← The Tony Robbins Channel
The Tony Robbins Channel
How To Forgive & Let Go of Your Past with Sage Robbins & Mary B
00:28:48
Ever felt deeply hurt by someone? In Part 1 of this heartfelt series, Sage Robbins and her dear friend, podcast host turned surrogate, Mary B., dive intimately into the essence of forgiveness, exploring its profound impact on mental health and...
Loading summary
Transcript63 lines
- [00:02]
A
Hi, thanks for listening to the Tony Robbins Podcast. This is just a quick note about this episode in case you'd rather watch and see the video of this conversation and that's found@YouTube.com tonyrobbinslive you'd like to listen. You're in the right place. Okay, here's Tony.
- [00:29]
B
Hi there.
- [00:31]
A
Hello, Sage Robbins.
- [00:32]
B
Hi, Mary. Well, welcome once again to the Tony Robbins Podcast. For those of you listening, thank you for continuing to tune in not only to this episode, but thank you for tuning in to yourself. I trust that that's what's guided you here now.
- [00:48]
A
Well, Sage, it's just you and I today. It is indeed. As you may notice, Tony's not here, but we're going to talk a whole lot about him. Yes.
- [00:55]
B
And a beautiful miracle and power of forgiveness.
- [00:59]
A
We're so happy to be back with our audience. And this episode will be a special one. This will be a big one. This will encompass a lot of the kind of pulp of life our concept was forgiveness, which then breaks into how to say I'm sorry, into apologies, atonement, making amends, and then the sort of upshot emotions of those like guilt, shame, anger, resentment, all of those are part of the conversation. And then layer that on top of that. Some of the modern day phrases, phenomena that we all just use so casually now that really are only recent things like cancel culture, I think that has a huge piece that's that when you talk about forgiveness, that's some of the implications that we're dealing with. And then of course, baby reindeer, I want to talk about baby reindeer in this conversation. So, Sage Robbins, when I say some of those words, forgiveness at its heart, what state does that put you in? What does that conjure up for you?
- [02:06]
B
Gosh. Well, I love that we're having this conversation because I believe it's from my own experience when I look at the world stage right now and what's transpiring and even the mental health phenomena, I don't know if that's the right word, but there's certainly a lot of attention on mental health and mental well being. It's my experience that through forgiveness is a path to coming home. And so you can look at forgiveness, at least I do, is one of the pathways from bound to unbound within. And that from that place, life is all possible because we're in a natural, we're in alignment, you know, with our true nature, with love. Forgiving is I, you know, forgiveness is, it's born out of love, it's aligned with our nature which is love.
- [03:08]
A
That's true. Well, that's beautiful. And again, just as we kind of get into the flow of the conversation, I would invite our audience to take a moment and just think about whether it's something personal that you, you are asking for forgiveness from a situation, an event of the past, someone that you might need to forgive. And also it's, you know, we were walking out here to the studio just moments ago and from the house and something like this morning, we had a little bit of a wild morning. And so even something like, I often think of forgiveness as, you know, this person, I need to forgive this person or I need to ask for forgiveness from this person. But it's also like just letting go, I think, like forgiving what happened this morning. To walk in here to the studio and be like, hey, I have this to do now. So whatever just happened, I almost need to like forgive. And I just think that that word has so much meaning personally. Human to human and just about the letting go of past, of regrets, of things you wish you went went differently than they actually did, than reality itself.
- [04:12]
B
And the notion of letting go is really the path of forgiveness. It's a letting go. It's a surrender of what we believed or the story or the narrative that we keep telling ourselves because it's usually the story that keeps us locked or bound in that energy. And so for those of you listening, maybe you can just connect to where are you feeling resistant with somebody or feeling a space and time that, you know, it could be time to let go. I'm not here, we're not here to tell you right from wrong, or this is just one path. This is just a conversation and we're sharing our experience. So thank you for your willingness and openness because it's in that space that it's all possible. And from my own experience, as I let go, I mean, forgiveness and letting go are interchangeable. I feel at home inside myself. And when I don't, I feel anxiety, I feel stress, I feel that bound energy. And that feels just for me personally, it feels insincere. And so, and by the way, it's a day to day process we all miss and can go blind. And you know, in a moment we can, you know, not communicate in our truest self. In a moment, if we're rushed or stressed or stacked or we were talking last night and saying, hurt people, hurt people. And we've all done that. There's nobody, I don't even know that it's about who's guilty or who's right or who's wrong. It's actually really more about inner freedom. It's more about inner. A coherence within. And it's. It's less about what somebody did and more about the letting go.
- [06:11]
A
Right.
- [06:12]
B
Because it is the past, as you mentioned.
- [06:13]
A
And I feel like we have to say, just right, right out of the gates, that if you're listening to this and it's like, well, if. If, you know, there's. There's certainly different grades, of course, of what. What would you even call it? Transgressions or trauma?
- [06:30]
B
We all. I think if you're human, I think if you're a human being and you're listening to this, we've all had hurt, we've all been hurt, We've all hurt. If you're human and you're listening to this, we've all experienced what one would call or label to be trauma. Painful experiences. There's certainly more or lesser degrees. But I always say, if we were everybody in this room right now, if you were to put my life story, your life story, your life story on the table, we probably wouldn't trade. And pain is pain, loss is loss, grief is grief, sadness is sadness. I think that's actually the unifying space in this human experience. That's where we all meet and it looks different. And yes, there's tragedies. You know, there's extreme circumstances, and there's people that rise up out of those circumstances and for their own evolution, for their own freedom. I don't know. I can't. I'm projecting right now why one is choosing to let go of those extreme circumstances. But people do and we do to. I think there's a higher calling within.
- [07:44]
A
This is a conversation. If you. If you have clicked on this, it's because you might be willing to say there's something I have to let go of. I think it's important to make the distinction between varying levels of trespasses. Or, you know, in a culture that is very much like there's a victim and there's a villain, I'm sensitive to that. And also, let's zoom out, because if we're so lucky to be sitting in this place where we can sit comfortably and know that with 99% certainty, no one's gonna bomb our roof right now, there's people in this world right now that cannot say that. And so there's levels of transgressions. Is everything forgivable? And what does that look like? And how does that sit with you? So you're better at this than me. I'm asking the questions here, but I would love to know how you even. How you even frame that up for people.
- [08:42]
B
Gosh, I. You know, here's. What I recognize is that there are those that choose to let go of even in the most extreme circumstances. And I think a commonality is recognizing once again that we're all in this human experience. We've all been victim and the villain. We've all been hurt. We've all been. We've all hurt. We've all been conscious, we've been unconscious. We've all been kind and cruel in a moment, not even meaning to be. But when we're in survival mind, or we're angry or we're disconnected from our nature, we can all do lousy things as human beings. And that has an impact. We were just having a conversation, just when we came in here, about the notion of cancel culture and how there's. I don't know, just a. I can't think of the word. It's not acceptability. But there's an allowance, I suppose, for. It's like we look at children and say, hey, don't bully. That's not nice. And yet there's an allowance in the space or the atmosphere of social media to be at times unkind or to say cruel things. And that's interesting, you know, that's a reflection of mind. That's a reflection. You could call it lower mind, you can call it fear, you can call it ego. And so we all have both. Not even both, but all perspectives, I suppose, within us.
- [10:23]
A
I love how you took it human. And I think that that's almost. To me, it's like the first pillar or the first, like, Roman numeral 1. For me on Forgiveness is like our humanness. Yes, Everyone is human. Everyone's going to mess up. And so in the moments where we're either asking for forgiveness and need to forgive ourselves, when we know when we feel that overwhelming sense of guilt or shame or like, man, I did this again. Okay, I'm a human. And also, if you're feeling so enraged at someone, even then, it's like this person's a human. And I have been so dizzied up in my mind that I've done some pretty terrible things in a moment.
- [11:06]
B
Yes.
- [11:07]
A
So to me, it's like humanness. And we've talked about this on a previous episode, too. It's like making it someone's identity and separating behavior and someone's actions from. That's who they are. And because once it's like that person is. Then it's hard to pull apart and offer forgiveness. But what do you think? How do you do it?
- [11:30]
B
Well, you actually said something really profound. It's identity. And so it's a larger identity of recognizing. Yes. The humanness, our innocence below the behavior. Not knowing what an individual, what their life experience was or what they. You know what I mean, the context. Because I think context invokes compassion.
- [11:53]
A
You're so compassionate that you use the word innocence. I think for someone who's like, innocence below the action. I offer the context below the action, the origin, the person's personal history, their references. We have no idea what has happened.
- [12:08]
B
No.
- [12:08]
A
In that person's life. And why then you mentioned before, I think it's such a beautiful phrase in the conversation, is hurt people. Hurt people.
- [12:16]
B
Yes.
- [12:17]
A
And so, boom, on the surface, there's this behavior, there's this action that seems atrocious. And then, like you said, if you were to read their life story, would you trade your card for their card?
- [12:28]
B
Yes, often. Often not. Or if you were to read their life or if you were to live their life story, possibly you would have the same actions. And I find that really fascinating. And I think that. That sometimes that's missed. And culturally, or innocently. I don't know culturally, but I guess as human beings, we have this notion of, you know, we want this perfect spouse or this perfect, perfect politician or this perfect minister or the perfect whatever. And it's like, I don't know that human.
- [12:57]
A
As if that exists.
- [12:59]
B
Interesting, right? And yet we put people. We expect human beings innocently, not to be human. And I think, like, there's. There's. There's something there. And so that's. That's where I. If. If I think of when you ask me how it's recognizing if somebody's treating me, whatever, they're having a poor day or they're saying, whatever, if you have acceptance. Acceptance that we're all human. It's our conditioned states of life. And that looks different for all of us. And I think life is offering us an opportunity of this fortuitousness. I don't even know that that's the right word, but, you know, an opportunity to complete. Because when we push away or we resist or we externally judge and demonize by the way I've done that. We all have and continue to. We catch ourselves. This isn't about being once again perfect. It's about recognizing, gosh, where do I constrict? Where do I open? And the awareness of what the two feel like if you go back to.
- [14:16]
A
What you just said there, resist or open. I love how you put. Like, when I think of forgiveness in my head, it feels a little black and white on the upfront. Like someone needs. Is it an apology? Or it feels. It gets black and white. But I love even just as we talk about this, when you're saying resistance or openness, it's more nuanced than that. Forgiveness. Like as soon as I feel myself closing or resisting someone, something.
- [14:42]
B
Yes.
- [14:43]
A
A past event, then I realize I'm out of forgiveness or I'm out of the. You know, I'm in a different realm than compassionate.
- [14:55]
B
And me too. Me too. In moments, right. We all go to that place. But you said something, I think true forgiveness, you know, I saw for giving, I saw somebody like, break up the word. And so it's like if you're forgiving, you know, we have all these ego.
- [15:11]
A
By the way, someone, by the way, was your husband. Tony Robbins says that all the time.
- [15:15]
B
Okay, well, that's just for giving.
- [15:17]
A
He'll often. Tony's not here today because he has to record. He's a guest on some podcasts today, so he's unable to join us in studio.
- [15:25]
B
I've had the privilege to watch Tony not only on stage or, you know, for example, when he's interacting with an audience or an intervention with an individual. What I recognize by knowing him offstage and on stage is those moments are possible because he continues to do his inner work. He continues to his vulnerability in that place of humbleness to apologize or to open his heart and be like, Frick, honey, I'm so sorry. I so missed here in this moment, the generosity of that state, just for the gentlemen that are, you know, tuning in and listening right now, it's just beautiful to notice because the generation before, a lot of times, you know, they just didn't. They weren't shown how, you know, and so there was misperceptions or projections that a masculine man possibly doesn't humble himself or open himself to really share his deepest heart with tears and vulnerability. And that's not been my experience. And I love that part of Tony. And I really recognize that who he is and what he offers on stage is because he shares his misses he shares his humanness, he shares his life experience, he shares his learned experience. And we are all a container of it all. Anyways, Tony wasn't able to be with us here now. But just sharing, because both men and women, you know, it's once again, it's human. It's not. It's beyond a role, it's beyond a gender. It's beyond anything. It's human. And he's just a really wonderful representation of that.
- [17:12]
A
If you've ever been to an event, you may have heard Tony Robbins offer someone, are you. When someone often says, I can't forgive this person, a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a friend, a partner, he'll often say, are you forgiving? Are you. Are you pro. Giving? That's what it is. You're giving someone grace. You're giving someone the benefit of the doubt that they were having a lapse in judgment. They were having a human moment.
- [17:37]
B
And that's merciful, it's compassionate, it's kind. And for myself, I forgive because I've been forgiven. And I know what that feels like to experience somebody's grace, to experience somebody's allowance or acceptance. Because if you think about it, if we accept people, forgiveness comes. Or the expectation that. And by the way, this isn't for forgiveness of what we're speaking about. It's our own inner work. This isn't. You have to say sorry to me. Cause then there's a hook. There's an expectation in that. Now it gets really weird, you know. So once again, we've all been unconscious. And once again, we take it right back to that universality of the humanness. And no matter where we come from, we have all missed and so.
- [18:28]
A
And we will all miss again, of course, every day. I will not live the rest of my life without needing someone else's grace and forgiveness. I'm certain of this one thing, but.
- [18:37]
B
That what you just said is really beautiful, you know, without needing another's, like, we're all connected. We're all connected. And it hurts to separate ourselves from life. It hurts to separate ourselves from another. And, you know, this isn't just. This happens in our families. This happens with our brothers and sisters. This happens with our parents. This happens in our workspace. You know, we get mad at somebody or we think that somebody said something that a certain way or a certain tone of voice or they were mean or they were this. And you know, once again, they're being human, Right? And so when you accept people the way they are, the same way I think we probably all actually long to be accepted is just for all of the totality of who we are, the goodness, the love, the mess of it, the unkind parts as much as the kind, because we can all be both. And so as we recognize that with inside of ourselves, I think that that's where forgiveness comes from at least for myself, it's like flip. You know, maybe I haven't done that in this moment, but yeah, I've. I've. And so from that space, it creates an understanding, I suppose.
- [19:55]
A
Mm. I didn't think we'd go here this early.
- [19:59]
B
Is that so?
- [20:00]
A
But because you said like the humanity of it and the mess of it and the story of it, I am compelled to ask our audience if anybody has seen the show Baby Reindeer. It's been number one on Netflix for a while, so I know some of you have seen it. Tony and Sage and I recently binged on this series and before we talk about the show, because not everyone has seen it, although an enormous. I mean this is like a. This is a pop culture phenomena right near Baby Reindeer. I usually have my phone beside me and I'll google it, but we can put it on after. Basically, it is a series on Netflix. This Scottish, I believe, comedian who wrote and created and then stars in this Netflix series. His name is Richard Gad. He plays a struggling want to be stand up comedian artist looking to be discovered. So of course, like all actors and comedians often do have a side day job. And so for him it's working in a bar. And without giving away any of the show, the first scene, if it were taking place in a playhouse, would be a woman comes into the bar and he offers her a drink on the house. Looks like she needs it. Looks like she's been having a day. And that sets the scene for quite an interaction between these human beings. Their lives get very much entangled and enmeshed in one another's in ways that the. Their own innocence and everything else present themselves at times. And we see flip flops of like aggression and affection and real life things as, as it happens.
- [21:51]
B
Yes.
- [21:52]
A
What do you think?
- [21:53]
B
Absolutely. And obsession and, and you know, forgiveness and inquiring about oneself and am I this? Am I that? All these labels and identities and, you know, life has its way with all of us and they were two beautiful and poignant because they were extreme examples.
- [22:15]
A
The acting is extraordinary.
- [22:17]
B
Yes, it's, it's, it's, it's really special and it.
- [22:21]
A
Why it's relevant to me. I think it's beautifully written. I think it's, it's. We all. We had like family chat time after this series completed because it is one of those that will make you think about life in the human experience and it's one of those things where you think you have the character pegged and then you learn something about them and then that Just opens up this whole loop how lucky we are to see that play out in a well written series. But that's life. That's inspired by true life events. Google it. There's a little bit of a debate about that right now, but this is our life.
- [22:54]
B
It is. And since we're speaking about baby reindeer, I really enjoyed every moment of it. And what I enjoyed was the human portrayal. And you know, I was watching and I'm like, okay, stalker, have I been stalked? Have I stalked? Absolutely. I'm a total stalker. I can. If somebody doesn't answer the phone, I'll call back a hundred times to get the outcome, you know, walking. I don't know, I don't remember the main, the fellow. His main, the main character, what's his name?
- [23:25]
A
Richard Gad is who created Richard Gadd.
- [23:27]
B
Who was just so brilliant and so masterful. He was portraying his own life, his own experience. But the, you know, you see, we look at these circumstances as this thing happened to me. And what I recognized and what his life portrayed was, yes, this happened to me. And it happened for me because it evolved me.
- [23:47]
A
Yes.
- [23:48]
B
And then there's this moment where just in his rawness, he was just so stripped and so life ripping him so open and breaking his heart into a million pieces I can identify looks different in my life. It would look different in your life. Our narratives, but not so different. It can get messy at times, painful at times. And sometimes it's missed that the pain is for us. And this beautiful man sat on stage and he just like fricking a, like just opened himself and bared who he is and was.
- [24:20]
A
There's this scene where he goes on a monologue.
- [24:23]
B
Yes.
- [24:24]
A
Because he's a comedian and rather than delivering jokes, he actually goes on a soul bearing, honest monologue about his life. But it also is almost representative, I think stage one of how to say you're sorry is first getting brutally honest with yourself. Or if you're gonna make amends. Like if you're in any kind of a step program or something. Making an amends is first like owning your actions. And he just gets honest about not only his actions, but his motives. Often from ego. Devastatingly relevant. As I listened of just like, man, haven't we all done that something different actions, but from a place of like, I wanted, I wanted to be seen. I was desperate for attention. I wanted to be loved. I wanted somebody to notice anything.
- [25:08]
B
Yes.
- [25:09]
A
And you're just like, I mean, thinking about this and his performance in it. But that. So again, while we're Talking about this is the scope of human life. And then what we're all just feeling, what, remorse at times over begging for acceptance for humanity, humanness, fallibility. We are not perfect beings.
- [25:35]
B
Well, that's well said. And what really struck me is he undressed himself emotionally. He revealed himself in a way that had. It wasn't about pleasing somebody. It wasn't about wanting acceptance. It was so just raw. And I thought it was stunning. I loved every moment of it. And I think there's been a phenomena about it because that's really. It's our natural state of being and it's less rewarded. People are fearful to say something that might be offensive or to, gosh, you know, make it appear like somebody's on this side or that side, when really there are no sides. You know, we might have preferences. We might like something different than another. We might have a different political party, a different religion, a different conditioning. But, you know, we end up kind of in the same place, all of us having this human. And when I say the human journey, it's an. It's an. It's an inner. We all have mind, the landmines of mind to navigate. And that's not always an easy feat. And so we thought it was actually after that show that really birthed this conversation.
- [26:55]
A
Yes. And it encompasses the big topics that we talk about, even like at a Date with Destiny or something. If you're going to go through. It doesn't have to be Date with Destiny, but any kind of program where you're doing deep work on yourself, excavating past traumas, looking at behavior, expression, repression, polarity, attraction. And it's just. It's bold and again, it exists. And of course, there'd be controversy over what's true and what's not true or whose side. Or like you said, there are no sides at the end of this. There are a bunch of human beings on a planet.
- [27:34]
B
Yes. And what was so remarkable, and I felt to be so poignant, is it wasn't about the common roles of, you said villain or the victim or the perpetrator. You just saw the innocent. You saw the innocence of all characters. And almost. And of course. And how could they not. And when you. In a moment, when you believe possibly that you wouldn't connect or have compassion for a particular individual on the show, you. Your heart's just so wide open in love with all these beautiful humans because they're portraying our experience. And that's a beautiful thing to me.
- [28:14]
A
That's gorgeous. Bravo. Hats off to all the Tony Robbins podcast is inspired and directed by Tony Robbins and his team Teachings. It's produced by US Team Tony, copyright Robbins Research.