Forgiveness Made Easy

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back. Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Barbara, welcome to the show. How are you doing. I'm doing really well. Thank you.

0:59 Doctor Doug, how are you hey, I'm doing great, and thanks for being on the show. I really I'm looking forward to this discussion. You've written a wonderful book called Forgiveness Made Easy, and you're doing all sorts of other things. But I'd like for you to share with the audience. What I find very interesting is the story behind how people reach a certain point in their lives where they're doing the type of things you are doing. So how about a little bit of background story about yourself and what you're doing. Sure, well, it's an interesting subject to have become my focus. And I think really as a child, I grew up in the Catholic tradition, and so I had like teachings about forgiveness. We're already sort of you know, like forgive your sister, you know, that kind of thing. And then I was very interested in personal and spiritual development and that's really stayed with me for the whole of my adult life, from really the time when I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull I'm sure you're familiar with Conic book, and that started me asking deeper questions of life. And then I was just interested in I just read lots of the material that was available about personal and spiritual development and well being, and then I ended up doing some trainings, you know, going on some personal spiritual development training weekends. And there was an organization called the Mortar Life Program who originally came from the States, and they were over in England, and I took some of their trainings, and on the first

2:30 weekend they had us look at all the people that we were holding our grievances against, and we were invited to be honest about this. So I lowered my bar and I thought, well, pretty much everyone I've ever met, probably, and started writing my list. And then I got to number thirty six and I thought, yeah, probably resent my mom as well. Put her name down. And then when the time came for us to actually do like a process around the forgiveness piece, I chose my mom. And what was significant about that is that she had multiple sclerosis from the time I was fifteen. So my resentment was not of a big dramatic event that happened, and a lot of stories of forgiveness are around big dramatic things that happen and people amazingly finding their way to forgiveness, either by grace or choice, you know, whatever it is. So mine was much more mundane but significant.

3:30 I think because I think if we're really honest, we do resent or hold grievances against the people and things that we can't change, especially and my thinking more recently is that I think we choose to resent things or hold a grievance because we don't know how to grieve. And that was definitely true of my experience with my mom. How do you grieve something that's a fifteen year ongoing decline in health that you're managing as a family. So that really was the beginning of my interest in forgiveness. And then I trained with the Mortal Life Program to teach some of their courses, and then I carried on being a mentor, and then went into coaching, and just all of this sort of like carried on, and then I ended up with Great Joy working on a retreat for seven years, and we would help people do a juice fast and do some very deep emotional work so they would calm wanting a little strap line was one week to change your life, and we would help them physically, but we would also help them emotionally and mentally and spiritually. And at that point I got really interested in why some of the clients would really struggle letting go of grievances and letting go of their resentment and carrying those old stories.

4:51 And then other people like there was one really lovely woman who was in her seventies when she came to us, and she had been abused as a t child, and when she did her her process where we were helping her to forgive, she said, afterwards, all of that bad feeling that I've been holding in my body, it's all gone. And so she that was decades of holding onto something that she didn't know how to release, and she'd never told anybody about it. And so my interest was really in how do we help people who really do want to let go of their grievances and forgive. And I use a very particular definition of forgiveness, which are our share as well. But I I was just fascinated by it, and then I didn't decided I was going to write a book about it, and then really it's just it's kind of gone on from there. And I consider myself a specialist because I find it so fascinating, but by no means an expert, because I'm still learning all the time about it. Well, and you know that's wonderful. What is intro is is you've observed these people, and as you've worked with people, you know there are so many different approaches to trying to help people overcome emotional issues. And you're talking about people that hold in that resentment or whatever that happens to be. As we get into this discussion, what is the actual outcome that you have observed for people from a standpoint of

6:26 emotional healing as well as maybe physical healing, whatever that happens to be. What has been your observation, and then we can get into really talking about it. Several things. I mean, on the retreats, because people were also doing a deep cleanse for the body. I remember one particular client who came with a stick and left without it. But because we were working on every single level, we don't know how much of that was just the cleanse or how much was that the emotional work that she was also doing and releasing the most the most common response that I get from people after they've because I work one to one with people. So I coped and in my book there's a seven step Forgiveness Made Easy process, So it literally is a guided, step by step like way of taking somebody through. It's like an inner ritual, you know, like a guide. Did you do it with your eyes closed? And it's it's a dialogue. It's based on Jungian active imagination therapy, so you're you're actually speaking out loud as if you're having the kind of conversation person that you would never normally be able to have, and that can be incredibly releasing because you're hearing yourself say things, and in your imagination, they're hearing you, and you know, I set it up in a way that that helps to get the kind of completion that you can never get in real life. And for example, there was one woman who came and her father died before she'd had her children, so he never met the grandchildren.

8:00 So in her imagination, I said, invite the grandchildren to the fire, let them meet, and she immediately started weeping because to her the grandchildren and her father were meeting for the first time. You know, so you can. So it's hard to quantify what the result of that kind of thing is, but in terms of peace of heart, I think that's probably the best thing. You know, most people say I feel lighter after they've done a process, and I'll often say do you want your grievances back again? And they're like, no, I'm fine, I don't want them back, you know, because you know, even having held onto things for such a long time, they're so familiar in who would I be without that thought or without that grievance, and so there is an inquiry that has to happen as well well. And I think you hit on a really good point in this sense of peace. You know, so many people don't ever experience peace in their lives, true piece, and you know that's been a promise from different individuals, and yet they don't experience it. And so if that happens to be the outcome, what a wonderful blessing. So let's get into that. Well, first of all, you were going to define your own definition of forgiveness, and then we can talk a little bit more about that. Yes, thank you, Thank you for reminding me about that. This is really helpful because I think there's such a lot of misunderstanding around what forgiveness is and what it isn't and being able to hone it down to a very specific thing can

9:30 help us when we're thinking about it. And I learned this on my original Mortal Life Weekend from k Bradford Brown, who was one of the creators of that program, and he says, forgiveness is the absolute refusal to hold ill will against someone for what they did or didn't do. And I'll say it again because it's really long. Forgiveness is the absolute refusal to hold ill will or a grievance or grudge against someone for what they did or didn't do. And I like to demonstrate it kind of like using like this is sort of the grievances that we gather up in our everyday lives. Okay, and this is going to be on a podcast too, so explained to the audience. So I'm gathering up all of the things on my desk, like my pens, my flask, my water, and then the absolute refusal is when you put them back down again and your hands are empty, and that helps to kind of express the sort of visceral release of like I'm I am choosing to not hold the ill will. And it doesn't mean that it's easy, and it doesn't mean it's going to happen straight away, and some people have to hold onto their grievances for twenty years or longer before they feel okay, actually, this this is starting to hurt my arms, you know, this is maybe it's not such a good deal, maybe it's not really getting the results that I want it to get. And then that's usually when they contact me.

10:56 Well, and that's that's a pretty deep definition of being able to really let go. I mean, I've heard different definitions of forgiveness, and I think there's some standard ones out there. In your mind. When most people come to you and they're going to learn about quote forgiveness, what in their mind is that really mean? And obviously then you change that to the way that you're defining it. But what do most people think about forgiveness? Well, I mean, I can't speak for everybody, but I think the most common misunderstandings are that it's like taking a weaker position, or it's like saying it's okay, or like, you know, like we we even say we want to get even, you know, when something bad happens, And so forgiveness is saying I'm going to not insist on any kind of vengeance or retribution.

11:50 So that means you take the damage, but you don't then try and damage back. You're not trying to get some kind of equanimity. And I think that's what's really hard is that we feel this injustice and we will have a sense that things should be fair and from you know, from childhood and like nothing's fair. Your sister always gets more things than you do, or you're you know, like, you know, like we have this sort of sense of that isn't fair, and so when things happen, there's a sense of injustice that is really uncomfortable because we want to make an adjustment. And I think that when people come to do forgiveness work, they're they're afraid that it means that the other person will get away with it, or they're afraid they have to reconcile. And of course forgiveness is not reconciliation. And also forgiveness is not about not holding boundaries. So you can still take somebody to court, you know, but you don't have to hate them while you're doing it. You can you can decide this is the end of the marriage, and you know, I love you and let's be let's cope, you know, raise the children, but in separate houses. But you don't have to hate the person while you're doing it. I smile, you know when it comes my mind. I just came back from a trip, a guide a trip, and for me it was a nightmare. The way it had been presented from the salespeople and from the agenda, It's like, wow, this is going to just be incredible. And it was a week long one and by the time I was ready to leave midway through. Couldn't do that because I couldn't change my flights. But ultimately, I've been in contact with them

13:24 and they're just really not responding to the whole challenge. And I'm thinking, Okay, I'm going to write, you know, I'm going to go on Google and I'm going to write a review that is not going to be kind. And so with that situation, what would you say to me, because that's probably a general situation that many people experience in different ways. Yeah, it's a great it's a really great example. It really is. Actually so two things. One because the work that I do, some of it's untangling the mind. So looking at the meaning that you're making like they've got one over on me, or they missold me, they've taken advantage, they must think I'm stupid, they owe me money, you know. So there's all that that sort of mental activity that that would be worth addressing. But then you know what I would do is I would do my seven step forgiveness made easy process on them because it kind of helps to free me so that when I do write my letter or I do decide what is it that I'm going to do as you know, my response to what's happened that I'm doing it from a really clean place, not from a vengeful place. And that's just my point. So it's not that I don't write that review, it's that I go through those seven steps first to make sure when I write that review

14:56 it comes from an entirely different emotional perspective. Yeah, and and and you would probably you know, like you might still say some of the same things. You might, but it would be it would be clean rather than they're the worst company, don't ever go anywhere near than blah blah blah. You would just say this was not what I expected, these things didn't happen, but that But there's I think there's I think it's different. There's a there's a we have this in our relationships when somebody and I'm actually demonstrating again with my pens, is like when someone's done something and you're trying to tell them all the things they've done wrong, it's really hard to hear. Whereas if you do your inner work and you get really clear, can we have a conversation about that one thing that then you're really clear that actually that is the big issue. Yes, as opposed to just all of my meaning and all the resentment, and you you're taking advantage of me, and you know, blah blah blah. Well, and you know, forgiveness, I think it can be so difficult. And what do you find, really are the five most common obstacles to forgiveness that people experience. Yeah, well that one of them is the definition, so thinking that forgiveness means letting the other person off the hook. Forgiveness is about what you choose to keep in your heart.

16:23 And I describe it a bit like velcrow. You know, if you're like like velcro, you're going to get hooked onto everything. If you do forgiveness work, then you can become more like teflon, so that all those things still happen, you don't get hooked or reactive in the same way. But the five biggest obstacles, so one of them is having a definition that works. Another one is not really realizing that we are resenting somebody in the first place, or that we need to hold onto the that we're holding onto a grudge. Often we'll just say well no, but they just you know, they need to be honest about what they're providing. It's like so we're not looking actually what's going on inside of ourselves. We're projecting it outwards. And also sometimes people who are in a personal or spiritual development kind of field, they might go, oh, no, I understand, no, no, you know, she was doing the best she could, you know. But then there's still that part in you that's compressed or shut down or kind of crusted over that, you know, the painful heart because again I mean I just demonstrating with my props again with a book in front of my heart, you know, like when you're protecting yourself, like the resentment can feel like it's it's giving you a protection over your heart. And we don't want to be vulnerable, you know. We find it really hard. And one of the main reasons why we hold onto our resentment is because we think it gets us the things that we haven't had, like someone giving us the compassion or

17:55 the care that we didn't get. And like I said about I think we hold our resemble because we don't know how to grieve. I mean we're I mean, especially you know in the Western culture, we're not very good at death or grieving or anything like that, especially Brits as well. So there's there's a lot of things, different things going on. So I think vulnerability is a really big reason why we we don't want to forgive, because we don't want to make ourselves vulnerable. But the root of the world word vulnerable comes from vulner which means to be wounded. And of course we are wounded by the things that happen in life, and we have our hearts broken and challenges, you know, happen, and people that we love die, and so the illusion that this is actually a better way to live your life is it just means that we've kind of crusted over the heart and that we were not really living, you know, like engaged. And Funnily enough, I had a client recently who came and she the reason she came was because her resentment of her previous husband was leaking into her current really relationship. Yes, and that that can happen, and not just in our special relationships, but in all our relationships. That's true. So that's number two mistake. What's what's number three? Now, Number three is the things that we get out of our resentment, which is to do with our ego, because we like the moral high ground, you know, like you you'll have the moral high ground at the moment in your situation because they did you wrong, and there's

19:29 there's something quite delicious about that. And you know, having the the you know like well, you know, looking down on the other people from your high horse, that there are there are things that we get from our resentment that are to do with our ego and some and some of it is not pretty. And this is again, this is the sort of thing that we're not necessarily looking at that we can we can hold onto resentment because we we're getting like an excuse like I can I can well, I can be a victim. I can tell myself, well, you know, I can't really do this thing in life because this happened to me or these people did me wrong. And we we sort of play ourselves down or act smaller because we're not we're giving our power away to the thing that happened. And so there's so the ego can play games because always like we're always trying to sort of like you know, measure you know, where are we in the social standing?

20:26 And I think the resentment, the things that we resent, can be part of that is like putting ourselves down or aggrandizing. It can be either, yeah, either way either way, all right, and then number four obstacle, Yeah, so that the the other one is so this is kind of the flip side of why we hold our resentments, you know, like we there's something we get out of it that we're not aware of. So there are payoffs, there benefits. The other side is that we're not aware that it costs us anything. Like we're not thinking, oh, yeah, I must I'm must do my forgiveness work, I must write a list and free my heart. We're just like, well, it's just my life and I'm just getting on and you know, they did me wrong and I hate these people and I'm never going to let those people off the hook. And you know, like we think that that's sort of defining ourselves without realizing, actually, what's the cost of living with my heart shut down? And like the client realizing actually the anger is leaking over into my relationship? What about your peace of mind? What about the courtersole levels? You know? And resentment. Then again, the etymology I love, I love kind of understanding what's underneath the words is centire, which means to feel so refeel means that you're feeling all of those feelings again, that you know they did that, you know, and we're feeling the feelings over and over and over again, and we're we're not aware that that has a detriment. And there's there's some you probably heard, there's some lovely phrases about holding onto resentment is like taking

21:56 poison and hoping the other person will die, or my particular favorite, which is holding onto resentment is like setting yourself on fire and hoping the other person is bothered by the smoke. You know, they're not even in the vicinity, and you're hoping that your rage will waft over there in a significant way and make them change their minds and apologize and repent, you know. So the downsides and that there are scientific studies that show the impact of grievances over time to our to the detriment of our health like high blood pressure or high courters or levels and heart disease. Well, and if nothing else, the effect that it has in our life of not experiencing that true peace, and that you know, when you're not feeling peace, you're not really experiencing that pure joy, that pure happiness that we all deserve to be able to experience.

22:49 So let's let's talk about the book for Ginness Made Easy. You said, there are what seven steps that you talk about? Do you mind going through and just briefly talking about each of those steps and how does how does an individual you know go through each one of those steps? Yeah, and just to say because like the fifth obstacle is not knowing how or not having a way of doing it. And that's really why I created the process the way I did. Again, like I said on the retreat, I was really looking what works, what really what worked, what doesn't work. And I'd also done some training with a woman called Brandon Baes who does something called the Journey, which is again an NLP kind of technique, and then also read a lot of Ken Wilber, the American philosopher, and I was interested in his shadow work, and you know, so I kind of synthesized quite a few things together with some of the teaching from the Mortal Life Program.

23:42 And so so it's the way the steps work are really it's all in one. It's like one ritual if you like, a forgiveness. And like I said, sometimes people take twenty years before they think, actually this is not a good deal. I need to let this go. And the peace in your heart that you're talking about, Doug is really important because you know, often when people are on their deathbeds, they're thinking, I really wish i'd cleared that up. So this is kind of like an opportunity to you know, do your work in a safe way. And it's not like restorative justice where you're actually meeting the person, which I think can be quite confronting. This is like practice and you have the conversation with a person, and that means that you can be doing it whether they're still alive or not, whether they're still in your life or not, because it's just in your imagination.

24:33 And so the way I guide it, you know, the beginning of the process, you're just making eye contact with the person. Then you have like a heart to heart. So the second step is a heart to heart. The third step is like a shoe to shoe where you switch positions, and that's really really important. So in the second step, the heart to heart, you get to say everything that needs to be said, you know, like the full extent of everything that you you may never have said, you know, like when I was working with my mom, he used to resent have wearing pop socks. I mean, that's just like a really random, petty little thing. But it's like you just like saying all of the things, so it's like really literally emptying out everything so that you are not holding onto anything. And then and then it becomes a dialogue where you let the other person reply and you switch shoes, so you then speak as them.

25:25 So are you doing this? Are you doing this mentally? Are you actually doing it verbally? Out loud? Verbally? So, how how do people you know, as we go through each of the steps. Yeah, I'd love more in depth discussion about how do they do that? Well? Well, usually with support, I mean, although although the process, it's like I've outlined the process in my book and that there is like a free download of me guiding you through it as part of the book. But I also host online forgiveness fields, like a practice place, so like a you know, like a yoga studio. So this is for forgiveness practice. So people come and then I do a little introduction, so talking a bit like I have done with you, and then for the next sort of like forty five minutes, I guide people through the whole process. And so and zoom is fantastic because you can have a group of people everybody works with their microphones are off, and then you can speak out loud and say what needs to be said. And then so I guide the whole group through the process like one step at a time, and then they indicate, you know, by putting their hand, you know, so I can see it that they're finished with that particular step, and then we go through together in what I call a forgiveness field. And so that's so that's so that's kind of like how it's done, if you like, is okay? And you know what, it's so important for people to realize so many times we're trying to do things on our own and to be able to have someone to guide us such as what

26:56 you're doing and particularly online I think best fast, it is so important to understand. So all right, that really helps to understand. Then there's actually some guidance that's going on with that. So that was step number two. What was step number three? That was? That was? That was three actually, So the first one is eye to eye, so you're just setting it up and just connecting. Then it's heart to heart, then it's shoe to shoe, and then the next step is taking it like a higher view. So I call it the balcony, but you know, like the story of Scrooge when he gets taken up by the ghosts of pass present and future, so that you then have a different view. So you're then able the other person is able to see the damage that they may have done or take responsibility for the things they couldn't take responsibility for. And there's and there's this sense of shifting it out of the kind of personality ego to ego, and you're just taking it to a high level way. Both of you have a bit more equanimity and a bit more distance, which is, you know that the thing that's what life provides us as if we get older, we get a bit of distance. But we also need a way. And I'm not saying that my way is the only way. You know. People obviously have to find something that works for them, and I don't. I don't, you know, like whatever works for you is good, you know, But I'm just I just got really interested in what are the parts that need to happen. And one of them, you know, like I was curious where did people get stuck? And one of them was not being able to say

28:26 everything you need to say. If people were a little bit withheld or they just said, oh, I just understand you know, I know what she's like. I don't need to say it all. They would be the ones who would find it hard when we got to the forgiveness part of the forgiveness process, if you like, because you haven't you haven't emptied it all out. It's like, and I often talk about it's especially if you use a younger version. So if things happen when you're a child, and when I work one to one with people, I can do that much more deeply that there's something that's stuck and the little you, even though mommy and Daddy may have been doing the best thing to send you to that school that's in another neighborhood, and you have to lose all your friends to the little you, that's devastating and you don't get a choice. And so the opportunity is in the imaginary conversation. The little you get the opportunities to say, ouch, that didn't work for me, I wish I wish you'd been around more, or I wish you hadn't done that well, you know, like these unaired wishes, because you just have to get on with it. When you're a kid, so there's all of that permission. And then so when you're on the higher realms, if you like, at the balcony level, you're able to sort of see, oh, okay, well I can see that's my part, that's their part, and the other person can see the risk, you know, the consequences, because that's the other thing. Often there are very long consequences to things that happen in early childhoods. We make decisions or I must never you know, show my anger to anybody, or and then wonder why we can't set boundaries, you know, like you know, there's

29:59 things that need to be undone. Yeah, and so that would be that's so really that's the fourth The fourth step is that that reach higher, and then the fifth is this sort of then that's where we do the exchange. So we're looking at what what have the payoffs been? Why have I held onto my resentment for so long? What's it costing me? And then sometimes there's that sense of well, you you took those things away from me or I gave them to you, you know, like things like my self esteem or you know, I felt disempowered or you know, like there's so there's things that might be needing to be restored, and you know, like to do that what we're talking about, that sense of bathing, and you can do that in your imagination, so you can get back the things that were taken from you or that you gave up too soon, or claim back the things that you want to claim again, like your power or whatever. And again, the power of the imagination is just astonishing. And you know, and when I when I'm guiding people, it's almost like I just make it possible and I'm as undirective as I can be, and they're saying, oh, they've just given me an orb or you know, like whatever it is, you know, like their imagine, your imagination makes the medicine for you.

31:14 Yes, yes, that's number five. Number six. Number five. Number six is the actual part where we say some very particular words about forgiveness, you know, where it's like a like a vow where you say, I choose to release my ill will you know everything that I've held against you. So there's like a little there's some phrases that I actually say, and the and the clients you know, do repeat after me kind of thing, but like a bit like a wedding vow, but rather than meeting and joining your unjoining. So it's like an undoing vow if you like that, and that's that's what we do. And then the last step, the seventh step, is if there's anything else that needs to be said or cleared up or communicated and any repair. And often there's a if the person's still alive and they're still in your life, it may be that you have a new intention, you know, like from now on, I'm going to remember what your limitations are and I'm going to treat you with kindness. Or I'm going to set really clear boundaries. If you phone me up and you're rude to me every single time, I'm going to put the phone down. I'm going to say, speak to me when you're ready to be kind and put the phone down. Every single time. I set the boundary, you know, like because that's what's really important. But I'm going to teach you and I'm going to treat you with love. That's wonderful. And what do you find, you know, there's so many relationships that struggle right now. How do you find that the sense of forgiveness really transforms the quality of relationships? Well,

32:47 I mean, I for me, it's like an essential practice for all relationships, you know, like for your kids, for your friends, you know, you're in laws, your parents. You know that. That's why I talk of it as a practice. So I think the other problem, if you like, with the way we think about forgiveness in the world, is it's only for heinous things, you know, like really different. You know, like no one's having a conversation about forgiveness in terms of the global picture at the moment, because we're way too involved in that whole situation that you know that occasionally you hear somebody saying, I don't want to seek vengeance, not in my name but the whole you know, like but in our individual lives. You know, it's my preference. And this is this is sort of like my vision for the world is that we each do our forgiveness work.

33:38 And if you imagine, like every single person decides, Okay, I'm going to write my list, this is what I recommend on my classes. You write your list of all the people that you know you've held aggrievance against, big and small, and you start with some of the easier ones. So you know, maybe the thing that's happened to you recently that was sort of like relatively like a contained thing, and so you just decide, okay, I'm gonna I'm going to clear my field. So just like you do a yoga practice, or you know, you take your recycling bins out every now and then, or you go to the hygienist, you know, So you do your forgiveness work as a mental health practice and as a relational practice, because the little grudges and gripes and grievance to say, you know, they build up in every relationship. You know, you know, you don't put the lid on the tooth basse, and I've asked you fifteen times to take the bins out, you know, and we hold, you know, all these little grudges and then we clear up and then actually, can we have a conversation about that one thing. It's just I don't know if you can feel the difference energetically between somebody just trying to just like tell you all the ways that you're wrong and without wanting to, you know, because we always get defensive when people are criticizing us. And so if you do your forgiveness work in the privacy of your own space, and sometimes I have people work in their cars because they want to be able to speak freely. But you do your practice and then I mean, the funny thing is because this has been my practice for thirty years, and you know, obviously I'm an advocate for it. But like, there was one time I was going to meet an old childhood friend and we hadn't seen each other for a long time,

35:09 and she always did better than me at school, and my grandma's would always say, oh, how did Jane do? And I go, oh, she got straight days again, you know, And so there was a bit of competition, and so I did some forgiveness work before we met, and we had the sweetest time, and she didn't do anything. It was just me, just the way I was with her because I didn't have my whole, you know, ton of grievances with me, you know. Well, and how long does it take? I'm really curious because you talk about forgiveness, and I love the fact that you talk about how lank of forgiveness even on those little things like you know, how word do you put your toothbrush and down? Those type of things can really affect a relationship. How long does it take to really get to that level of forgiveness? Well, in the practice. So in the master classes that you on Zoom, that's a ninety minute session and that includes a little bit of preparation and that then the process and a little bit of time afterwards to for questions or whatever if people want to ask something. So but if there's something very deep and old and you're doing one to one work with me, I do a ninety minute session just with you and one one client. Recently, we did three forgiveness sessions on her mum of ninety minutes because there was such a lot of material and such a lot of you know, challenging experiences that she'd had. Yeah, so it can take time. It can take time. It sometimes yeah, oh my goodness. So it really depends on the person. But you

36:42 know, for your thing, you know, with with the kind of company that you know were misleading, that would probably be like fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, because it's not that much to say. It's not like a whole history with your mother of you know, forty five years or whatever, right, right, So, and you know, I think I think that probably the biggest challenge and you mentioned this at the first using the sense and word of awareness becoming aware, and this is why I love having you on the show because so many people may be experiencing challenges in their life. They're not feeling that sense of peace, they're not feeling that sense of joy, and all of a sudden, listening to what you're talking about can create a sense of awareness for them that oh, wow, you know, I'm experiencing this, and now maybe this is why. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, and you know, and it really is the key. In fact, I was watching the beginning of a podcast but I didn't finish watching where they were saying that the main reason why couples separate is contempt, which is just another good old word for resentment. Yes, so if you can do your work, I mean, that's I mean, you would never just let your bins build up. You just don't, you know, You bag them up and you take them out and hopefully they get collected or recycled or whatever.

38:06 You don't just leave it all festering in the house. But we do with our emotional things. And we talk a lot about mental health, but we don't really talk about our emotional health. We mean both, but there's a differ between your thinking and you're feeling and that and that's really the realm. I like to say that forgiveness is the equivalent of mindfulness. It's for the heart. It's the work of the heart. But you mentioned, you know, these relationships and the resentment that can cause a lot of the divorce and the separation and so forth. But it really takes two, doesn't it, Because if you have one that's doing this work and the other one that's not willing to do that work, that creates an issue, doesn't it? Well, it can. I mean. The thing is what's wonderful about doing your forgiveness work is it is autonomous because you're the only heart, you know, like the only chess piece in life that you have any control over it is you. So the only heart you can decide am I going to keep it festering with snakes in it? Or I'm going to not? And you can't.

39:07 You can say I would love you to do your forgiveness work on me, please, will you? But that whether the other person does or doesn't is like you have no control over that, but you can decide. And then if they stay full of resentment, and then at that point you then say I don't think I can continue in this relationship with you? Yes, I mean, obviously there are situations where they should not stay in the relationship, but what you're saying is for those situations to be able to walk away with your sense of forgiveness excuse me, makes a big difference, exactly exactly. I mean, I can't as yet find a downside to forgiveness, and that's and that's quite potent. It's like, what are the actual downsides?

39:55 Because if you still have boundaries and you still know, you know, like what you will and won't accept from the other person, and you're you know, clear, like, what are the downsides of not choosing to hate anyone? I mean to me, that seems like a really smart move. I don't hate anyone. I'm totally in charge of whether or not I hate people. That means I'm free, and it also means I'm powerful because I'm choosing what happens with my heart. Well, and I love that message. So as we as we close, let me just ask you when more time. You talked about it at the beginning, but let's talk about how people can reach out to you and what you're actually offering to them from your website.

40:42 Yeah, well, thank you very much for the opportunity to do that. So there's a few things. So one is my book you know that that's obviously an easy way in to read more about forgiveness and the Five Obstacles. And then I do host these online forgiveness fields, and I call them forgiveness fields for two reasons. One is Charles Eisenstein, the writer, his idea of when we forgive, there's a sort of resonance, there's a there's a field, if you like, and when anybody forgives, it just adds to that quite sort of almost like a chord of music. It adds to that. And then also there's a beautiful, roomy poem which says out beyond ideas of right doing and wrongdoing, there's a field. I'll meet you there.

41:24 And that's the sense of like we're meeting in like neutral territory, like no man's land, and we can lay down our own arms, we can lay down the weapons that we're holding, we can lay down the shields of our own heart. Because I really believe that our forgiveness is an act of amnesty for the whole of humanity, and if we want to have a world that's more at peace, we have to do the inner work as well, and there's there's even I quote a beautiful a guy called William Yuri who's a peace negotiator, and he says, you know, like, if you told me thirty five years ago that the secret to peace in the world was inner piece, he said, I would have thought you'd be like naive and like ridiculous.

42:07 I was focusing on strategies for negotiation, and he says, now, I realize that we won't have peace in the world until we have peace in our own hearts. So that's why I invite people to calm, and in fact, on Remembrance Sunday on the twelfth of November, I'm doing a forgiveness field, which is dedicated to peace. So you're basically you can calm and you calm and lay down your arms against the people who you know, like ripped you off, and that would be your pledge to peace. So you pledge your heart to peace by doing a just you just choose one thing to forgive and just do that. A download, I do, yes, Then that's that's from my book. It's like a free download when you get the book as well. Yeah, yeah, And you can get the first two chapters of my book on my website. And then also I work one to one with people via zoom, So from anybody all over the world. If you know you've got something deep that you really want to work on with somebody, than I want one to one and mentioned the name of the website again and the website thank you is Forgiveness Made Easy dot co dot uk, dot co dot UK. So dot co dot UK. Yeah, all right, dot co dot UK. Barber, thank you so much. This is this has just been fascinating for me as we go through this discussion. This is this is some insights that I really hadn't thought about from the perspective that you've shared. So thank you so much for sharing with us. Yeah, that's absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for giving me the space because you can imagine

43:37 it's quite a controversial subject so and I love being able to speak about it. And I do think it's it's a an idea and a practice whose time has come. Yes, aimen to that, and folks, I hope you're listening, and I hope you'll go to that website and if you know, and really start to understand a little bit more, because you know, Barbara, as you say, it isn't just the nerpy for ourselves but potentially the peace for the world, and that is so important, so thank you and folks, thanks for listening. Hope you'll join us again soon and have a wonderful week