Podcast Summary: You Make Sense with Sarah Baldwin
Episode: A Trauma-Informed Understanding of Forgiveness and Letting Go
Date: March 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this rich, insightful episode, trauma resolution expert and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Sarah Baldwin examines forgiveness and letting go through the lens of neuroscience, trauma research, and somatic work. She challenges popular cultural and spiritual beliefs about forgiveness, particularly the idea that "time heals all," and offers listeners a science-backed, physiology-based pathway to true release—from past pain, betrayal, and personal regrets. Co-host Rachel joins her for an engaging Q&A, bringing lived experience and compassionate perspectives.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Debunking Forgiveness Myths

• Time Does Not Heal All
  Sarah takes strong issue with the adage that "time heals all," likening it to expecting cancer to cure itself with time alone.

  • Quote: "That is not physiologically true, actually... We have to do things to help our body to heal, and the same goes for our emotional landscape." (01:11)

• Forgiveness Is Not Just Cognitive
  Forgiveness cannot occur solely at a mental level. Completion and release require the body to process the response it was unable to have during the original injury.

  • Quote: “Forgiveness is not a cognitive experience, meaning you can't talk your way into it. The only way to forgive is for our body to be able to have the experience it wasn't able to have in the moment.” (03:06)

2. Understanding the Somatic Nature of Trauma and Forgiveness

• Trauma Defined as Incomplete Response
  Trauma, as Sarah explains using Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk’s research, is not just the event, but the overwhelming energy in the body that couldn’t be resolved at the time.

  • Describes survival adaptations: fight, flight, freeze, fawn/appease, and shutdown, stressing these were “brilliant self protective responses.”
  • Encourages self-compassion for how our nervous system ensured our survival.

• The Role of Healthy Aggression

  • Healthy aggression means appropriate assertiveness and protective energy, enabling both boundary-setting and the full capacity for joy, pleasure, and life-force.
  • When healthy aggression is suppressed (especially for those who couldn’t safely feel or express anger as children), the system “waits” for it to be expressed, leading to ongoing resentment, anger, or shame.
  • Quote: “Healthy aggression is essentially our life force energy... our ability to not only defend ourselves, but it’s also our ability to experience pleasure and joy and full aliveness." (14:13)

3. Completing the Incomplete: How True Forgiveness Happens

• Somatic Processing Steps

  1. Recall the incident, focusing even on the smallest, most tolerable piece.
  2. Locate the activation in the body (describe sensations, color, shape).
  3. Ask: “What would my system want to do?” (e.g., shout, push, move, cry).
  4. Allow the body to discharge this energy.
  5. Repeat until the charge/stuckness subsides—the “completion” the nervous system needs.

• Parts Work and Internal Parenting

  • Identify what “part” was present during the original event.
  • Turn adult self toward these child or younger parts with loving, compassionate, and fiercely protective energy.
  • Being both “soft, loving and attuned” and a “ferocious protector” is key.

4. Q&A: Applying the Process to Real-Life Scenarios

Q1: How do I let go after betrayal? (24:02)

• Sarah: "It's not physiologically possible to just let something go. Our systems cannot do that."
• Betrayal wounds are often reenactments of earlier betrayals; healing must involve both the current and any underlying childhood wounds, using healthy aggression and grief.

Q2: Why doesn’t therapy resolve my shame and anger? (27:26)

• Sarah: “I spent a decade going round and round in talk therapy… but it was not the whole thing. I needed somatic work.”
• Memorable moment: Sarah describes her process of moving through deep shame resulting from childhood sexual abuse by building capacity for healthy aggression in a safe therapeutic context.
  • “When I was able to actually feel that my organism—my animal body—having the impulse… when that's finished, it's marked as complete in our psyche and our body. And that suddenly alleviated and evaporated any remnants of shame." (30:57)

Q3: Self-forgiveness as a parent; what now? (32:55)

• Sarah: “If we could have done better, we would have done better… We must allow ourselves to grieve what was and then turn towards ourselves with loving compassion.”
• Rachel’s lived experience: She shares how parts work and repair with her children created healing, not just for herself but for them as well.
  • Quote (Rachel): “I really got great at repairing ruptures with my children... and we would all end up laughing and giggling at the end and having a big cuddle.” (36:51)
  • Emphasizes the power of modeling emotional repair for children, illustrating intergenerational healing.

Q4: What if I can’t ‘forgive’ even with spiritual teachings? (41:57)

• Sarah: Uses the metaphor of a lioness with her cubs to illustrate that “love and light” messaging can be a form of gaslighting and spiritual bypassing.
  • “Could you imagine watching a lioness...a pack of hyenas come around and she says, love and light, pack of hyenas, I love you. You are amazing. I know you want to eat my children... Inappropriate not to defend!” (42:29)
• We must honor and process our anger, not just override it with spiritual ideals.
  • “You never ever have to say, and I forgive you... I release them. And for some of them, not all of them, I knew they were doing, you know, the best they could. ...I actually feel very little when I think about it. Not because I'm disconnected anymore, but because I went through a very long process of feeling the healthy aggression and letting that go." (45:18)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Trauma is not the event itself. It's the overwhelm of stimulation or energy in our bodies that's too much for us." (05:12)
• “Part of the process of forgiveness isn’t just forgiving the other person...it’s also forgiving ourselves and understanding how our nervous system works.” (09:31)
• “There's no amount of mental gymnastics, cognitive work, talk therapy, [or] mindset work that's actually gonna resolve this.” (17:35)
• “If we watch that, that lion would be, would be studied forever. Like, what is wrong with this lion? ...That would be pretty crazy if that happened.” (43:05)
• "You never have to say, 'I forgive you.' But you can release them. ...That is so much freedom.” (45:25)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00-04:20 — Introduction; challenging cultural forgiveness myths
• 04:20-09:50 — What is trauma? The physiology of incomplete response
• 09:50-15:10 — Healthy aggression vs. unhealthy aggression
• 15:10-19:35 — Why talk therapy and mindset work are not enough; somatic completion
• 19:35-24:02 — Practical applications: Feeling into healthy aggression; step-by-step exercise
• 24:02-32:55 — Q&A: Betrayal, stuckness, and the need for somatic processing
• 32:55-41:57 — Q&A: Parental guilt, self-forgiveness, and modeling repair for children
• 41:57-49:17 — Q&A: Spiritual bypassing, the lioness analogy, and reclaiming authentic emotional responses; closing thoughts

Overall Tone & Language

Sarah Baldwin’s tone is validating, compassionate, and gently challenging of culture’s easy “just move on” advice. She brings warmth, candor, and a deep sense of lived experience, encouraging listeners to enact both fierce self-compassion and radical honesty with themselves. Rachel adds relatable, practical, and supportive insights—especially for parents and those dealing with self-forgiveness.

Takeaways

• True forgiveness and letting go requires honoring your body’s need to process what was incomplete; it’s a felt, somatic journey—not a forced mindset or cognitive exercise.
• Healthy aggression—a life force energy for setting boundaries and protecting ourselves—plays a crucial reparative role.
• Self-compassion and grief are essential for self-forgiveness, especially as parents or those who continue to replay past actions with regret.
• The “spiritual” path of forcing forgiveness without authenticity or somatic processing is bypassing, not healing.
• You never have to forgive the unforgivable; but you do deserve to energetically release yourself from the past.

For practical exercises, more details on somatic completion, and continued Q&A, see timestamps and the related episodes on shame and repair.