Sandy Kovach [00:00:04]:
Welcome to Imagine Yourself podcast. I'm Sandy here with Lanee, and today we're delving into a topic that's pretty challenging. One of the things we're doing here in this episode is exploring some highlights of one we did back in the first season called forgiving others and ourselves even when it's hard.
Lanée Blaise [00:00:25]:
We are actually imagining ourselves learning the art of forgiveness and the value of forgiveness and the power of forgiveness. It's a term that we all know, but when you try to incorporate something so strong into your actual personal life, it's a whole different thing, isn't it?
Sandy Kovach [00:00:45]:
When you talk about it in the reality of it, completely different. Yeah.
Lanée Blaise [00:00:47]:
Like on paper, it's all good in theory, but practically using and so we are not gonna guarantee that by the end of today's episode, you will be able to forgive any and all things and people. Maybe that's not even the goal, but we do wanna take time to focus on forgiveness as a principle and see how we can use it sometimes for our own advantage. So I say let's just jump right into this today to forgive or not to forgive. That is the question.
Sandy Kovach [00:01:15]:
Almost like Shakespeare. Yeah. To be or not to be to forgive or not to forgive. Yeah. When I first thought about this topic and we were first discussing it, and even then we knew it was difficult, I was kinda coming at it like, alright. We know we need to forgive. How do we talk about strategies? Yes. And then I put the question on Facebook, what about forgiveness? Is everything forgivable? Do you need to forgive? While most people did say they felt that forgiveness was a positive thing and we needed to work for it, I got others on there who said, first of all, no.
Sandy Kovach [00:01:49]:
You don't have to forgive everything. And one person in particular went on to tell me a story, and the words pushy forgiveness harassers Oh. Was included in this story.
Lanée Blaise [00:02:04]:
What exactly did they mean by that?
Lanée Blaise [00:02:06]:
you wanna just share the story? Because I'm pushy. Pushy forgiveness harassers.
Sandy Kovach [00:02:10]:
That's pretty strong language. And this is my friend Diane, and she is very eloquent in the way she puts things. And I love hearing from her all the time about our podcast. But this story she shared with me was actually very tragic and very difficult, but it's important, I think, to our discussion.
Lanée Blaise [00:02:27]:
Okay.
Sandy Kovach [00:02:28]:
So she has a friend, or I think she said it was an acquaintance. This person had a 4 year old daughter who was playing and was in a driveway. And you know what I'm gonna say here. Right? Yep. I do. And it was her brother-in-law that ran over this child, and the child did not survive. Yeah. And she said, immediately, this woman was pressured by, here let me use the term again, pushy forgiveness harassers to say you must forgive.
Sandy Kovach [00:03:02]:
Immediately that same day is what she's saying.
Lanée Blaise [00:03:04]:
Oh, okay. So not even giving the benefit of time and reflection and processing.
Sandy Kovach [00:03:10]:
Yep. Let me just read a little bit more what she said here. Okay. The very day her daughter died, insistence that she must forgive this man has not helped her heal in any way. It's piled added trauma on top of the already very traumatic loss. It's cut her off from potential support that could be helping her. She doesn't want to have any contact anymore with the pushy forgiveness harassers, and this story is one that I hear over and over again for many people struggling with grief and horrific trauma and loss. People in our culture feel so free to regale her with stories of how she is to blame for any continued negative feelings she has over her daughter being killed, how forgiving him will somehow bring her fantasy magical peace.
Sandy Kovach [00:04:00]:
And, you know, it goes on a little bit from there, but you get the gist of what she's saying. In this case, she's saying that she felt negatively treated by people,
Lanée Blaise [00:04:09]:
and, like, they were almost blaming her. And not giving her any space. You even mentioned the word grief, but she's dealing with a death in the family, which has grief, and you go through stages. Correct?
Sandy Kovach [00:04:21]:
Yes.
Lanée Blaise [00:04:21]:
And there are different aspects of that, let alone forgiveness if it's gonna come is usually one of the last steps Yes. And stages. And I understand that maybe people's hearts were in the position of we want to take the pressure off of the person who was driving the car and give them some relief.
Sandy Kovach [00:04:39]:
Because it's a family member. That's like a whole other level. Right? It's not like a drunk driver hits you or not that that's good or in any way less tragic, but
Lanée Blaise [00:04:48]:
It's the contact that you'll have with that person afterwards is different. And you and I both know. That's why we're talking about this topic. There has been in recent decades a push for forgiveness, and it's built upon a foundation of getting to understand forgiveness that starts in the bible and and starts with just civilization in general. If you have no forgiveness, it's hard to create communities in general. In this case, I don't know if this is a situation where it was just too soon because I personally I have a quote that I just want to share with you that kind of answers a little bit of this. It's by Marianne Williamson. It does get right to it.
Lanée Blaise [00:05:25]:
Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered to forgive the one that inflicted it. More painful. Yeah.
Sandy Kovach [00:05:37]:
Which is kinda what Diane was saying about
Lanée Blaise [00:05:40]:
Yeah. That that caused more pain than just the regular grieving process. But the other part of this quote, Sandy, is yet there is no peace without forgiveness. And when you do it in the proper order and you have enough timing and space, I do believe that it's like an algebra equation to me. A plus B equals C. So you have a hurt suffered plus forgiveness equals peace. That's my reason for following the path of forgiveness as much as possible.
Sandy Kovach [00:06:12]:
Let me just say too. I'm on team forgiveness as well, but I also completely understand that if taken in the wrong way or if she's feeling pressured to forgive, it can be negative.
Lanée Blaise [00:06:25]:
Well, let me give you a couple things. So my first thing is, you know, I love to make sure that we are clearly defining things because I believe that there's often a big misconception about forgiveness, that it's this la la land relinquishing assignment of responsibility. All is forgotten and I don't want to let that remain as the case. We want to establish psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. It does not mean forgetting nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses.
Sandy Kovach [00:07:14]:
Right. Forgiveness but not forgetting. That's another thing I got on the Facebook thread.
Lanée Blaise [00:07:18]:
So you were getting input on that too because Yeah. Sandy, I got 3 f's. How do you like 3 f's? I like forgiveness, forgetting, and fault. And I feel that those three things are very different. Finding fault with someone is different than forgetting the whole thing is different than forgiving the whole thing. Alright? And I truly believe that when we concentrate on that, it helps a lot because we understand that there are times when fault must be assigned. If there's a car accident for insurance purposes, you gotta find fault. If there's a divorce for financial purposes, you gotta determine that lawsuits.
Lanée Blaise [00:07:54]:
If you wanna correct a problem or assign damages, you have to assign fault and people need to be held accountable and hopefully change their behavior, not continue to do it.
Sandy Kovach [00:08:05]:
I should say too that Diane did say that the brother-in-law was not being careful. It was an accident, but it seemed to me that that's one of the reasons she is holding unforgiveness.
Lanée Blaise [00:08:15]:
Well, see that's another thing too. A lot of people may be on her because they're feeling that if you know that it's an accident and you know that the intention was not malicious, then you need to immediately forgive. Again, like I said, there's the difference between fault and forgetting and forgiveness.
Sandy Kovach [00:08:32]:
So yeah, you had the 3 f's and
Lanée Blaise [00:08:34]:
we talked about fault. And we talked about this is not something that's forgettable, obviously. Yeah. Nor should it be. But forgiving is not saying everything's okay, that was okay. It's more like that this was not okay. Maybe sometimes things are not even acceptable, but it has passed now and I will no longer just continue to dwell on it, focus on it and let it consume me or you. That's more of the dialogue that I'm trying to make sure that we establish when we talk about forgiveness.
Lanée Blaise [00:09:10]:
Because the concept, of course, comes from the bible that we are called to forgive others especially because we ourselves are not perfect. Okay. We make mistakes. We do things, sometimes even dumb things, but we want to be forgiven also. And the peace that it grants us, it can be overpowering. I have an example to flip everything on its head what we just talked about because there are groups. I don't know if you know there are groups out there, the forgiveness project for prisoners and then on 60 minutes I saw one called the restorative justice project. We talked a little bit at the beginning about a drunk driver but this restorative justice project, it carefully and this is the operative word carefully reunites victims with the perpetrators of certain crimes.
Sandy Kovach [00:09:57]:
Really?
Lanée Blaise [00:09:57]:
And these are prisoners who are imprisoned sometimes for life. But some of these crimes have led to the death of a victim's family member.
Sandy Kovach [00:10:07]:
Wow.
Lanée Blaise [00:10:07]:
And you think, you know, as we're saying, what worse thing? This podcast always tries to show some of the light areas and some of the dark areas. Right? We try to be comprehensive, but there was a hopeful story on 60 minutes with this project and it was a story of a woman, a school teacher who could not forgive the drunk driver who had caused the death of her brother. For years years after she lost all joy of her own life, of her 4 kids, of her own job and her own students. She had become a monster in her own words and this program carefully supervised. Yeah. She was able to meet the man who had been drinking and driving and run over her brother. And this man was extremely regretful, extremely sorry for what he'd done. And they got to meet and talk it out.
Lanée Blaise [00:10:58]:
And she finally, over time remember time is the key. She got peace. She got a renewal. And now she says she cannot imagine what her life would be like if she still had to hold on to all that bitterness. And so we are not trying to be judgmental here today or force people to forgive before they're ready to. But we're trying to offer out the hope that life can be better or lifted once you get to the point where you feel that you can forgive. And it's just a wonderful episode. They had other people too.
Lanée Blaise [00:11:35]:
They had one lady who had been shot in the head by a man when he was a teenager. He was trying to steal her car, of all things, and she lived but she's legally blind and she has a multitude of problems of course and brain injury And she wanted to know why he did it. He was a young kid. He didn't even know why he did it, but he was so sorry. And do you know that she now visits him once a year for the past 20 years Wow. In jail? And it gives her peace and it gives him peace. So sometimes it can be a win win situation, especially when the person really does repent and they really are sorry and enough time has passed.
Sandy Kovach [00:12:16]:
So that's an interesting point too. Should it depend on whether the person shows remorse? In this case, obviously, these people did. But what happens if you're the victim of a crime or even a smaller offense. Other offenses, while they may not lead to death, can lead to serious hurt as well. There are many things that people do to each other that's totally messed up.
Lanée Blaise [00:12:40]:
Atrocities even sometimes. Yes.
Sandy Kovach [00:12:42]:
And that with people don't show any remorse. Yeah. How does that work then for the person who needs to forgive? Is it harder, it would seem?
Lanée Blaise [00:12:52]:
So yeah. When you say, well, what happens when people don't change their behavior? They don't forgive or they continue to do things? First of all, of course, if they continue to do the behavior, please make sure they or and they don't apologize for it. Please make sure that you do everything possible to keep them out of your life and away from you and avoiding you as much as possible, you know, because that just piles insult to injury. Right? But the forgiveness part, that's the one in some of these we always have to mention too. Sometimes there needs to be counseling and therapy. Yeah. Because if you're going to forgive something and they aren't even apologizing or they're even still trying to do the behavior, Is it something where you might even have to redefine again again what you're calling forgiveness and craft your own version of it with a therapist or something to make sure that you are able to progress. Because all I want is, I don't want whatever they've done to you in the past to still hold you down.
Lanée Blaise [00:13:53]:
I want you to maybe use it to help build you up and free yourself
Sandy Kovach [00:13:57]:
Yeah.
Lanée Blaise [00:13:57]:
And not be stuck to it. I say that from personal experience. I had both from childhood. I had an experience where someone did something very wrong to me as a as a child and it's those 3 f's again. I assigned fault to that person because they knew better. I did not forget the situation, but I, with the help of counseling, was able to forgive and set boundaries because I do still run into this person. So Wow. Yeah.
Lanée Blaise [00:14:29]:
So to set the boundaries, not invite them back into my life, but have a sense of being cordial and Cordial even. Cordial because of time. Remember, this is childhood, so I'm old enough. But because of time and because of the fact that I'm so grateful that there are very few times I run into this person, just to be fair. And because through the counseling, learning to release that, I had not only anger, I had rage. Wow. And it was kind of suppressed rage. And that's why I feel so much for that lady whose brother was hit by the drunk driver.
Lanée Blaise [00:15:03]:
Hers wasn't even suppressed rage, but she had rage that just spilled out and spewed out and messed up her existing life and I don't want that for mine. So I forgive not just saying that I'm forgiving, but I actually learned techniques and processes to forgive.
Sandy Kovach [00:15:21]:
But you got professional help to do that. I did. And nobody pushed it on you is what you're
Lanée Blaise [00:15:26]:
saying. Exactly. And that person, by the way, never even acknowledges that they did anything wrong. Wow. So there's not like this big sense of closure that I got over this, and there's not this big sense of, oh, they were sorry. But I saw that it was affecting my life in other ways and with other people who had not hurt me, but I'm putting, not blame, but I'm putting baggage on them that was unfair and it was affecting me. And then Sandy, I gotta tell you this too. Also in my childhood, I did something to someone that was also terrible and they never forgave me and they don't speak to me now.
Lanée Blaise [00:16:02]:
And I use those same tips that I got from counseling on how to forgive myself again.
Sandy Kovach [00:16:08]:
Oh, that's another issue. Yeah. Forgiving yourself.
Lanée Blaise [00:16:11]:
Forgiving yourself because I don't have closure with that person. She doesn't speak to me. It's done deal. She's mad. I understand. I was wrong. But that doesn't mean I can't forgive myself because I know that if I were to do it all again I would not do that. Right.
Lanée Blaise [00:16:25]:
So forgiving ourselves is another tool and it's another wonderful thing to try to learn because it's crucial for our development.
Sandy Kovach [00:16:35]:
One thing that well, actually, let me read a couple of them. More Facebook comments on the forgiveness side. And I've heard this quote before. Mike said forgiveness unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. And then Steven said, by not forgiving, we are giving that person free rent in our head to continue to victimize us forever. Forgiveness brings freedom. And then Sydney, I I guess he's gonna be writing a book with some of these witticisms but I thought this was interesting. Sydney Howard, he said, unforgiveness is like if your neighbor's dog does its business on your front step, and you react by picking it up and carrying it in your shirt pocket so as not to forget what was done to you.
Lanée Blaise [00:17:26]:
I actually love that vivid.
Sandy Kovach [00:17:29]:
That yeah. Smellarama too.
Lanée Blaise [00:17:30]:
Yeah. But I love that vivid image of it and that's the thing. I don't want to assign any judgment to anyone who is not ready to forgive or who doesn't want to forgive. We just want to highlight some of the things that can happen in a good way when you do forgive. Just to hold out that hope. It's almost like I have a blueberry muffin here, Sandy. You don't have to eat it and take it and if you're not ready to or you don't ever want to, But it is here and it's fresh and it is healthy if you want it and if you're ready for it.
Sandy Kovach [00:18:06]:
Right.
Lanée Blaise [00:18:07]:
And I'm not gonna say a thing if you don't want to take it.
Sandy Kovach [00:18:11]:
No judgments. Exactly. So it's a complicated issue, but, Lynae, I mean, especially you having lived through it On both sides. On both sides. Yeah. And at that
Lanée Blaise [00:18:19]:
part about using techniques that I learned
Sandy Kovach [00:18:20]:
from counseling
Lanée Blaise [00:18:27]:
to forgive the other person in that situation who was wrong and to forgive myself in the situation where I was wrong.
Sandy Kovach [00:18:34]:
Can you give a technique?
Lanée Blaise [00:18:36]:
Oh. Because I thought you're gonna say details and I was
Sandy Kovach [00:18:38]:
gonna say No.
Lanée Blaise [00:18:39]:
No. Okay. I was gonna say for details I don't want because that's the other part. Because of the forgiveness, I don't need to go into the details unless sometimes it rises back up within me or something like that, but I just know that it happened. It's over and I forgive. But for the techniques, writing, I didn't even know I had the rage until I was given an assignment to do kind of like free writing to think specifically about what happened and then write and then close it up. In my case, I even stapled up the paper. This is kind of interesting, but stapled up the paper all the way around so you can't see what I wrote.
Lanée Blaise [00:19:17]:
And then come back and open it later with the therapist and I was almost like I wanted to close it back. There was so much venom that had spilled out of me through this exercise and so that was that whole part, just like in Alcoholics Anonymous, recognize that there is a problem, because in a way I thought, okay, I'm upset, but I'm not it's not really affecting that much, But when you have, like you said, that quote with the poison, when you have poison or venom in you, it has to affect you. Yeah. That's true. There's that part. There's also making sure again, assigning fault is a technique too to make sure that, you know, you were a child, you had no fault, there should be no shame, there's nothing on you. It is assigned to that other person and we will acknowledge that but we will still move forward. Yeah.
Lanée Blaise [00:20:10]:
Just some of the techniques. There were a lot.
Sandy Kovach [00:20:12]:
So writing down, that allowed you to get your feelings out
Lanée Blaise [00:20:16]:
Yes.
Sandy Kovach [00:20:16]:
That you didn't have, and then you went through it with a professional.
Lanée Blaise [00:20:19]:
Yes.
Sandy Kovach [00:20:20]:
So if somebody is really having a forgiveness issue, and maybe they're even trying to decide, do I wanna forgive?
Lanée Blaise [00:20:26]:
Yeah.
Sandy Kovach [00:20:27]:
Maybe the first thing to do is to go to a therapist. And like we were saying, it can be something horrific, or people can do a lot of damage to other people mentally too.
Lanée Blaise [00:20:36]:
Yes. Again, remember sometimes they're gonna be people that we can't fully avoid. I saw your face when you said that I'd still do run into this person or sometimes I could be around this person. So if I got clammed up and clenched up and taken back to those times, every time I saw that person I'd be a wreck. But actually, I keep my distance in a way. But what happened before cannot happen again and will not happen again because of the boundaries I've enforced. So I'm able to function. Yeah.
Lanée Blaise [00:21:09]:
Like fully not just faking it till I'm making it. I'm fully functioning and I pray for that person to be better and be different.
Sandy Kovach [00:21:19]:
Yeah. Well, this is a tough subject and something that we might have to revisit again in another podcast and maybe with a professional.
Lanée Blaise [00:21:27]:
Yes. I love that idea.
Sandy Kovach [00:21:29]:
So we can get somebody to speak to exact techniques and get the opinion of a counselor, psychologist.
Lanée Blaise [00:21:38]:
Get some clarity on how we personally can consider doing this if we want to.
Sandy Kovach [00:21:44]:
Because it literally affects everyone on some scale or another. Yes. You cannot go through this life without being offended whether and even sometimes we're offended by things that maybe technically we shouldn't be offended by.
Lanée Blaise [00:21:56]:
But we were and and that whole thing about sticks and stones to break my words bones, but words will never hurt me is not accurate. Act not accurate. So these may think these things that someone said to us, maybe it's something that was done to us in the past, last week, you know. Yeah. This morning, it just really depends. But getting a grasp on the definition of forgiveness and how we wanna proceed with it is truly important. It really is.
Sandy Kovach [00:22:25]:
And allowing people space who don't want to forgive at this moment. Yeah. I think we learned that too just by listening to Diane's story about her friend.
Lanée Blaise [00:22:34]:
Yeah. And that makes me excited. I love the interaction with other people too. We want people to comment in to imagine yourself podcast and let us know because we can use your name or not use your name. Doesn't matter if you don't want us to use your name. But talking about different incidents and different opinions is what we're all about so that we can see different viewpoints.
Sandy Kovach [00:22:56]:
That's right. So you can either do it on Facebook or Instagram or you can email us. And all of the links to all of those things are on imagine yourself podcast.com. You can private message us. Don't feel like you have to post something on our wall for everybody to see. Maybe you just have a story that you wanna share privately Yes. Or anonymously. True.
Sandy Kovach [00:23:18]:
But you have a strong opinion on this because this is an easy subject. And I'll even add to that. It doesn't even have to be unforgiveness. Maybe there's something else that you wanna discuss as well. Exactly.
Lanée Blaise [00:23:31]:
That's why we do what we do. Right? That's what we're really enjoying. Did you have any revelations that came to you personally after this episode?
Sandy Kovach [00:23:39]:
I think my big revelation is I'm still on team forgiveness.
Lanée Blaise [00:23:43]:
Okay.
Sandy Kovach [00:23:43]:
But I have a new respect for people who say they don't want to forgive just or they're not ready to forgive. Yeah. I don't wanna be the forgiveness police.
Lanée Blaise [00:23:52]:
Correct and the pushy harassing ones. And that's something to learn also, the flip side, that we need to be mindful when we see a situation that we don't always jump in and say, oh, honey. You need to forgive that today. Hopefully, this has taught us that at least.
Sandy Kovach [00:24:09]:
Absolutely.
Lanée Blaise [00:24:10]:
And we also wanna remember, don't necessarily sit there and require or demand that someone forgive you just because you've said you're sorry and just because you know that your intention wasn't bad.
Sandy Kovach [00:24:23]:
That's a great point. Yeah. So, doctor Lanae, do we have takeaway time for this? Well, you're our doctor. Next time, we'll have a real doctor.
Lanée Blaise [00:24:30]:
But Yeah. Next time, we'll get a real doctor because, yeah, like I said, I'm I'm the fake one who stayed in the Holiday Inn Express type doctor. But a real one could bring more clarity. Because remember, even the techniques I mentioned are decades old
Sandy Kovach [00:24:41]:
now.
Lanée Blaise [00:24:41]:
Of course, you know, because I did get that counseling when I was a teenager to try to help from something from childhood. So number 1, as we said multiple times, this is a heavy duty topic. We really encourage you to think it through carefully. We want you to walk away knowing that Sandy Lynnae only wanted to highlight some of the bright sides of forgiveness, but all in good time. We are humans. It's not easy sometimes. Good old fashioned time can be one of the best remedies and it's all about the way you define forgiveness. Also be super careful that you're not defining forgiveness as, oh it's all okay, because that's not necessarily what we're getting at.
Lanée Blaise [00:25:20]:
We don't want you to think that being a human doormat is what we're advocating for. We don't want folks to walk all over us. We do want to establish boundaries. We do not want to forget. There's the, you know, hashtag never forget aspect, but it's more of an emotional release, emotional freedom, acknowledging the behavior, not necessarily accepting the behavior, and sometimes forgiving the person from afar. Yeah. Not right up in your face.
Sandy Kovach [00:25:48]:
You don't have to necessarily go and say I forgive you.
Lanée Blaise [00:25:51]:
Except for when it's yourself. Oh, now that is I really do want us to begin to look at ourselves with fresh eyes and fresh hearts and say, I know back then that I may not have done the best things, but I now know how to operate in a better way and I forgive myself for that past thing that either I said or did to myself or said or did to someone else. So overall, imagine yourself full of genuine forgiveness of others and for yourself all in good time.
Sandy Kovach [00:26:26]:
Love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Please drop us a rating or review or get in touch with us either through the app. You can see a way to text us right there. You can go to imagine yourself podcast.com on our website and, find the email link or hit us up on social media. And until next time when we have something new to imagine. Take care of yourself and God's blessings to you.
