Why Forgiveness Starts with You?

Watch the episode here

• Learn the real meaning of forgiveness and why it’s not about forgetting.
• Discover how to let go of anger and resentment that’s keeping you stuck.
• Rick explains why forgiving yourself is the first step toward true healing.
• Get practical steps to repair your emotional health and relationships.
• Break free from the generational baggage and start living with freedom.

Rick, what’s shakin? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today, we’re going all in. Forgiveness is a touchy topic, and even saying that sentence is probably a little triggering for you just starting to listen, because, I mean, you’re probably like, oh, here we go. I’m going to give you my heart today around this, because forgiveness is not something that I’ve typically had an issue with, and I can give you all the reasons why, but I’m also gonna teach you how today, because you will gain so much. You absolutely will gain so much. I can say this to you with so much confidence, as you will gain so much freedom and release in your life by learning how to forgive. And we’re gonna debunk some myths around that, because this is it can be complex, but we’re gonna simplify it today, because in simple terms, forgiveness brings freedom, forgiveness can bring repair. Forgiveness can bring closeness. Forgiveness can bring closure. How many of you want closure and that has nothing to do with the other person? Quite literally, it has everything to do with you. Forgiveness can bring so much positivity and release and freedom and just weights lifted in your life that it’s worthwhile for you to continue to grow emotionally, grow spiritually and grow your mindset to where it will get you unstuck. 

It will allow you to actually pick your feet up out of the tar, out of the muck that you’ve been involved in, that you stepped into maybe a long time ago, and that stuff just kept getting thicker and thicker, and it’s because you’ve you’ve harbored this resentment and all of these other things towards somebody else, towards other people, towards the situation, and it’s time to free yourself. This is how we’re going to do this today. Now, I started out saying, you know, forgiveness has never really been an issue for me, and you’re probably like way to go. Rick, good for you, you know. And I say it that way because I had some good teachers around this, and my good teachers around this were, were parents, right? And a lot of it has to come to do with my faith, too, because I fully believe that Jesus, who he is, is somebody that just forgives, you know, and the Bible talks about that he forgets as well. However, let’s be realistic around this, because I think there’s some mistranslations around that, that the forgetfulness around that is actually what we need to learn about today in it’s not actually dis remembering it or not remembering it. It just means it no longer holds weight as far as how you interact with other people, how you feel with other people, how you choose to love other people, or, for that matter, how you choose to withhold love from other people. It has no weight, no bearing on that when you quote, unquote forget. 

So that phrase, that phrase that you’ve probably heard a lot is forgive and forget. It’s bullshit. It is absolute bullshit. I mean, how can you forget when somebody causes so much hurt to you or pain because of something that they’ve done to you. How is it possible to forget when you forgive? I’m going to tell you it’s it’s not possible. It absolutely is not possible. You know, time can go on, and depending on the severity of this situation, you might actually forget about it. But that has to do with something completely different, because you’ve actually chosen to forgive that person and then time, it’s like, oh, that was such a little thing. You know, it wasn’t a deep wound that it just goes away. You just don’t remember about it because you don’t give it a second thought. That might be the only way that you forget about it. But for forget forgetfulness when it comes to to a hurt is not something that’s an active choice by anybody. It’s not an active thing that you can put into place, a practice or an action that you can take to actually forget that doesn’t happen. Forgetting something just happens because you don’t put thought towards it. So if somebody tells you forgive and forget, you know they’re feeding you a line. 

And it’s just maybe that’s just something that helps them cope. I think that somebody says, Forgive and forget. It’s actually more of a coping mechanism, right? Or maybe they mean, hey, it doesn’t bother me anymore. But let’s be real about it, it’s pretty much impossible to forget. When it comes to the deep wounds, like truly not remember that stuff. What it is possible to do, though, is to let that stuff go, and that starts with forgiveness. So let’s, let’s talk about what. Forgiveness is not okay. Forgiveness is not completely removing any responsibility from that person, right? Forgiveness is not saying I’m going to hold a grudge against you. Forgiveness is not something to where you look at that person and you don’t have learnings or you don’t alter your own ways that you interact with that person, because you need to be able to protect yourself if somebody deeply wounds you, you’re probably going to interact with that person differently and maybe guard yourself around them. From here on out, forgiveness is not. Uh, just putting things back to what they were 10 minutes ago. Okay, sometimes it can be depending, you know, if that wound is very shallow or if it wasn’t a thing, maybe somebody steps on your toe, or something like that. I’m just using a stupid example. But forgiveness is not forgetting about that thing 10 minutes ago and not just going on with your life how it was when it’s involving a deep wound, and I’ll tell you what forgiveness actually is. Forgiveness is choosing to let go of the negative feelings. Forgiveness is choosing not to harbor resentment, not to harbor anger towards that person who hurt you, and going back to what forgiveness is not.

 Forgiveness is not choosing to not feel that pain anymore, to not feel that hurt, because regardless, that wound needs time to heal, you can still not be angry with somebody, not be resentful towards somebody, not withhold love from somebody you care about and you can still forgive and still feel hurt by what took place that’s perfectly normal and how this process of healing takes place. I hope that you’re tracking with me today, because this is this is extremely deep, and it’s going to get to a point to where it’s going to get even deeper in it, because we’re about to put up a mirror and hold a mirror up to everybody else right now, forgiveness is also not having that person have to make it up to you. That is resent Absolutely it is that is harboring bitter feelings to be like you need to make it up to me. So if you’re in a relationship and you ever do something like that, that is an ego problem. If you hear that coming from somebody else, it’s like, I’ll forgive you if you do this. That is an ego issue. That is not real forgiveness. Real forgiveness actually has to do with your own emotions, the way that you are feeling, not the other person’s actions. Did you hear that? It all has to do with you. That’s why, if you say something like you hear something like, I will forgive you if or you better make it up to me, those things have nothing to do with you, but you’re making it about you in an egotistical way. Because the healthy way, the healthy forgiveness, is actually all about your feelings and managing your emotions, it has nothing to do with the other person making it right or the other person taking some sort of action. 

Forgiveness is all on you, and that’s probably why it’s so difficult for a lot of people, is because it has everything to do with you and not the other person that hurt you. It’s kind of crazy when you think about it like this, and this is this requires a lot of self reflection and a lot of emotional awareness, a lot of self awareness and a lot of emotional maturity. When you can get to this point, it becomes a lot easier to forgive. A lot easier forgive. This is a voluntary change in your own feelings, not requiring something of the other person. Forgiveness has nothing to do with repairing the relationship. Did you hear me on that? Forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with the repair of the relationship? As far as it pertains to that other person doing something, it has everything to do with repair in the relationship, from your perspective on that person, and the emotional baggage that you are choosing not to carry from that situation, the anger, the resentments, the hostility you are choosing to forgive and you still feel the hurt, but the hurt is what can be healed through the repair, and that’s when you can make the agreements to be like, Hey, how can we change this situation so something happens differently next time, like, Hey, can I make this request of you? I have a need, and when we’re in this type of situation, I need you to do this. I need you to ask these questions. I need you to act this way. I need you to make a change in your life in order to repair this relationship. 

It has nothing to do with forgiving you. I already forgive you. That’s important to say, and it’s super important to say even before somebody says, Hey, I’m sorry. The point you want to get to with forgiveness is to where you can forgive that individual even after, like seconds after, even if the hurt is so deep, the wound is so deep that you’re able to be like, You know what? I forgive that person. I forgive my wife, I forgive my husband, I forgive my girlfriend, I forgive my kids, I forgive my boss, I forgive the X in my life. When you get to the point to where you can forgive and have that forgiveness for that individual, pretty much right away, you are at a point to where you like, oh man, you.

Now I can actually start to repair, because repair requires forgiveness, but forgiveness does not require repair. Isn’t that incredible when you think about it like that. Now, I told you we’re going to put this mirror up, because this mirror there’s certain people that you need to forgive in your life in order to get unstuck. That’s where we started. This whole thing is the very first person that you need to forgive. And we’re starting deep. We’re starting I thought about putting this one at the end, and like building up to it, but this is such an important part of this that I don’t think you can actually do the others until you do this one, which is forgiving yourself, forgiving yourself, causing yourself anger towards yourself, hostility toward yourself, resentment towards yourself for decisions that you’ve made to where it’s caused, maybe a fork in your life. It’s caused you to go down a path that you have regret for, and that regret is what harbors the resentment and allows all of this negativity and lack of love for yourself, this is one of the biggest things. Not having forgiveness for yourself is directly tied to not having love for yourself. You can be hurt by somebody that you love and still forgive them. 

You can be hurt by somebody that you love and still love them back when you look in the mirror, look at the person who you are, and you can say, I love you, and I know I’ve done some things to you. I know I’ve made bad mistakes, stuff that has messed things up for us. This is almost like inner child work too, because you can talk to your inner child be like, I scarred you. I wounded you because I did this. And you know what, I’m sorry, and at the same time, it’s like, this may sound a little kooky, but you know what? It works because you have to forgive yourself, like, I forgive me. What that means is changing your emotional state from here forward so that you don’t have those negative feelings of anger, hostility or resentment towards yourself, and you get to that place is when you can start to repair that relationship, because your decisions every single day are affected by the emotional baggage you’re carrying against yourself and The condemnation you place on yourself every single day you carry that prevents you from making the choices you want to make in your life, prevents you from going after the things you want in your life, prevents you from obtaining the things you want to have in your life. Because you think this is how it manifests. You think that you’re not good enough for that. You think you’re not worthy enough for that. 

You think that there’s no way somebody like me because of my upbringing or whatever it is, or the position I’m at in life, could possibly have that my heart, my feelings, they don’t matter, because people have told me that. But you know what? No You have told yourself that you have told yourself that you’re not worthy, that you’re not good enough. Fuck everybody else, and what they’ve said, start talking to yourself in a way that builds you up. You might have had this from parents, and you know what? It might have gotten ingrained in you. Who cares? Because you define who you are, nobody else. And I have compassion for you, because I’ve seen the damages that this causes in people’s lives to where they’re unable to love themselves. And the reason they’re unable to love themselves is because they’re unable to forgive themselves. It is the most powerful and sadistic form of resentment that exists on this planet. Is the lack of self forgiveness. So I’m giving you ways to start down this path, because the hurt will still be there. The Hurt will take time to repair from a bad decision five years ago, but I can tell you what you need to do to move past that is it’s the choice to not have anger, resentment and hostility towards yourself, because that is forgiveness, and what that looks like in a manifestation, which means in an action, is to take the choice you want to right now, is to make the decision you want to right now. 

That has nothing to do with that poor decision or whatever hurt that you caused yourself before, because that’s the repair with yourself. The forgiveness has to come first before you can make that decision, before you can take that step, before you can do that thing, before you can decide whatever the forgiveness to yourself has to happen first for you to say today is going to be different going forward, and this is what I’m going to do, not what I’m going to think, not what I’m going to ponder. This is what I’m going to do going forward. Because I may have messed it up back then, but I’ve been stuck there because I’ve been mad at myself, resentful towards myself, no more, because I forgive me. I. And as soon as you do that, I want you to say that right now, I forgive me. You want to look in the mirror, look in the mirror, and be like I forgive you, and keep saying it over and over and over until you have this release. I forgive you. I forgive you, I forgive you. And you know it might even require you telling yourself something like this, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault. I’m telling you this right now as you’re listening whoever needs this, it’s not your fault, it is not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault. The first person you need to forgive is yourself. The second, number two is your parents. I touch a little bit on that. Your parents, you know what? 

There’s no manual for parenting. I’ve made mistakes. I’d like to think that they haven’t damaged my kids too much, and thank goodness we have amazing coaches and and therapists in this world that can actually help prepare that. I think on the whole, I’ve been a pretty good dad. And at the same time, there is no manual for parenting. You have kids, you can understand this. You come across stuff that’s like, holy moly. You know, this was never anything I experienced. But that’s the same with your parents. You know what? They carry their own baggage, and they probably never got to the point to where they forgave themselves for things they did to themselves or their parents to them. They’ve never gone through this exercise. They’ve never gone through this healing, this repair in the relationship with yourself, to forgive yourself or forgive your parents, so they just pass that down onto you. This is so powerful when you forgive your parents, you are breaking the generational trauma when you’re able to say, You know what, I will no longer carry resentment or hostility or anger towards my parents. That opens up everything, everything, and helps establish a healthy relationship between you and your kids, if you have them or are going to have them. And the third one is relationships that you’ve had. I mentioned an X a little earlier.

Think about the hurt that they cause. You know what? I’m sure it’s very valid, and I want to validate you right now, because the hurt is real, and the hurt is something that, with time an application of what we’re talking about, the hurt will get less and less and less. The word doesn’t hurt anymore. Wounds do heal. You might have a scar there, remember the forget thing, right? You might have a scar there to where you remember it forever. However, it doesn’t have to hurt forever. When somebody else hurts you, especially a romantic partner, a significant other, that wound does heal. It can leave a scar, but it does heal. You will never forget about it. There will be a point, though, where it does not hurt anymore, but I will tell you this unforgiveness keeps that wound open and it festers. It’s like scratching a wound or a bee sting and it just gets worse and worse or doesn’t heal. Unforgiveness is just continuously scratching that wound for it to stay open, no more anger, no more hostility, no more resentment towards that person that hurt you. It’s time to let that go, because they probably had their own shit that they were dealing with too, and they likely projected that on you. And again, it’s not your fault. Show them forgiveness as they pop up in your mind, just say, I forgive you. And if you have to say it three times, say it three times, I forgive you, and then let that wound heal. It will heal. 

And the last person or group of people is literally like everybody else, that person who cut you off on the road the other day, probably put, you know, if this happened many times, I know people that are like this to where they yell at other people on the road all the time, probably because it started with some person way back when. Who cares? You’re safe, right? And even if you got hit by somebody else because they were being stupid, people can be stupid. Absolutely forgive that person for being stupid. Who knows what was going on in their life that day? Who freaking knows? So who are you to judge? And that ties it all the way back to it’s just a redirection of some of the stuff that you’re feeling towards yourself, that you need to forgive yourself, because that spills over, that goose spills over onto everyone else and everything else around you, everything that you touch. So it’s time to forgive everybody else. By all means, it’s okay to get angry in the moment.

I am not going to take anger away from anybody. Anger is actually not a negative emotion unless you harbor it, which means you allow it to continue. To grow and go and continue on without actually being like, who? Okay, that wasn’t that big of a deal. Everybody’s still alive. That person can go about their day. Who knows what just happened? Maybe, maybe a husband left them, or maybe, you know, somebody just passed away that was near and dear to them. Maybe they stubbed their toe really bad this morning, and it hurts, and they think it’s broken, and they’re on their way to the hospital, so they’re in pain. Who knows? Maybe that’s why they cut you off. Wish them well, and hopefully their day can go on just as well, because now yours can, because you’re like, whatever, I forgive them. This was such a deep topic today. Play this back multiple times, because there’s a lot that was said today, a lot that needs to get deep into your core for you to continue to move on with life and move on into a place to where you’re no longer stuck, you’re no longer frozen, you’re no longer out of love with yourself and no longer hating yourself. You