Listen to Addiction Support Podcast Episode 27 on Forgiveness
Thank you for Listening!
Show Notes for this episode are at addictionsupportpodcast.com/episode27
Overview:
My guest this week is Dr. Chris of Dr. Chris Life Academy and Dr. Chris TV and we are going deeper on the subject of forgiveness! Dr. Chris has prepared so much valuable information for you. In this episode, we go over the 10 steps of Forgiveness. You can read all of the 10 Steps to Forgiveness and the notes below in this post. Do you want to print them out? You can also download them and refer to them later. If came in on the preview page, click the title or read more to see the full post.
Dr. Christian Rizea is a psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the founder of "Dr. Chris Life Academy" where he provides people with the psychological tools to claim their natural right to live with self-determination, personal fulfillment, and live through their Higher-Wiser Self! He does this through speaking events, personal therapy sessions, and self-development videos and courses he creates.
What is Forgiveness?
It is an intentional and voluntary process, by which a victim to an offense, learns to change his or her attitude about the offense and lets go of the painful feelings that are associated with that offense. These painful feelings could be hurt, vengefulness, and betrayal.
Have you ever heard this saying before?
“Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” – Anonymous
Whether you believe this is true or not, it’s hard to deny that holding grudges does have an impact on your emotional well-being.
Consider this…Have you ever been lying awake in bed at night thinking about how someone had betrayed you in some way?
It’s normal to have thoughts of how we would’ve liked things in the past to be different. It’s also normal to maybe even have thoughts of retribution towards the person that betrayed you.
However, there comes a time where we are not helping ourselves by holding these grudges and repetitively having these thoughts.
It’s important to have a clear understanding of what forgiveness is and what it isn’t to go about a forgiveness process.
Forgiveness Isn’t…
It’s not about condoning/accepting cruel or unkind behavior.
It’s not about forgetting what had happened, but we’re not triggered by things as much as they used to.
It’s not a religious practice or experience. Anyone can do it!
It’s not about minimizing our pain and denying our feelings. We’re going to acknowledging our feelings.
It’s not a sign of weakness or becoming a “doormat.”
It’s not about the other person being relieved of any guilty feelings.
Forgiveness Is About…
- It’s about empowering you and taking back power into your own life.
- It’s about not being consumed by anger and negative feelings.
- It’s for you and your physical and psychological well-being.
- It’s a choice to acknowledge that we can’t change the past but that we are not going to be stuck in the past.
- It’s about becoming the hero in your own life and not the victim anymore (Hero’s Journey. Overcoming hurt and inner demons through a journey).
- It’s one more tool to help you overcome inner demons.
Why forgive?
Since the beginning of our existence as humans, we needed to learn how to live together. Our brains are interpersonal organs where we are primarily social and emotion beings. If we’re going to have long-standing relationships with family, friends, coworkers, forgiveness may be the tool we need to learn to live in harmony with each other.
It’s up to you to decide what kind of relationship you want with the person that you are choosing to forgive. It may be about cutting off all ties with that person or it ma y be about setting up appropriate boundaries to b...
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