← You Make Sense
You Make Sense
A Trauma-Informed Understanding of Forgiveness and Letting Go
00:49:29
There can be a lot of talk around forgiveness in the self-help space, but what does it actually mean to forgive? Forgiveness is not just a mindset shift or something we can “think” our way into—it is a somatic process that requires addressing the nervous system and accessing our healthy aggression. Using the latest neuroscience research, Sarah explains how unresolved trauma gets stored in our bodies until we are able to “complete the incomplete experience” or access the appropriate response to what occurred. If you’ve struggled to let go and move forward in life, this episode will give you a step-by-step guide to somatically resolve these wounds, so that you can find freedom from the past and release feelings of shame and resentment.
Loading summary
Transcript23 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Sarah, and welcome to youo Makesense. I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner, an expert on trauma resolution, attachment parts work, and nervous system regulation. This podcast is a manual to understanding your human experience so that you can navigate the world with freedom, ease, empowerment, and create the life that you desire. Remember, you make sense all parts always. So in this episode, we're going to focus on forgiveness. It is something that so, so many of us struggle with, and then we can beat ourselves up over it and say to ourselves, why can't I just let this go? Why can't I move on? Why can't I forgive this person? So we're going to use neuroscience and polyvagal theory, meaning the understanding of our autonomic nervous system, to make sense of this for you. And then I'm going to guide you through an actual process that works, backed by science, to help you forgive and let go of the past so you can be here in the present. The first thing that I want to name is something that I actually hate. I know that sounds weird to start a podcast episode with talking about something I hate, but it's really important to name. And that is that notion that time heals all. I hear that a lot. Like, you know, just give it some time and it'll resolve itself. That is not physiologically true, actually. And it's sort of like saying to some, which can feel almost gaslighting of ourselves, it's as if we said to somebody who had, you know, an illness or cancer, let's say that time will take care of it. That's simply not true. We have to do things to help our body to heal, and the same goes for our emotional landscape as well. So I just want to say that for anybody who's listening, who has received that message from somebody else, or maybe the messaging, just move on. It's in the past and how really terrible that can feel. I got that message a lot myself. What I want you to know is that forgiveness is not a cognitive experience, meaning you can't talk your way into it. The only way to forgive, forgive is for our body to be able to have the experience it wasn't able to have in the moment. We were wronged in the here and now with us. And when that occurs, we are able to actually release the past and be free from it. And if you're saying, how do I do that? Keep listening to this episode because I'm going to explain the whole process to you now. So to do this, we first have to go back to the incident or whatever it was that happened to us that was overwhelming for our system or caused us pain or betrayal or trauma. So trauma is actually helplessness in the face of overwhelm. This is something that Peter Levine and of course Bessel van der Kolk and others talk about a lot. Essentially what that means is trauma is not the event itself. It's the overwhelm of stimulation or energy in our bodies that's too much for us. And so as the result of that, we have some self protective options. We can try to fight back in that experience, we can shut down and disconnect, or we can freeze up in the experience. And so what we end up doing in any situation that feels overwhelming for us is the right self protective response in that moment. But when we weren't able to actually, you know, protect ourselves and defend ourselves or to get away, that experience is still waiting to complete in our bodies. So essentially what that means, let's just get this into layman's terms and thinking about how this relates to your life. Let's say someone betrayed you in a way. Maybe you found out they were cheating on you and then there was no resolution of that, meaning there was no healing that really happened. Maybe they just left. Your system is still waiting to feel into the full depth of the feeling that you had at the moment of that happening and also to defend yourself, which might be to say something or to do something that you weren't able to do. And certainly when it comes to trauma, that's what occurs when the trauma has not yet been completed. Essentially your system is still trying, or rather waiting for the opportunity to do what it could never do in the here and now with you. And so until that whole process is done, it's not possible to just move on. It's not possible to just let go. Because your physiology is saying that's actually not over. It's still living presently in my body and I'm still waiting to do something about it. So I just want to name for anyone that's, you know, you're thinking about wanting to forgive and you've been going, you know, playing mental gymnastics trying to make that occur, but you haven't been able to. This is why your physiology will not let you do this until the experience is completed. So in order to actually forgive, we have to begin processing what was never addressed. The things that were brushed under the rug, or maybe the things that felt overwhelming for us and so it felt like too much to look at, so we just continued on. Or maybe we were told it's not that big of a deal. And so we tried to just move on from it. And as you've noticed for yourself, that isn't possible. So we actually have to go back and process what occurred for us to feel our experience that we were never able to fully feel, including something called healthy aggression, which I'm going to get to in a minute. I also just want to name that sometimes this means processing past trauma. And trauma again is something that everybody experiences in our lives. It's not possible to go through life not affected by it in some way or another. Now when that occurs, there are a few experiences we might have. One of them is we may have tried in that moment to fight back and weren't able to win. Or for others of us, we experienced this overwhelm or lack of safety. And the only thing that we could do to be safe was to fawn or appease. So instead of me fighting back, instead of me saying this isn't okay, instead of me trying to get away, I just become what you want me to be to ensure my survival. For others of us, we might shut down completely. So I disconnect and leave my body altogether. Those are all really beautiful self protective responses to something that occurred to us. And I just want to name if we've had experiences in the past where whether they were could be classified as trauma or not, where we didn't do the thing we wanted to do. I really want us to be kind to ourselves around that. Like let's say, here's some simple examples. Let's say that with your boss, they reprimand you all the time and you notice that you fawn. So I become small, I don't say anything back, I just take it. And then later I beat myself up about it and I say like, why didn't I just say something? Or why didn't I defend myself? Why didn't I set a boundary? Or maybe in a relationship that has ended, you had a partner who kind of blamed you for the things that they did that weren't okay. And instead of calling that out, you acquiesce to them and maybe you were scared they were gonna leave cause you have an anxious attachment maybe, and you were trying to do everything that you could to make them stay. And then later you beat yourself up and say why did I do that thing? Well, I just wanna name that all of those are brilliant self protective responses that you had at the moment. Meaning your nervous system is doing what it thought was best to ensure your safety. And so part of the process of forgiveness by the way, isn't just forgiving, you know, the other person and you don't always have to forgive them. We'll get to that at the end of the episode. But it's also forg and I think a part of one of the biggest parts of self forgiveness is beginning to understand how our nervous system works. Because when you can see that every single thing that you have done, your nervous system has done on your behalf was actually to ensure your survival. It wasn't wrong, it was adaptive to make sure that you got to where you are today, that you've survived. Then it can really create self compassion and an internal forgiveness. And another part of the process of forgiveness that's really essential is coming into something that's called healthy aggression. I've talked about that in prior episodes. Healthy aggression is essentially our life force energy. So this is our ability to not only defend ourselves, but it's also our ability to experience pleasure and joy and full aliveness. So it's the same part of you that might be dancing around and laughing with friends, that's life force energy. It's also the same part of you that you know, if someone cuts you in line, line that you at a store, you say, oh hey, actually I was in line the lines over here and you know, tell them kindly to get behind you because you've been waiting in line for so long. That's healthy aggression. Healthy aggression. The important thing to understand about it is it always matches the circumstance of what transpired. So if we have experiences in the past, traumas or challenging experiences where we were not able to access our full healthy aggression because and if you weren't, it means your nervous system didn't think that that was safe, then that experience becomes inhibited, meaning it is blocked. And in terms of how our physiology, our bodies, our psyche and our nervous system works, it isn't that your system just moves on from that your body and your nervous system is actually still waiting to come what's called do something called complete the incomplete experience. So if here's some real life examples of what that looks, let's say in your childhood you had caregivers who maybe they acted a bit like dictators in your house. So there was, it was really strict and maybe they reprimanded you or yelled at you a lot and you had to just take it well inside of that little body of yours there was a response that wanted to happen, which was to defend yourself, but it wouldn't have been safe. So that experience is still waiting inside of your body to Happen, meaning to be able to actually express myself in a way that I couldn't. Time. This is why I said time doesn't heal all that. That process is still waiting to happen today. Or let's say that you had a previous relationship where your partner, you know, they consistently focused on the things about you that weren't good. Meaning all they did was criticize, criticize, criticize, criticize, which by the way, is a reflection of how they actually feel about themselves. But if they did that, did that to you, and you felt like you had to just take it because it felt too scary to verbalize that that wasn't okay, then the incompleted response is still waiting to happen. And accessing that appropriate healthy aggression, which is why you might find yourself in both scenarios still really angry at your parents or still really, really resentful with that past partner. So there's no amount of mental gymnastics, of cognitive work. So psychodynamic therapy, talk work, talk talk therapy, mindset work, that's actually gonna resolve this. The only thing that does is letting our physiology feel back into the experience that we had and then have the appropriate response so then it can process through our bodies. Now, I just wanna also name this, just, just as a side note here, there is something called unhealthy aggression. So not all aggression is healthy. What I described is healthy aggression is. It always matches the circumstance of what unhealthy aggression is. The root of that is unresolved trauma living inside someone's body. That is being, instead of it being addressed and resolved and healed, it's being projected out onto someone else. So that unresolved stuff from my childhood or 10 years ago or whatever, I am taking that and I am projecting it onto what my nervous system thinks is a safe other. So I couldn't get angry at my father, but I can get angry at my safe partner. I couldn't get angry at the people that work for me or. Sorry, I didn't mean that. You could get angry at the people that work for you. I hope you don't. But I couldn't get angry at, you know, my parent in the past, but I can get angry at the people that work for me because I feel like I have power over them. And so that's unhealthy aggression. The projecting out of that response, that's incomplete. What I will name is that never resolves anything. All that does is perpetuates trauma. And a lot of us have been on the receiver end of that. Now what we have to do is build our own capacity for our healthy aggression so that we can actually bring resolution to the past in the here and now. Healthy aggression has charge or energy to. It happens in something called our sympathetic nervous system. That's often known as fight or flight. So what we have to do is build our capacity to hold that energy. And what I want to name is, as we first come into this, it can feel really overwhelming at first, and oftentimes our barometer is really, really off for what we're expressing. So if in the past it was not safe to access healthy aggression and even to get angry as a kid, it might not have been safe in your home to do that. And anger, by the way, is a very healthy, important emotion to experience. But if that wasn't safe, what's going to occur is our access to it almost becomes, like, dormant. And you're probably somebody who everybody says is so easygoing. You're so. Just so nice all the time. You apologize when people step on your foot. I used to be that person. That's the internalization of healthy aggression. So then when we begin to access healthy aggression, our barometer can be off. Meaning what? What is a small amount of healthy aggression will feel really big for us. This. What does that look like? It looks like. Here's an example from my own life. I started to access this energy in my body feeling. I started to feel, you know, agitated by things. That's really a normal, healthy human response. Or I started to feel like I had needs around things. And so I noticed. Let's say, I don't know. I'm going to give an example. Let's say I had a friend who always ran pretty late to 20 minutes late to everything. And I started to notice I felt angry, agitated. So I decided to have a conversation with them. So that's me accessing healthy aggression and then me communicating that. And I might have said something. You know, I'm not warm and soft in that moment. I might have been a little more stern, saying, you know, this really bothers me. And it doesn't feel okay that you're late all the time. It feels really disrespectful of my time. And it's a pattern that's been happening for a while, and it. It doesn't feel good as your friend. So as you can hear, there's like a, you know, there's. There's not a total softness in my delivery. But when I first started to express that felt like I was screaming. I wasn't. But what I'm trying to get at is it felt so Big in my body. And later I'd be like, I'm sorry that I was yelling. And then they might say, you weren't, Sarah, you weren't yelling. Because my barometer was off. The more we access our healthy aggression and build our capacity for it, the less that occurs. The other thing that I want to name is the pendulum can really swing here at first. So we go from being this, like, dormant lion or lioness, no access to healthy aggression, to then having real full access to it. And it can go feel like going from, you know, a sleeping lion to a roaring lion. And what that looks like is at one point having no needs and just being so accommodating and all of that, to actually being, you know, agitated by stuff and feeling like, actually I do have needs. You can't do that. That's not okay. I actually need this from you. And so on and so forth. All of that is a really normal part of the process. And I just want to give you some practical applications on how you can begin feeling into your own healthy aggression around whatever it is that's occurred that you have yet to resolve. So maybe just think about it for a minute. Like, what things do I struggle to forgive around? Is it from when I was a kid? Is it that that bully in third grade, I don't know why I can't seem to let it go. They're 45, they're 80 years old now. I still can't let it go. Well, because that means healthy aggression needs to be accessed. Or is it a past relationship or something that happened with your parents? What is it? So just want you to think about what those things are, and I want to talk about how we can begin coming into it. So one very important component of this is some parts work. So we want to look at what part was present whenever that thing occurred. How old was I when this happened? You know, you may have been really young. You may have been 30 years old. I don't know how old you were. You don't have to meet. You don't need me to tell you, you know how old you were. So how old was I when that happened? And can I adult me with loving compassion turned towards that part? So something that I say a lot, we have episodes on parts, but something that I say a lot in terms of parts work. There are two things that make someone a healthy parent. One is they are soft, loving in attune. So that softness that we want. And also they're a ferocious protector. And so what we want to be able to access Is the soft, loving, compassionate part of ourselves that can turn towards the part of us that experience whatever it is we have yet to forgive around and turn towards that part with love and compassion. And then we want to feel into the protector us. This is accessing the healthy aggression. So you can literally think to yourself, if someone else experienced that, how would I feel for them? Can help to access that protective energy. And we want to build our capacity to be with that in our bodies. Now one way to build our capacity to do that is to think back to whatever the incident was or many incidents that occurred that are you're struggling to forgive around. And we want to go back to just the beginning of the story of it. So if you were to talk about it, just beginning, by the way, it might begin with just saying the person's name brings activation in your body. All I want you to do is bring alive a tolerable small amount of the experience by truly it could be saying one sentence about whatever happened or the name of a person or where you were. When you notice activation in your body, I want you to pause and then see if you can locate where in my body am I feeling that. So maybe it's, I notice tension in my chest, I notice heat in my stomach, my jaw is super tight or my shoulders are tight. What I want you to do is see. Can I see if you can be with the sensation or the affect that's occurring. Something that can be helpful is literally asking yourself, if it was a color, what color would it be? Maybe it's like a bright red in my chest. Or if it was a shape or an object, what would it be? Oh, it feels like a knife in my stomach. What does it feel like? And the imagery can be really powerful. Then what we want to do is we want to allow our system to process or what's called discharge, meaning get rid of that energy. So really asking your system, what might it want to do in this moment if it could do anything? So if I could say something, what would I want to say? If I could make a sound, what sound would I want to make? If my body could move, what would it want to do? Might want to squeeze a pillow, might want to yell, I might want to jump up and down, I might want to do pushups. So exerting energy is a really powerful way to feel into healthy aggression, to to move something heavy across a room. This is helping us to begin accessing this life force energy, this protective energy. And then we wanna let it discharge and leave our body. Now the more you do this around the experience that you're lacking forgiveness around. The more you're able to actually say, do, and feel all the things that you could not say, do, and feel. And the result of that is you do something called complete, the incomplete experience, meaning your system is finally able to the relief it has been looking for and make the past the past instead of the perpetual present. When you do this, it actually gets marked as complete in your nervous system, in your body, and in your psyche. And now I can move on from whatever occurred, meaning I can energetically disconnect from it. It is no longer bound to me. It is no longer something that's haunting me. It's no longer something in my perpetual present. I literally do not feel the affect, the feelings, that's what I mean around it anymore. I am released from it, and it is released from me. I also just want to name that you never have to forgive, meaning to say, yeah, I really forgive that person for the horrific things that they did for me. I don't want. I just think that can be a really gaslighting message that a lot of us get. You don't have to do that. That what I do want you to lean into for yourself is accessing this healthy aggression and processing the experience, because then you are able to release it fully from your body, and then you're no longer tied to it as your perpetual present. The other thing that I just want to name, for anybody out there who is struggling to forgive people who you really love, like, like friends, you have resentment around your partner, who you have resentment around your children, or a caregiver who is really loving and you struggle to forgive. I just want to name that. That just is a clue that there's an unmet need there. And by the way, healthy aggression is our ability to access our unmet needs. Like I named before, it's your ability to say, hey, what you said wasn't okay, or I need more of you. And so being able to access that and feel into the frustration that we have or the anger that we have in a therapeutic dynamic, you never have to actually do it with a person. By the way, all of this can be done without ever being with anybody. When you do this, it's actually going to be what allows you to love your partner more, to love your children more, to love your parents more. Because I'm no longer holding on to that resentment. I'm actually able to process it through. And then this also deepens your connection with them, because then I can come to that person and say, yeah, here's what I've been feeling and here's the unmet need underneath, perhaps some of that resentment or some of that anger and really want to hone in on you never ever have to be with the person to do this work. I did all of this work without ever being in terms of abuse from my childhood, without ever being in contact with my mother, my stepfather, or my biological father. And I was able to do all of that. And now they're released, meaning I don't feel perpetually tied to them anymore. And in many ways I feel indifference, which is, which is so much freedom. So much freedom happens when we are able to fully process it. And one step at a time, that's all you ever need to know. And the more you do this, the more the past actually gets to become the past. Want free tools to help you step towards your desires? I'm hosting a live training called Nervous System Starter Kit. Join me live on Zoom for 75 minutes of science backed concepts and tools. Link in the show notes to learn more. Hey Rachel, it is so good to have you back here for us to talk a bit about forgiveness. We got a lot of questions submitted about this, so I'm really excited to get into them today. I know we've talked in our own lives about this process, particularly around, you know, a lot of spiritual messaging out there, which we're gonna actually get to in one question about forgiveness. So anyway, I won't ramble. Can you get to question one?
- [24:03]
B
I sure can. Yeah. I feel really stuck because I was betrayed in a past relationship. I keep trying to move on, but I can't. How do I let this go?
- [24:15]
A
Well, like what we talked about in the episode, it is not physiologically possible to just let something go. Our systems cannot do that. And the other thing I want to name is time does not heal all. I hate that saying so much. That's very bizarre, right? It's like saying, you know, if I had cancer or something, that thinking time is going to heal it. No, no, it isn't. I have to do different things to he to treat my body. And the same goes for healing too. So I just want to normalize that for this person that you. You can't just get over it. And a couple things that I want to name is that, number one, it is the betrayal of adult you, but it is also the betrayal of a younger part of you, likely because what we know about our relational dynamics is that the past repeats in the present until it is fully resolved in the past. The past stuff so, you know, if we were betrayed, we want to. I want us to look at when was the first moment in my life or time in my life that I remember feeling betrayed? Was I betrayed by friends at school? Was I betrayed by my caregivers in a particular way? Was I abandoned? That's a form of betrayal, right? Were my needs not met, and so on and so forth. So we want to process what occurred for adult us. And then we must, we must, we must go back and see are there parts who are feeling the wounding that they experienced in their childhood from this betrayal. And the more that we can do that internal co regulation and parts work, we are able to, number one, be the protective parent. Those parts never got through accessing, which we talked about in this episode, our healthy aggression, meaning accessing our ability to protect them and say, yeah, that was never okay. And to feel the anger around any child not being chosen or being abandoned or being made to feel like they had to be perfect to be loved and so on and so forth. So can I lean into that for the part, feel that healthy aggression so it can be processed through and give them what they never got? So the connection, love and attunement. And then for my adult self. Couple of things here we talked about in this episode. You must feel into the appropriate healthy aggression so that appropriate response to what happened. And then we must also comfort those parts of ourselves and allow the grieving process. We have an episode on grief, the grieving process to arise so that that emotion can actually discharge and leave our bodies and the past can actually be imprinted as the past instead of a perpetual present. But we can't talk our way into this. Time doesn't heal this. But the beautiful thing is doing this internal work, which is empowering to understand.
- [27:00]
B
Yeah. And you mentioned there that just talking about it won't heal it necessarily. It won't. It won't bring the somatic healing that our body needs in order to release those feelings that we felt at the time. And that relates so well to this question, which is I've been in therapy so long and still feel shame and anger about things that happened to me in my childhood. Why is that?
- [27:26]
A
Wow. I could have said these exact words, and I did say many those exact words. For about a decade. I was in therapy, talk therapy, which had a lot of benefit for me. There were so many things about it that I benefited from, but it was not the whole thing. I needed somatic work. We all do, because things like shame, health, aggression, trauma, attachment, wounding is not verbal. It's all somatic, meaning it lives in our nervous system and in our bodies. That's how we have to resolve it. So I. I spent, oh, my gosh, a decade going round and round and round trying to do mental gymnastics, hearing my therapist say things. And, boy, were they working really hard to try to get me to believe it. Like, they would say things like, sarah, well, if this happened to another child, you know, any child, would you think that that child was disgusting or awful? And of course I would say, no, I don't think any child is disgusting or awful. I think all children are incredible and wonderful and deserve to be loved and perfect as they are. And if they are abused, it's not their fault. Or if their needs weren't met, it's not because they're not lovable. And like, yada, yada, yada, I got it all in my mind. I could feel it for another child, but I could not feel it for me. And so there was no amount of talking that was able to resolve that shame I felt or the internalization that was going on with. We must. We must, we must get inside of our bodies to do this. And so this is the imperative nature of somatic work. The antidote, as we talked about in this episode, the antidote to shame is healthy aggression. Why? Because, remember, shame is experienced in our dorsal vagal complex. Our state of shutdown collapse. The way out of that is coming through our sympathetic nervous system. So, you know, underneath, if you can't see me visually on. If you're not watching this on YouTube and you're listening to it in your car or wherever you are on a horse, what I'm doing is in one hand, I'm making a fist. Think of this like the activation you felt a long time ago and also the inhibited response. So I couldn't fight back. I couldn't say the thing I wanted to say. I couldn't leave. So what happens is it gets covered up with dorsal, and that's the shutdown state. So it's inhibited. And this is where shame is created. It's me. It's not them. It's my fault. So part of healing is we lift the veil of that dorsal, and then we're left with what was there. Which means we have to complete the inhibited response. So I have to feel into the appropriate response to what occurred back then in the here and now. By the way, back then could have been two years ago or yesterday. And when we can do that, it's imprinted as complete and literally what occurs Is the shame is gone. From my own experience from sexual abuse I had as a child, I had such deep shame feeling like I was so bad, I was so disgusting. It wasn't what happened to me, it was me. That's what it felt like. And by the way, you don't have to have my history. Of course you could have shame around, you know, the internalization of being bullied or your siblings may have been hard on you or your parents, whatever. So the internalization of something. The only thing that changed this was when I built my capacity to be with that appropriate healthy response that was never able to complete, which was for me a very big level of healthy aggression. Just to name healthy aggression is the appropriate self protective response to whatever we experience. So because of what I experienced being so severe, it meant a lot of energy in my body. And when I was able to actually feel that my organism so my animal body having the impulse. And for me that impulse was to. To. To kill that person to stop them because it was so violent. What happened to me. Just to note, of course I didn't go kill anybody. This is done in a therapeutic dynamic and container. The feeling, the energy. All I'm doing is letting my body feel that energy and when that occurred. And by the way, I'll also name your system might want to do something like my hands felt like they were becoming talons. Like I was like mauling someone. 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. And I have never felt them since. So I just want to name like this work works but we must do it somatically.
- [31:55]
B
Wow. And what powerful work to. To give you now the opportunity to express and do what wasn't safe to do back then. To complete. Complete that circuit in a way and to give you that gift of freedom from feeling shame. Wow. That's very powerful.
- [32:17]
A
It's so powerful. And this is across the board. Again, you don't have to have a complex drama history. It could be shame around anything internal, anything you've internalized. When we're able to do that and it sets us free.
- [32:27]
B
Yeah. Wow. And I can really relate to this next question. And it is, it's linked to shame as well around parenting and when we don't match up to our expectations and our, you know, how we'd really love to parent. And so this question really speaks to that. There's so many things I wish I'd done differently as a parent and I feel like I failed my kids. How do I forgive myself? And where do I go from here?
- [32:55]
A
I work with a. We work with a lot of parents, don't we? I mean, in our communities and our programs. So many parents. And I have heard that this question asked one way or another hundreds of times. And the thing I always say, and I mean it with every fiber of my being, is I wish that I had a parent who had taken a program like the ones we have or listened to a podcast like this and been brave enough to submit a question like this about me, that all they cared about was ensuring that I had the best life they could possibly give me. I mean, can you imagine a parent doing like. Both of our sets of parents didn't do that, and you had loving, wonderful parents. They just didn't know. And so a parent that's writing this question, I can first say, you are a parent that I wish I had. You are a parent I wish the world had. Because it shows me not only your level of devotion, but your awareness. And that means your kids are so much farther along than so many caregivers who have no idea. And they think like, what do you mean? I'm giving you a house and food and you're fine, you're fine. So I want to name that. And the second thing about forgiveness, you know, we talked about forgiving of others and the importance of healthy aggression. But forgiveness of self requires self compassion. We must lean into self compassion. And if we could have done better, we would have done better. And this person most certainly I know if you could have done better, you would have done better. So it's not only the process of grief grieving that I couldn't do better. That's a very important part of this, too, to say, can I be with the affect or emotion around the truth that maybe you had your kids when you're 25 or 30 or whatever and you just didn't know. You didn't know. And so you were anxious as a parent when they were young because you didn't know, or you were depressed and shut down because you hadn't resolved your own trauma or whatever, or you're working all the time because you had a part of you that had to mobilize to feel enough or safe. So we want to grieve what was. We must allow ourselves to grieve what was and then turn towards ourself with loving compassion and say, I did the very best that I could. Because when we grieve what was and also, by the way, what never was what wasn't able to happen. It makes room for what can be. And that is all a part of the self forgiveness process that is really important to then allow space for. And how can it be different now? And lovingly turning towards ourselves, towards our parts is absolutely imperative and vital in this. And then we can create a whole new beginning from where we are. And it's never too late with your kids. You know, like, we've talked about this work with you, Rachel, and your kids who are not little babies anymore and how it's affected their lives in profound ways. You embodying this and then them embodying this. And now they're, you know, teenage years can be really, really different. I'm sorry to speak for you, but how, and I'd love to actually hear you elaborate on that a little bit because I want parents to see what's actually possible.
- [36:12]
B
Yeah, yeah. Well, I was just, I was thinking with this question, there was a time where in my early motherhood where I literally would be, you know, slashing myself because I would feel so guilty when I, you know, when I shouted at my kids, you know, I, you know, I'd lose my temper and shout and I'd get completely overwhelmed. And I didn't know at the time, time that I was in sympathetic and really struggling with all the demands of motherhood and life. And, and I would feel so guilty because I remembered what it was like to be shouted at and I didn't like it. And I had vowed I wouldn't do that with my kids. And then I found myself doing that. And I know just how heartbroken I felt with that. And so, yeah, I had to learn how to hold space for my younger part who felt sad of how they were treated to hold space for me as an adult who wasn't matching up to those expectations. And then also, I really got great at repairing ruptures with my children. So I would go through parts, work with them, and I would, you know, I'd get them to say to me, you know, how did it feel when I shouted at you? And where did you feel that in your body and what color is it? And then we would bring in other colors and energies and, and they would reenact how it felt and I would get them to, you know, what did you really want to say to me when I shouted at you? And so then they'd get to do it and it would become a play and we would all end up laughing and giggling at the end and having a big cuddle. And so I just Want to inspire people really that we can create healthy relationships still within that. It doesn't mean that we're all bad and wrong. And it means we're growing and we're learning and we're showing our children that. And now I have a 16 year old daughter who I hear with her friendships, she speaks how she feels and she invites them. How did that make you feel? And she's practicing and using this repair, you know, repairing ruptures in her own relationship. So I see the knock on effect effect. And yeah, I didn't know that I would get to this point and I would. I longed for it for many, many years. So I just wish I'd known Sarah well, probably like my whole entire life. But you know, at least when I was pregnant.
- [38:39]
A
I love you, Rach. And, and you are such an example of what it means to be, to be modeling a parent who's embodying this work. This is why I say like for anyone who's a parent, the best thing you can do is do this work. Whether it's one of our programs or another program, do this work because you embodying it helps your children. And we'll put in the show notes our programs that we have that you can access. But it is a gift to your children when you do that. Rachel literally just described because she's embodied all the work in all of our programs. What happens when you do it? And the last thing I just want to name is what she also explained was the repair process. So we have other episodes on shame and internalization of what has happened. Right. And that's a previous episode. And, or actually it might be an episode happening later, I don't know. We record a lot of episodes at once. It might be coming, it might be in the past. You'll just have to wait and see. Anyway, we've got episodes on shame, which is the internalization of what happens to us. And what you just described was how to remediate that for our kids. So as a parent, we do not want to strive to be a perfect parent. It's not physiologically possible. So it's not the mistake you make, it's what, what do you do after it? Who forget about the mistake. What do I do after it? That is the most important. And you saying to your kids now that you're in safety, hey, what did you notice you were inhibiting. I celebrate whatever that was. And that was inhibited. And let's let it come out. And if they wanted to say, you know, your teenage daughter, excuse my language, Everyone, I'm about to swear. If your teenage daughter said, you know, mom, I want to say, say fuck you or whatever, or like I hate you or whatever it was, or I just want to yell at you. And you actually welcome that in. What you're helping her to do is to process the anger or that internalization that in the moment she didn't feel safe, so instead she shut down and then she can be free of it, which is why you're all laughing at the end. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful work. So for every parent listening, these mistakes we make are normal. It's, what do I do after it? And by the way, in every relationship. And I just am so in awe of you, Rach. Just beautiful, beautiful parenting. And I so appreciate you showing this to people because as you said, this isn't where you began. And so when we embody this work, this is what can actually occur for us. And then you watch it happen with your kids and the rest of their life. So thank you for sharing all that.
- [41:10]
B
Oh, you're welcome. Well, I'm so moved to be able to parent how I really dreamed of parenting. And I still can get into sympathy, sympathetic, and not anything into the degree that I used to with my children. But now I can say to my son, because him and I can get pretty hot pretty quick. And we can both go, oh, look what we're doing. We're in sympathetic. And then we calm down together and we. Yeah, we co regulate and. Yeah. So I feel like actually by us doing this work, we're gifting our children to then have this awareness at such a young age, which, which if we hadn't had the journey we'd had, we wouldn't probably be worried about learning about our nervous system and how to, you know, support our children. And so I think actually, yeah, it's all working out exactly right?
- [41:58]
A
Yes. Okay, last question that we've got today.
- [42:02]
B
Last question is so many of the spiritual leaders I follow say forgiveness is the key to freedom and releasing the pulse past. This has never worked. Even though I've tried so hard to lean into love and kindness. I can understand that everyone who hurt me was hurting, but I can't actually feel the acceptance in my body.
- [42:24]
A
This is such an important one. Okay. Nature is an amazing teacher. I use nature as a teacher all the time. We are nature and we are just animals in these human bodies. If you ever were to watch a lioness with her cubs and let's say she. We're going to look at the, the quote unquote spiritual lioness and if you're like, what the hell are we talking about, Sarah? Just follow me for a second. So let's say this is like, because this is the spiritual message that we're given love and light and just be love all the time and, and be just open and expanded and just forgive everyone. So could you imagine watching a lioness who has baby cups and a pack of hyenas come around and she says, love and light, pack of hyenas. I love you. You are amazing. Okay, I know you want to eat my children and you're just hungry, so. Okay, I will allow that to happen because love and light, the spiritual teacher with the, you know, whatever the practice that I'm in, told me that this is what it means to be a spiritual being. If we watch that, that lion would be, would be studied forever. Like, what is wrong with this lion? There's something wrong. Why is she not having the appropriate response, which is to do to defend her cubs?
- [43:36]
B
Right?
- [43:37]
A
Like that makes a lot of sense. I hope as you're hearing this, you might even laugh. Like that would be pretty crazy if that happened. Well, what is appropriate is to defend herself and her young ones or by the way, perhaps to defend any other young one that might be around that she's taken in. And so, so this is what I call spiritual bypassing. There is messaging out there that that's what we are supposed to do. And by the way, if you try to do it, the only way to do that is by gaslighting yourself because your physiology is going to say, no, I actually have rage at this person who harmed me or no, this person perpetually bullied me for six years in school and I had to eat in the bathroom. Bathroom every day. And I was ridiculed and spit on. And you're telling me to just let that go? Like, oh, they were, oh, they were like, you know, a kid that was struggling and I don't mean to sound non empathic, of course they were a kid that was struggling and it's not okay at the same time. Both things can be true. So yes, they're a beautiful being who is feeling immense pain and probably getting abused at home. That's why kids do this or they're not getting their needs met at home.
- [44:49]
B
Home.
- [44:50]
A
Why do, why it's the, you know, projection of what's occurring inside that they don't say, feel safe to express at home. So what we must feel is the appropriate response to that, which to that would be a lot of anger. And anger is not a bad emotion. Anger is not an unspiritual emotion. I don't know when some point in spirituality we were told that, like, anger is really bad, that means you're disconnected from your spiritual. I also just want to name this, that we also get the message that, like, if you're depressed or you're anxious or whatever, you must not be being spiritual enough. No. You must have unresolved trauma that your nervous system doesn't yet know is over. That has nothing to do with you being spiritual or not. We're going to have episodes on spirituality, so we must feel into this and then we can release it because our system says it's complete. I was able to finally do the thing that I could never do, and now I can release the it. And from that place, I can cut that energetic cord with that person or that experience lastly. But though I just want to name. You never ever have to, which we talked about in the episode, you never have to say, and I forgive you. You know, from my stepfather, my mother, my biological father, all who did horrific things to me. I don't forgive them. Them. I don't. But I release them. And I. And I do. And for some of them, not all of them, I knew they were doing, you know, the best they could. I do not feel that way about my stepfather, but I release them because I don't want to be energetically tied. And 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 then saying, saying. And I'm letting that go. So the way to our spirituality is actually to let ourselves feel the healthy aggression and then be able to release that. But I just think that question. I'm so glad someone asked it. It's so important because we're given that gaslighting message, which disembodies us more.
- [46:57]
B
Yeah, it really does. And what I found when I was being spiritual in that way was that I would get pains and aches in my body instead head. And. And it was only when I started to discover that. Oh, that, you know, the doctors would be like, there's no. There's no cause. We can't find any cause for that. And so when I started to explore that, actually, it might be rage, it might be anger, it might be all those feelings that I wasn't allowing myself to even feel. I wasn't even consciously aware of them then. They were playing out in my body in different ways. And so I just think you've lifted a heavy weight from people by sharing that actually we need to feel these feelings and emotions.
- [47:43]
A
Thanks for saying that, Rach. And especially just lastly about what happens when we internalize it. One of the most common things that occurs is it comes out in symptomatically an illness in our bodies and usually unexplainable is what a lot of doctors will tell you. The internalization of this healthy aggression will do that to us. Us. So it's. It's really healthy to get frustrated, by the way. It's really healthy. If you drive halfway to where this happened to me last time we were shooting, halfway to where you're going to downtown LA and then you forget your AirPods and you have to drive back to feel frustrated by it. Like, oh my gosh, I just drove four miles. I know that doesn't seem like a lot in LA. It is. That's like going 100 miles because of traffic. I have to turn around. I feel so frustrated now. I'm late. I'm going to make everyone else late. And I feel that sympathetic so it can process through. If I just said love and light, I do this for a living and I'm just going to be calm. Everything is all well in the world. That's not human. That's being AI. You're not being a human being. To feel that, to let it release, that's what it means to be human. That's what it also means to be a healthy human. So thank you, Rach, for being here. Always. I'm so grateful for you and I know everyone who is honored enough to know you on this podcast. Of course, you hear Rachel all the time, but she is inside. Just want to remind everybody, every community that we have, so every program that we offer, you will find Rachel supporting you inside of it. And for that, I'm so grateful for you.
- [49:11]
B
Oh, thank you. And I just want to give you a big clap because I just love what you share and I'm so excited for people to be learning this from you.
- [49:18]
A
Thanks, Rachel.