the things that he's done, But at
the end of the day, there's a kid here that
needs some emotional connection from somebody, and I'm not getting
(39:15):
it from those that I'm supposed to be getting it from,
like my own parents and you as a step parent
or bonus parents part Katie, I'd love to know your
thoughts on this. How can you mend or even just
move past relationships without forgiving What are some of your
advice there? Yeah, I think in general, it's boundaries. I
always tell people, make a list of what you want
(39:37):
and what they're capable of, and then we're gonna have
to spend some time, unfortunately grieving the difference, right, And
I think that's kind of where you start. And then
when they're capable of you have to decide again. It's
like back to what we want, what we're able to
allow in our lives. People get privileged to us, right,
get the privilege of knowing us. Then we have to
(39:58):
decide if what they're capable of is going to be
enough for us, and we move forward with that that
it's hard, and like that grief I just talked about it,
like but it it takes work and it's sad. But
I think that a lot of times, especially with parents,
we think our parents can do anything. We think that
they know everything, they can fix anything. I think my
dad could fix anything. And then as we get older,
(40:20):
we realize you're just like me. You don't know what
you're doing, you don't know what's happening in it. When
you're friends and you start to have kids, you realize
just how much we're going in it. And I think
that realization can be hard. But again, if we can
just kind of come to terms with what our dream is,
what they're capable of, and if we're okay with what
(40:41):
they're capable of then I always encourage my clients to
work on reconciliation in a way that feels okay and
safe for them is the healing for me. I needed
that answer. Do you all realize that, Cara Anthony, we're
having a free session here, Okay, We're getting we are
(41:01):
getting a full fledged free session with Katie Morton. Okay,
because the fact that she just gave us so many
other nuggets, but this nugget of recognizing where someone what
your expectation is and then identifying the reality of what
their capacity is to give you and are you satisfied
with that or not? It was a missing piece for me.
(41:23):
It's something I learned recently because you know what we do.
We instead we identified what we want from them, and
then we get mad they can't make the jump shot,
like we're waiting for them to like Michael Jordan's get
up there, and really they just gonna stay right here.
It's just ok And if you were expecting me to
jump shot, and I'm telling you, I got that needs
the Janna wishing her husband would not And no matter
(41:45):
how many books they women more more, it was there
were more than women. Let's make sure we're honoring what
she said. There are not enough books, there are not
enough podcast I don't care how many interviews you do.
The man was cheating. I'm gonna say this, and I
don't know if we're gonna be able to keep this
saying or not, but I'm gonna tell you what a
friend of mine told me about a friend of hers
(42:05):
who she was in a relationship that was cheating. You
want to hear it, here it goes. She said, you
gotta let a home be a home. That's it. Period,
mic drop period, And Jana was trying to make a
whole of husband. That was yeah, because they talk about
the housewife. Let's go ahead, let's let it do it.
(42:27):
It's the husky. So that look, Jim, we just got
from you Katie that that is applicable all across the board.
And I love it powerful Seriously, Anthony, how have you
worked toward healing within yourself after experiencing so much trauma
from your parents? Yeah, that's a good question. I I
(42:49):
can't leave it up to me. Like India r has
saved my life and many times when it comes to
her music, even in my older years, I'm reading books
more and it's this book. It's funny that we were
talking about. I think, Katie, you mentioned how figuring out
what they want and what they have the capacity to do.
And I'm reading this book called Adult Children of Immature
(43:11):
Parents and Emotionally Immature Parents. Excuse me, and when I
tell you that book has helped me because I realized
now in my older age, my father didn't have the capacity.
And I actually said to my little brother, and I
said to my cousin who has experienced the same kind
of abandonment with her father, which is my father's brother,
(43:33):
and I told him, I said, we should be grateful
that they weren't part of our lives. And they were
like what, And I said, they didn't have the capacity.
They probably had the capacity to ruin us rather than
what we actually experienced. And I know it's something that
we don't I know, it's not something that we want
to hear. And everybody may not be at the place
(43:55):
where they're able to receive it, but it doesn't stop
it from being true. So acknowledging and knowing that my
father didn't have the capacity and no longer putting the
pressure on myself to have that relationship with my dad
has been really big. So that's kind of helped me
on this journey of freedom, um, not necessarily forgiveness, but
freedom with them myself, and not only free of myself,
(44:18):
but freeing him of the obligation that he couldn't fulfill.
I just had to let it go. I couldn't keep
holding it anymore and put it on a T shirt,
just moving it over and just moving on with my life.
And it's been the best thing for me. I think
you're trying to get a COMMA L M F T
behind your name to Anthony Thompson. I think so that's
(44:47):
a that's some good work right there, Car and I
could talk to you both for hours and hours and hours,
and I say this I think every episode. But it's
so true that once again a phenomenal topic that needs
to have awareness, toxic forgiveness is happening. We do it
and we don't know it. I'm grateful for bringing this
(45:08):
to the table and having brave souls generals brave to
share her truth. It has a lot about a person
to say that. So we also know another brave soul,
and that is you, Anthony Thompson. So unbelievably brave, major, major,
major kudos to you and gratitude for sharing your story
and journey with us, And to you Katie for navigating
(45:31):
us through and giving us the right language to help
us along and putting some good tools in our tool belt.
So thank you both for being here at the virtual
Thank you, thank you for letting me, thanks for having us.
We appreciate you both. We wantn't know how you're feeling
about this new season or Red Table Talk. We are
open to talk about anything with you all, so sending
(45:53):
your questions at Let's Red Table that at red table
talk dot com or leave us a boy smell you
already know. We got a new system gonna speak pipe
and that is speak pipe dot com slash Let's Red Table. Then,
thank you so much for listening. Make sure y'all hear me,
Make sure you subscribe on I Heart Radio app, and
(46:16):
please rate this podcast on Apple Podcast Up five. We'll
be back next week for another episode of Let's Red
Table that I beg Thank you to our executive producers
Jada Pinkett Smith, Ellen Rackitton, and Balin Jethrow. And thank
you to our producer Kyla Kanaru and our associate producer
(46:37):
Yolanda Chow. And finally, thank you to our sound engineer,
Stephanie Aguilar. Let's spread table that. Let's table that
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com