E57 How to Forgive Before an Apology is Ever or Never Received

E57 How to forgive before an apology is ever or never received

Hi Friends,

In this episode I talk about:

Forgiveness is such a hard thing to do. What about when you never get an apology? How do we forgive someone who isn't even sorry? Make sure you stick around to around minute 13 when I get into the "how" to forgive.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi and welcome to Classic Advice.
My name is Scarlett Classic, your host.
To those of you that are new, onthis podcast I share stories
from my life in order for us to draw lessons from them to
inspire self improvement for a more fulfilling and happier
life. Have you ever had someone that

(00:28):
apologized to you after you had to forgive them before the
apology was ever issued? I don't really have a very
specific story about this particular topic, but I'm sure

(00:53):
if you stop and think, there have been times, like I've had
to do this multiple times where someone's hurt me and I've had
to forgive them before an apology was ever issued.

(01:15):
And sometimes I can think of that.
People have hurt me and they've never apologized.
There was no I'm sorry there. You know, there have been times
when there's no way that someonecan't know that that didn't
hurt, and yet they never apologized for it.

(01:39):
It's really difficult to forgivesomeone who isn't sorry.
And I never really understood the power of forgiveness before.
I had to forgive someone who wasn't sorry.
And I have one particular instance in mind where I had to

(02:05):
let the hate and the anger go because it was eating me up
inside. I was so angry and it was
affecting my life. And I came to the realization
that if I keep going the way that I'm going, it's not going

(02:26):
to be good. And I'm going to turn into a
very, very bitter and, and angryperson if I hold on to that
hurt. I always thought that
forgiveness was for the, you know, person being forgiven,

(02:49):
which it is to a degree. You know, like when I mess up,
it really means a lot when, you know, my kids forgive me or my
husband forgives me or whoever forgives me.
Like, we're all human. We're all going to make a
mistake. We're all going to need
forgiveness at some point. It wasn't until I had to forgive
someone who wasn't sorry that I really understood the power of

(03:09):
forgiveness because it really changed my life learning to
forgive someone who never said sorry.
When I finally let go and forgave the person in my own

(03:34):
heart, then never came for an apology.
I never said UN quote UN quote, I forgive you to the person
because they never apologized for it.
It was like a weight was lifted off my own shoulders because I

(03:56):
was carrying around a backpack full of heart.
And when I just issued that forgiveness in my own heart and
spirit, I put the backpack down.And you might be asking, how do
you, how do you do that? How do you forgive someone who's

(04:20):
in sorry? How do you let go of this
imaginary backpack on your back?How do you just let go of the
anger and the hurt and the frustration?
Sometimes people hurt us, whether it's intentional or

(04:40):
unintentional, and I was just tired of holding on to the anger
and I let the anger go and I decided I wasn't going to be
angry about it anymore and I wasn't going to let it hurt me
anymore. Every situation and every

(05:01):
scenario is different. I've mentioned on the show
before that I've been divorced. I had to let that anger and hurt
go and I had to just move on andbasically decide I wasn't going
to be angry about it anymore because it was affecting my

(05:23):
day-to-day life. And that goes for for
everything. You know, I, I can be angry
about people and bullies that have hurt me in the past.
And I've had a lot of bullies, alot of people have bullied me, a
lot of people have hurt me. And on the flip side, a lot of

(05:46):
people have loved me and a lot of people care for me.
How do we let go of that anger and how do we forgive someone?
That's a hard ask. I know that's a hard ask when I
basically decided that I had to just move on and stop letting it

(06:11):
get to me. It it sounds like a really
simple thing to do, but it's not.
When has that happened for you in your own life?
Is there some anger, resentment,grudge that you're holding on to

(06:43):
in your heart towards someone that has hurt you in the past
and not said sorry? So it's just sitting in there.
It's certainly not easy, an easything to deal with.

(07:06):
And sitting through the hurt feelings, through that icky,
icky feeling. And we go through the stages of
grief of being hurt that that last step, that forgiveness set
step, that acceptance step, acceptance of not it is what it

(07:34):
is, but even just recognizing that everybody is human and
everybody is going to make mistakes.
It doesn't make what they did right.
It doesn't give them a free pass.

(07:55):
And, and we might not ever, eversee that person ever again.
Maybe they want nothing to do with us.
Maybe it's just something that happened.
Like there's something that happened to me when I was 15
years old. And I can hold on to that hate

(08:19):
and the anger and the how could that person do that to me?
I don't have a step by step guide on how to let go of that
anger or to just accept that acceptance stage.

(08:43):
For me, it was more like a conscious decision that I was
just going to let the anger go and I wasn't going to be angry
about it anymore. And if you're not there yet, if
you need to sit with the anger for just a little longer, then
sit with it for a little longer.For me, it was more about do I

(09:09):
want to be an angry person? Do I want to be bitter or do I
want to just decide not to be angry about it anymore and move
on? Because the reality is, being
angry at the person isn't going to change what happened.

(09:31):
It's not going to change the outcome at all.
It happened. It's in the past.
We can't go back into the past and change it.
The only thing we can do and deal with right now is this
present moment, this exact moment, here and now, here and
now. How do you, we want to move

(09:53):
forward? What do you want to do?
How do you want to move on? My example of what happened to
me when I was 15 years old, I'm never going to get an apology

(10:14):
ever. It's like it's very, very
unlikely I will ever see that person again.
And if I do, I very, very highlydoubt that they would apologize.
People can surprise you, but I doubt it's ever going to happen.

(10:35):
I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to be angry.
I want to live knife live. I want to live life in the here
and now and I want to be happy, and I am choosing happiness and
I'm choosing forgiveness. One of the things that my
professor said when I went to college is hurt people, hurt

(10:59):
people, and that helps me issue forgiveness.
It doesn't make it right by any stretch.
It's like when I last year, my 12 year old and my 8 year old
were just at heads with each other all the time and being in

(11:20):
petty little arguments. And this one would would do that
to that one and then that one would turn around and do
something to the other one. And I had to sit and talk to
them. And it was like, stop.
I don't care who started the argument.
I don't care who, you know, did the thing first.
If you guys keep going at each other, it's never going to end.

(11:44):
Somebody has to be the bigger person and stop being petty and
just stop. Or it's this endless cycle.
And it's the same thing with forgiveness.
You can keep we, because I'm talking to myself too.
We can keep running on the hamster wheel of being angry and

(12:09):
not moving on, or we can step off the wheel and just choose to
not be angry about it anymore and recognize that even though
it doesn't make it right, hurt people will hurt people when we
recognize that we are all human and we all come from some sort

(12:35):
of level of childhood trauma. Generational trauma, we all have
it. Nobody doesn't have that.
If you're here listening to me now, it's because you want self

(12:56):
improvement. And we're like 15 minutes in.
So if you're still here listening, it means that you
really want to forgive whoever it is in your mind and heart
that you want to forgive. And you're trying so desperately
on the how. One thing I learned in therapy

(13:19):
is if it's safe to do so, I'd like you to close your eyes and
with with both of your hands, place your hands upon your chest
and put apply a little bit of pressure.
This is something that got me through panic attacks, but it
imitates the feeling of getting a hug.

(13:42):
So if it's safe to do so, I wantyou to close your eyes and do it
with me now and take a few deep breaths.

(14:04):
And I just imagine with every exhale that that red hot anger
and that bitterness just flows out of you.
And when you inhale the forgiveness and peace and love

(14:40):
and a bright, bright future for tomorrow.
One of the main reasons why I wanted to create this podcast
was because it would have meant the world to me if when I was

(15:01):
going through my really dark times, that I had someone there
for me. And I want you to know that I am
here for you. I'm not a doctor.
I don't have a PhD. I'm just your average person

(15:29):
that gets you as a friend. That wraps it up for this
episode. I'm not going to leave you with
a challenge this week because I think that exercise we just did,

(15:51):
that was a pretty good challenge.
And when you feel that anger or bitterness rise up again,
because frictiveness is something that's going to be a
ongoing thing. It's not going to be a one time

(16:13):
exercise and magically you're all fixed up.
But remember that that's little exercise that we just did really
helped me let go of those reallyintense emotions of anger and

(16:34):
hurt and pain. Thank you guys so much for being
here with me today. I would love to hear from you.
My website is in the show notes.My e-mail is in the show notes
but it is classicchronicles.ca that is my website.

(16:59):
I would love to hear from you. Take care of you guys and we
will catch you next week. Bye.