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Speaker 1: Pushkin Hey, Happiness Lab listeners, It's finally spring, a season

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Speaker 1: that's all about renewal and new beginnings and of course

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Speaker 1: spring cleaning. As the weather gets a little warmer, we

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Speaker 1: naturally get the itch to begin rejuvenating. This is the

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Speaker 1: time of year when we say yes to clearing out

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Speaker 1: our closets and refreshing our homes. It does feel great

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Speaker 1: to freshen up our physical spaces, but could we take

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Speaker 1: a similar approach to refreshing our well being? Could we

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Speaker 1: turn that spring cleaning urge towards proving our junkie habits

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Speaker 1: or sweeping out our negative thought patterns. We usually think

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Speaker 1: of January first and the start of the new year

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Speaker 1: as the time for goals like these, but studies have

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Speaker 1: shown that the beginning of spring is also a great

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Speaker 1: time for a happiness restart. Take one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: studies by my friend, the psychologist Katie Milkman, cruited a

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Speaker 1: group of people who said they had a personal goal

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Speaker 1: that they'd been putting off for a while. She then

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Speaker 1: offered them the chance to receive a formal reminder that

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Speaker 1: it was finally time to get started. Half the participants

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Speaker 1: were offered this formal reminder on some random day of

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Speaker 1: the year, but the other half was offered that reminder

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Speaker 1: on a day that felt like a new beginning, the

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Speaker 1: first day of spring. What did Katie find Well, more

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Speaker 1: than three times as many people wanted to tackle their

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Speaker 1: goal on the first day of spring rather than on

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Speaker 1: some random day. I love these results because they show

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Speaker 1: that our minds are always on the lookout for what

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Speaker 1: Katie calls temporal fresh starts, those special moments during the

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Speaker 1: year when our motivation to make positive changes gets a boost.

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Speaker 1: So in this new season of the Happiness Lab, we'll

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Speaker 1: be harnessing the motivational power of springtime. We're going to

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Speaker 1: apply the spring cleaning energy that we take to our

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Speaker 1: closets to all the stuff that's cluttering up our minds.

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Speaker 1: Over the next few episodes, we'll be exploring how you

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Speaker 1: can freshen up your happiness strategies, tidy up your busy schedules,

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Speaker 1: and purge all your harmful belief. Yes, and in honor

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Speaker 1: of true spring cleaning, we'll be doing a bit of

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Speaker 1: our own closet refresh as we go back into the

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Speaker 1: Happiness Lab archive to find old school episodes and insights

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Speaker 1: that you might have missed. And in this first episode

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Speaker 1: of our new spring cleaning season, I'm going to recommend

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Speaker 1: that you start out by airing out your resentments. Today

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Speaker 1: we're going to hear about the mental cleansing power of

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Speaker 1: forgiveness right after the Happiness Lab returns from these quick

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Speaker 1: words from our sponsors. Grievances, they're pretty much part of

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Speaker 1: human nature. When people hurt us or say mean stuff,

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Speaker 1: the pain they cause tends to stick around, often for

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Speaker 1: a long while. We might even spend years feeling angry

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Speaker 1: or betrayed. But in the spirit of spring cleaning our happiness,

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Speaker 1: what if you chose to drop each and every one

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Speaker 1: of your painful grievances through the power of forgiveness. Luckily

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Speaker 1: we have just the guest to help you get started

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Speaker 1: on that journey.

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Speaker 2: Well, Hi, I'm Fred direct to Stamford Forgiveness Projects, and

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Speaker 2: I Todd at Stamford for decades.

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Speaker 1: Fred is doctor Fred Luskin, a psychologist and counselor who

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Speaker 1: spent decades studying the psychological effects of forgiveness. Fred studies

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Speaker 1: people who've survived bitter relationship breakdowns, physical assaults, and violent conflicts,

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Speaker 1: as well as people who've had the usual tiny sorts

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Speaker 1: of fights with their neighbors or coworkers, and in all

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Speaker 1: these cases, he finds that forgiveness can be an unexpected

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Speaker 1: path to peace. But Fred's not just a scholar of forgiveness.

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Speaker 1: He's also experienced the positive effects of this practice firsthand.

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Speaker 1: It's often said that all research is mesearch. Fred admits

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Speaker 1: that this adage is definitely true.

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Speaker 2: In his case, a very close friend betrayed and abandoned me. Oh,

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Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. I simply did not have the skills

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Speaker 2: to cope with it. I developed an agitated depression. I

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Speaker 2: kept busy, I moved, I became so much less hopeful.

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Speaker 2: I had a wife at that time and a child,

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Speaker 2: and I could no longer see the beauty of that.

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Speaker 2: And I functioned. I mean, I was in the world.

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Speaker 2: I was working, but not well. One day my wife

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Speaker 2: came to me and she said, Fred, I love you.

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Speaker 2: I just like you less. And it was a kick

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Speaker 2: in the ass. And I started to look at what

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Speaker 2: the hell was I doing ruining years, And I stumbled

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Speaker 2: upon two very simple things. One, I could be grateful

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Speaker 2: for what I had or complain about what I don't.

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Speaker 2: And second, I had been trained as a cognitive therapist,

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Speaker 2: but I didn't use it on myself until that moment,

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Speaker 2: and those two things helped me let go and developed

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Speaker 2: the Stanford Forgiveness Project.

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Speaker 1: And what's the Stanford Forgiveness Project?

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Speaker 2: I did my dissertation unforgiveness. We got a big grant

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Speaker 2: from the Templeton people to research forgiveness. I did work

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Speaker 2: in Columbia and Sierra Leone. We brought people from Northern Ireland,

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Speaker 2: I mean just all over the place. Because I'm at

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Speaker 2: Stanford and Stanford has such a good name, my work

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Speaker 2: was publicized in a way that I had an opportunity

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Speaker 2: to talk about forgiveness literally all over the world. And

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Speaker 2: now I'm back again at the very end of my career,

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Speaker 2: trying to do a little more research to show that

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Speaker 2: this stuff has value.

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Speaker 1: To prepare for my interview with Fred, I read up

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Speaker 1: on the Stanford Forgiveness Project and all of Fred's work

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Speaker 1: with people who were caught up in the brutal conflicts

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Speaker 1: in Northern Ireland. I found one story particularly moving. It

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Speaker 1: involved a woman named Patrician McGee. Patrician's brother was beaten

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Speaker 1: to death in the early nineties. His killers were caught,

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Speaker 1: but soon freed from jail. They wound up living not

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Speaker 1: too far from Patrician's home. Could you imagine having your

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Speaker 1: brother's murderers living up the street from you, just going

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Speaker 1: about their daily life as if nothing had happened. That

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Speaker 1: level of perceived injustice took a huge psychological toll on Patrician.

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Speaker 1: She felt isolated and depressed. She couldn't even talk about

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Speaker 1: the situation without falling apart. At first, she was reluctant

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Speaker 1: to join Fred's forgiveness class. She feared having to talk

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Speaker 1: about her brother's killers, but that's not what Fred's program required.

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Speaker 1: In class, Patrician met other Irish women who had also

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Speaker 1: lost loved ones to violence, and together they worked through

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Speaker 1: their feelings. Afterwards, Fred measured the women's levels of depression, anger,

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Speaker 1: and perceived stress. He also surveyed the degree of pain

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Speaker 1: they felt over their loss. He found that the women's

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Speaker 1: scores improved dramatically, and they weren't just feeling better. They

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Speaker 1: reported having fewer headaches, less back pain, and even better sleep.

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Speaker 1: Patrician was initially worried about the act of forgiveness, but

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Speaker 1: the process of airing out her pain transformed her. She

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Speaker 1: was even able to talk about her brother without being

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Speaker 1: reduced to tears. Examples like these are so powerful, But

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Speaker 1: what does Fred's process entail. What's the kind of forgiveness

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Speaker 1: Fred is recommending that we all pursue.

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Speaker 2: There's a couple of definitions of forgiveness, one more webster like,

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Speaker 2: you know, to give up resentment and to forswear holding

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Speaker 2: on to bitterness. Our definition is making peace with the

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Speaker 2: word no. And this came from literally years of working

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Speaker 2: with so many people and hearing so much suffering and

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Speaker 2: so much angst that we tried to look for what

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Speaker 2: was the common denominator of all the suffering that we heard,

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Speaker 2: and what we came to with everyone there was saying

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Speaker 2: I didn't get something I wanted, and sometimes what I

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Speaker 2: wanted I wanted desperately and I got no. And I

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Speaker 2: am unwilling to let go of that no to make peace.

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Speaker 2: I am going to complain till hell freeze is over

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Speaker 2: that I deserved a Yes, we watched and realized that

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Speaker 2: that was kind of a unifying thing around all the

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Speaker 2: variety of stories and complaints that we heard. So by

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Speaker 2: evolution of that is that forgiveness I now define is

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Speaker 2: simply being at peace with your life right now, right

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Speaker 2: here in total I can be okay.

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Speaker 1: I think misconception we have about forgiveness is that you

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Speaker 1: have to connect with the person that you're forgiving. Can

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Speaker 1: we have forgiveness without that moment of reconciliation with the

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Speaker 1: person that roberta.

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Speaker 2: The way we went through that was very simple. Can

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Speaker 2: you forgive a dead person? The answer is yes. So

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Speaker 2: that's the answer to your question. You can be married,

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Speaker 2: your partner can have an affair. You can reconcile and

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Speaker 2: you can go home to them every day and hate them.

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Speaker 2: Or they can have an affair. You can completely release

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Speaker 2: them from blame and bitterness. You can open your heart

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Speaker 2: back up to life and tell them we're done. So

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Speaker 2: you can have complete forgiveness with no reconciliation. They're not

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Speaker 2: the same concept.

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Speaker 1: I've also heard you talk about how forgiveness is about

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Speaker 1: a change in your story. What do you mean by that?

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Speaker 2: That's another I guess learned clinical kind of thing. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I started so long ago as a boring academic, and

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Speaker 2: I had these ideas about what forgiveness and wasn't and

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Speaker 2: then talking to likexillions of people who had horrible things happened,

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Speaker 2: and others who got bent out of shape because someone

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Speaker 2: had built a fence an inch and a half onto

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Speaker 2: their property line. What I came to see that they

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Speaker 2: actually brought was not what happened, but their story. They

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Speaker 2: brought a story about forgiveness or unforgiveness, and what we

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Speaker 2: were trying to do was help them create a different story.

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Speaker 2: So many people came into forgiveness with this sense of

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Speaker 2: you forgive and forget. What we understood was you forgive

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Speaker 2: by remembering differently. You don't forget. You can't forget. We've

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Speaker 2: I've dealt with many, many people who have had family

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Speaker 2: members murdered or you know, people shocked by ken year

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Speaker 2: olds with machine guns. You don't forget. But if you're

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Speaker 2: lucky and good, you can remember it differently. You reframe

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Speaker 2: it enough, and you quiet down your arousal so that

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Speaker 2: you tell a different story and you believe a different story.

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Speaker 1: I love that you brought up this idea that forgiveness

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Speaker 1: isn't forgetting, because I think that's a misconception that people

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Speaker 1: have right that you need to forget the wrong or

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Speaker 1: maybe trust the person.

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Speaker 2: Can I tell you something that you may find peculiar

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Speaker 2: at this point, if I work with people, groups, individuals

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Speaker 2: at least a third of what we do is helping

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Speaker 2: them understand what forgiveness is and is not. But there

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Speaker 2: is so much wrong understanding, and even so much hostility.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it almost feels like sometimes I hear this idea

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Speaker 1: that forgiveness is for suckers. Yeah, it's weak. You know why?

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Speaker 1: Explain why that's wrong to the listeners.

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Speaker 2: Well, if you view forgiveness as condoning bad behavior, then

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Speaker 2: it seems weak. But if you view forgiveness and I'll

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Speaker 2: give you two simple streams around this. One is fully

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Speaker 2: grieving your wounds so that at the end of the

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Speaker 2: grieving process you can release that suffering, then you see

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Speaker 2: that forgiveness is not such a weak thing. It takes

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Speaker 2: real strength to feel the pain of being the human

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Speaker 2: being and releasing that pain when appropriate. That takes real strength.

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Speaker 2: The other thing is I mean, having been a meditator

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Speaker 2: or even as a therapist for decades, most people don't

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Speaker 2: get better by avoiding pain. There are a lot of

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Speaker 2: people stuck in perseverative anger and endless none of them

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Speaker 2: are appropriately feeling it, holding that suffering, knowing that something

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Speaker 2: wrong has happened, and letting go and moving on. That's

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Speaker 2: not weakness.

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Speaker 1: That's braf.

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Speaker 2: That's the right word. It's brave. So when we teach

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Speaker 2: that's what we do, you're being brave, You're not being

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Speaker 2: weak at all.

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Speaker 1: But it is hard, right, And I think the fact

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Speaker 1: that it's hard means we need to talk about the

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Speaker 1: benefits of forgiveness or maybe what are the bad things

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Speaker 1: that happen when we don't forgive?

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Speaker 2: So what's the value of it? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Or so what are the consequences for our mind and

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Speaker 1: our body if we don't forgive?

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Speaker 2: The first part is just because something is hard, at

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Speaker 2: some level, we might benefit from growing up, yes, and

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Speaker 2: not resisting everything that's hard. It's hard in part because one,

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Speaker 2: we have untrained minds which do not know how to

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Speaker 2: separate wheat from chef, between the chatter and maybe more

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Speaker 2: centered contemplative thinking. So anything that asks us to do

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Speaker 2: that is hard. Secondly, forgiveness is hard because we're acknowledging

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Speaker 2: a world where painful things can happen and that we

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Speaker 2: are vulnerable. We are absolutely vulnerable, and so instead of

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Speaker 2: opening to that vulnerability, we create this massive complex of no,

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Speaker 2: stop it, it's wrong. I can't take it all the distortions.

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Speaker 2: But it is very hard. For a human being to

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Speaker 2: admit that they can't protect themselves or their loved ones

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Speaker 2: from certain things. So that's the hard part, the forgiveness

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Speaker 2: piece of moving through it without coming at the end

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Speaker 2: with bitterness, and maybe even a story that talks about

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Speaker 2: the growth. That leads to less stress, it leads to

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Speaker 2: more hopefulness. We've shown that in our research for people

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Speaker 2: who have been really badly wounded. It leads to less depression,

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Speaker 2: it reduces pain, and that's in part because the pain

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Speaker 2: systems between emotional pain and physical pain. Once that becomes chronic,

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Speaker 2: that joined. So forgiveness is a release we stop making

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Speaker 2: our life worse.

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Speaker 1: And so you mentioned in your origin story this kind

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Speaker 1: of awful story of being betrayed, but it seems like

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Speaker 1: you also came to forgiveness more of a spiritual practice too.

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Speaker 1: You talk about being an old hippie, and so I

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Speaker 1: want to see how that fits into the forgiveness story.

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Speaker 2: I started the project, but my advisor, he was very

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Speaker 2: helpful because he had decades of contact and I was

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Speaker 2: just a graduate student. We had a discussion as to

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Speaker 2: whether we wanted to do only a secular training or

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Speaker 2: a religious training as well, because we didn't know enough.

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Speaker 2: So I went around. I started to talk to religiously

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Speaker 2: oriented people, and they were almost impossible to engage with

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Speaker 2: because they were so rigid on their religion being like

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Speaker 2: the only religion. So I would give talks a little

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Speaker 2: bit to Christian places and then say, we like what

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Speaker 2: you do. There's not enough Jesus. And I give talks

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Speaker 2: to Buddhist places and that's great, but there's not enough Buddhias.

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Speaker 2: Why are you talking about other people. I went to

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Speaker 2: yoga centers. It was like, wonderful, but yoga says this,

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Speaker 2: and you said that. So we dropped the religious thing

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Speaker 2: pretty quickly. It was like living in the United States

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Speaker 2: now between Red states and blue states, where there's such

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Speaker 2: a mistrust and such a righteousness in any way. I personally

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Speaker 2: and my mentor had a meditation practice when we started,

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Speaker 2: and a very simple spiritual belief that there's something essential

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Speaker 2: and unchanging and similar that joins everything. I don't teach

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Speaker 2: that directly, but it informs how we see things.

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Speaker 1: I found Fred's point about religion really interesting. Many religious

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Speaker 1: faiths recommend that their followers practice forgiveness, but hardly any

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Speaker 1: of us think deeply about what that act really means.

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Speaker 1: After the break, Fred will share some examples of real

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Speaker 1: world forgiveness. He'll also give us some tips on how

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Speaker 1: we can start forgiving right away. The Happiness Lab will

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Speaker 1: be right back. Doctor Fred Luskin has run workshops as

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Speaker 1: part of the Stanford Forgiveness Project for decades. He says

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Speaker 1: it takes quite a mind shift to truly understand what

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Speaker 1: forgiveness entails and the benefits it can offer us, but

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Speaker 1: he does have a few practical tips for getting there.

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Speaker 2: One is, start small practice on your own before you

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Speaker 2: do anything, like when you're in the shower, just talk.

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Speaker 2: Can I forgive them? What might that look like? What

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Speaker 2: would that mean? And Third, the best place to start

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Speaker 2: is where it really matters with people who you love

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Speaker 2: and love you, because that's the most important work you

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Speaker 2: have to do, is to build your relationships and maintain them.

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Speaker 2: And there's good research that forgiveness is at the heart

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Speaker 2: of marriage maintaining itself. Okay, that's the first stream. The

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Speaker 2: second is the practices are very easy. Probably the first

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Speaker 2: and most important practice is gratitude. If you can not

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Speaker 2: just look at what the world didn't give you, but

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Speaker 2: balance it with what the world did give you. Then

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Speaker 2: maybe you can see things more clearly. So that's one.

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Speaker 2: Second is some kind of cognitive piece. The simplest is

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Speaker 2: just to repeat to yourself the rolling stones. I can't

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Speaker 2: always get what I want. I mean that, as simple

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Speaker 2: as you can make it. I can't always get what

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Speaker 2: I want. Third is what we talked about before, simply

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Speaker 2: try out different stories. One of the ways I kept

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Speaker 2: myself miserable was telling the same story over and over

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Speaker 2: and over and over, and then you think it's like

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Speaker 2: your Moses carrying up the tablets rather than just a

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Speaker 2: cranky pain in the butt. And the fourth piece is

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Speaker 2: in understanding that forgiveness is about the past or the

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Speaker 2: grievance is about the past. Your life is in the present,

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Speaker 2: so you need to have more of your stories, your focus,

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Speaker 2: your awareness on your present and creating a future than

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Speaker 2: about what didner didn't go right in the past. Those

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Speaker 2: are four incredibly simple practices. When we combine that with

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Speaker 2: what forgiveness is and isn't, many people take that and

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Speaker 2: make improvement.

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Speaker 1: You've also talked about how forgiveness is embodied, like using

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Speaker 1: the breath to forget. Oh absolutely, So what are some

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Speaker 1: strategies we can pick up on there.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure we're in alignment with disconsidering what

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Speaker 2: you teach and what I teach. It's hard to fully

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Speaker 2: separate the mind, the body, whatever the soul is our emotions.

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Speaker 2: You know there's a brain and the guy. We don't

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Speaker 2: have accurate words to understand all the linkages, but we

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Speaker 2: know that there is a link between mind and body

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Speaker 2: and between thoughts and emotions. So the two things that

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Speaker 2: we have found really help people to forgive is to

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Speaker 2: remind them that when europeset come down or calm down,

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Speaker 2: for at least me had two pieces to it. One

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Speaker 2: is the simplest anchor in your center. Take a couple

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Speaker 2: of breadths, activate a different thing than the flight or

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Speaker 2: flight response, and learn some ability to manage your breathing.

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Speaker 2: Second is touch something positive, love or kindness, goodness, whatever,

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Speaker 2: and hold it, just hold it inside. And when when

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Speaker 2: you practice that, as your body arouses, you can counter

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Speaker 2: condition the stress response. So it's simple, but that's often

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Speaker 2: how we start. So let me tell you one story

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Speaker 2: about that. We brought men and women from Northern Ireland

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Speaker 2: who had had family members murdered in their violence. We

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Speaker 2: brought Catholics and Protestants, and they came and about I

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Speaker 2: don't know how long into it they were telling their story,

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Speaker 2: and we took a break and we brought them over

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Speaker 2: to the window at one of the buildings at Stanford

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Speaker 2: on the fifth floor. And these people, you know, they

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Speaker 2: had all had horrible things and they had just flown

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Speaker 2: in from Belfast. And what we had them do is

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Speaker 2: open their arms, pulled over the windows, open and said,

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Speaker 2: feel the sun's rays and welcome it. Welcome that warmth,

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Speaker 2: welcome it. Open to yourself to it, and just recognize

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Speaker 2: that you can do this at any time. And when

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Speaker 2: you do that, your nervous system quiets and in gentles

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Speaker 2: and you're not the same aggrieved person. It's a body

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Speaker 2: experience too.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned your experience in the Origin story about feeling betrayed.

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Speaker 1: During that period of feeling betrayed, what was going on

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Speaker 1: for you physically mentally? You talked about how your wife

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Speaker 1: are noticing asshole.

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Speaker 2: I would like rope in people from the street and

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Speaker 2: say you wouldn't believe what this jerk did, always talking

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Speaker 2: about how bad he was. Regularly. I sat my wife

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Speaker 2: down and said, you wouldn't believe what this jerk did.

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Speaker 2: Poor me. She would tell me things about how life

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Speaker 2: is not that bad. I would rebuck them. I took

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Speaker 2: my friends that were loyal and took them for granted.

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Speaker 2: I would go into places of beauty and miss it.

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Speaker 2: So those actions created in me a sense of alienation,

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Speaker 2: a inability to experience that much joy, and demanded of

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Speaker 2: my wife and my friends who could still tolerate me

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Speaker 2: great forbearance.

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Speaker 1: And I think everybody who's listening right now can relate

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Speaker 1: a little bit right because when you're in your own

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Speaker 1: head and you're feeling so aggrieved, you don't treat the

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Speaker 1: people around you very well.

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Speaker 2: Do you know. One of the reasons that I could

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Speaker 2: do this was when I started teaching forgiveness. And at

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Speaker 2: that point there were maybe three studies in the field,

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Speaker 2: so it barely existed. I could sit with people who

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Speaker 2: had the most awful things happened to them. I couldn't

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Speaker 2: relate to what had happened, but I could relate to

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Speaker 2: the suffering that they were causing themselves, and that empathy

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Speaker 2: and whatever. That's how the Forgiveness project flourished because I

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Speaker 2: wasn't interested in the content, like I knew that there

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Speaker 2: was so many ways that people can be hurt, but

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Speaker 2: the content wasn't the issue. What I saw was the

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Speaker 2: process because I had done it myself. So I was

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Speaker 2: like one of the sponsors in AA where I knew

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Speaker 2: every piece of bullshit that people would put out. I

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Speaker 2: knew every crevice of denial and lying and self absorption.

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Speaker 2: I had been to everyone and milked it for all

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Speaker 2: it was worth. That's where my empathy and that's where

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Speaker 2: my strength came in.

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Speaker 1: And so what's on the other side you can get

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Speaker 1: to forgiveness? What's the opposite of being an asshole? For

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Speaker 1: you and maybe for everyone you've taught to forget it?

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Speaker 2: If I can do it, they can do it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: No, just like what emotions are on the other side

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Speaker 1: of getting past it.

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Speaker 2: Whether emotions are on the other sign, They're not just emotions.

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Speaker 2: There's cognitions with the emotions. The biggest is efficacy is

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Speaker 2: a sense of peace on the one side and less

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Speaker 2: fear on the other because I no longer was so

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Speaker 2: frightened about what people could do to me. I recognized

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Speaker 2: that I had been through a crucible and I had

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Speaker 2: come out the other side. So there was less fear

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Speaker 2: and more peace. But there was also a cognitive thing

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Speaker 2: a friend. You can do this so you don't have

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Speaker 2: to run away from people. I had developed mistrust and

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Speaker 2: bitterness with Fred. You don't need that so much because

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Speaker 2: you're not so weak. The second was a deeper appreciation

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Speaker 2: for what was good because once you've handled what is

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Speaker 2: a for me at that time, a devastating wound. This

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Speaker 2: was my closest friend, almost a brother. I mean, good

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Speaker 2: news is we're the best of friends again. One hundred

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Speaker 2: percent forgiveness, one hundred percent reconciliation. It's now water under

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Speaker 2: the bridge. It means nothing. There's not a ripple of anything.

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Speaker 2: But it took quite a bit to get there. But

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Speaker 2: I became more thankful and more appreciative of when people

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Speaker 2: do good to me. But I realized that that was

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Speaker 2: what forgiveness facilitated, because I could now respond to all

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Speaker 2: that was there that my wound had obscured. So the

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Speaker 2: metaphor created for that was a grievance. Was like in

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Speaker 2: eclipse of the sun. So you have the sun it's shining.

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Speaker 2: All of a sudden, I put my friend there. There's

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Speaker 2: no sunshine anymore. I blame my friend. Even though the

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Speaker 2: sun didn't go anywhere. All I have to do is

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Speaker 2: walk a mile and the sun's there. That's how I

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Speaker 2: defined what forgiveness is. You take your clips away, you

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Speaker 2: move away, and the sun never went anywhere. So the

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Speaker 2: beauty never went anywhere, the love never went anywhere. All

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Speaker 2: the world's goodness still intact, but you can see it again.

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Speaker 1: I absolutely love Fred's metaphor here that forgiveness can give

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Speaker 1: you the opportunity to see all the hidden warmth and

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Speaker 1: beauty that never really went anywhere. But what does it

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Speaker 1: really look like to find that warmth and beauty in practice?

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Speaker 1: To find out, We'll turn to the Happiness Lab archives

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Speaker 1: and one of my favorite stories of just how tough

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Speaker 1: and rewarding true forgiveness can be. You'll get a chance

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Speaker 1: to rehear that powerful story when the Happiness Lab returns

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Speaker 1: from the break.

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Speaker 3: I can hear you. Yeah, that sounds good.

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Speaker 1: This is my Yale colleague Miroslav Wolf, so.

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Speaker 3: I think we are on we are recording.

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Speaker 1: Miroslav is a theologian at the Yale Divinity School and

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Speaker 1: the author of Free of Charge, Giving and Forgiving in

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Speaker 1: a Culture Strip of Grace. Miroslav joined me on the

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Speaker 1: Happiness Lab a few years ago for an episode on

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Speaker 1: the power of forgiveness and his experience growing up in

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Speaker 1: the former socialist federal republic like Yugoslavia. I still find

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Speaker 1: myself regularly thinking back to his family story. So in

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Speaker 1: the spirit of our new spring cleaning season, I decided

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Speaker 1: to pull out his interview from deep in the Happiness

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Speaker 1: Lab closets and we share this whole family tale of

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Speaker 1: both awful tragedy and the healing power of forgiveness.

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Speaker 3: My older brother was five at that time, was one

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Speaker 3: of the liveliest kids in the neighborhood. He loved to

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Speaker 3: connect with people, and in the vicinity of where we lived,

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Speaker 3: the soldiers were stationed, and he befriended those soldiers. They

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Speaker 3: loved him. They were his soldiers, and he was so

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Speaker 3: proud of them. And often what would happen is that

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Speaker 3: they would play with him. And at one point they

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Speaker 3: took him driving in the coarse drone carriage who have

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Speaker 3: a ride with them, And as they were driving under

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Speaker 3: a door post, his head got stuck between the door

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Speaker 3: posts and that that priage. My father carried him for

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Speaker 3: about fifteen twenty minutes, ran with him to the nearby

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Speaker 3: ambulance and by the time they arrived he had died.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it was awful, but what was

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Speaker 1: that moment like for your family?

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Speaker 3: A kind of utter devastation. Obviously, especially for my mother,

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Speaker 3: they were the kind of sense of almost a rage

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Speaker 3: about what had occurred. And I think one of the

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Speaker 3: most significant things that happened in that story is that

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Speaker 3: after my brother was killed, both my mother and my father,

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Speaker 3: independently of each other, decided to forgive the soldier. They

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Speaker 3: sought also the soldier and to talk to him so

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Speaker 3: that it doesn't remain simply something that happened within their

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Speaker 3: own selves, but became a gifted that they offered to him.

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Speaker 3: It was most incredibly freeing for them at the same time,

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Speaker 3: especially for my mother, to transcend the inner rage, to

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Speaker 3: transcend this deep sorrow that ripped her. It was one

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Speaker 3: of the most difficult things that she had done.

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Speaker 1: One of the biggest insights I remember from my initial

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Speaker 1: conversation with Miroslav was the way his family's experiences helped

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Speaker 1: him to fully rethink the way he defined the act

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Speaker 1: of forgiveness.

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Speaker 3: Forgiveness has a structure of a gift. Somebody gives something

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Speaker 3: to somebody else. Now the one who gives is the

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Speaker 3: one who has been injured. In this case, the one

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Speaker 3: who receives is the injurer. And what one gives is forgiveness,

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Speaker 3: and the content of forgiveness is not counting the wrongdoing

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Speaker 3: that a person has committed against them. You can put

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Speaker 3: it this way, to unstick the deed from the door.

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Speaker 3: That's what forgiveness does. Forgiveness is this very arduous process,

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Speaker 3: at the end of which there is a sense of release,

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Speaker 3: release from the burden of the internal turmoil, a sense

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Speaker 3: of having done something that deep down within us many

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Speaker 3: of us feel is the right thing to do, but

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Speaker 3: that it is very difficult to do, a kind of

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Speaker 3: release into new possibilities for the future that precisely this

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Speaker 3: wrongdoing has robbed us from. I mean, if I think

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Speaker 3: of my mother's example, it turns us completely backward. We

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Speaker 3: are fascinated, we are captured. We are held captive by

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Speaker 3: that which has happened in the past. We returned back

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Speaker 3: to it, and pretty soon we start living our lives

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Speaker 3: in such a way that we look not ahead but

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Speaker 3: through rear view mirror, so that this kind of colonization

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Speaker 3: of our present, end of our future by the past

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Speaker 3: is a very troubling and difficult experience, and I think

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Speaker 3: one of the things that forgiveness does it makes it

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Speaker 3: possible for us to open and have wide horizon and

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Speaker 3: not always look into the future filtered through the past.

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Speaker 3: Life becomes better when we are able to forgive, when

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Speaker 3: we are able to transcend preoccupation with the self, which

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Speaker 3: injury often understandably causes. And so this moment of self transcendence,

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Speaker 3: of transcendence of the self that has been injured and

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Speaker 3: growing into something that is beyond that which the injured

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Speaker 3: self is, is a therapeutic as an act itself, and

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Speaker 3: it has this important positive consequences for the rest of

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Speaker 3: our lives.

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Speaker 1: And so talk about how that's helped your family heal

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Speaker 1: after your brother's death.

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Speaker 3: Well, for my mother in particular, but for both of

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Speaker 3: mine parents, there was a sense of being able to

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Speaker 3: turn from the injury to the life it's bits being lived.

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Speaker 3: And very early in the experience, she was mourning, and

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Speaker 3: mourning of course closed her within her own world, nothing

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Speaker 3: else matter than the loss that she had just suffered.

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Speaker 3: But at the same time she had two kids who

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Speaker 3: needed her attention, and forgiveness made it possible for her

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Speaker 3: to shift and to recognize the good which was around her,

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Speaker 3: to invest herself into the good which was around her,

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Speaker 3: you know. And in some ways this is really a

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Speaker 3: strange and a little bit burdensome to think of it

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Speaker 3: that way. That I, who was then one years old

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Speaker 3: when that occurred, I have probably benefited from the attention

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Speaker 3: that was given to me, both by my nanny and

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Speaker 3: by my other after my brother's death. But it was

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Speaker 3: for her release into the future, giving of the hope

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Speaker 3: and possibility to invest herself in something that matters and

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Speaker 3: that affirms the good. But her experience and my experience

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Speaker 3: and my study of forgiveness always says that it forgiveness

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Speaker 3: isn't one time event. You forgive and then you start

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Speaker 3: moving forward. You always return to it. You forgive, and

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Speaker 3: then you take back what you have forgiven at moments,

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Speaker 3: and then you forgive again. You forgive some parts of it,

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Speaker 3: but not the whole of it. It's a messy process

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Speaker 3: of forgiveness, and if we're not happy with the messiness

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Speaker 3: of it, we want to have it clean. We probably

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Speaker 3: won't ever get to forgiveness. And it's in this messiness,

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Speaker 3: in this gradual character of forgiveness, that we actually grow

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Speaker 3: into forgiveness, and forgiveness ends up not being so much

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Speaker 3: an act as it ends up being a practice.

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Speaker 1: What an important insight. Like so many of the other

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Speaker 1: happiness strategies we talk about in this show, forgiveness is

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Speaker 1: a practice, a skill that we can build up over

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Speaker 1: time if we're willing to put the work in. But

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Speaker 1: as you've heard from our two guests today, the benefits

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Speaker 1: of airing out all our leftover aggrievances are much more

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Speaker 1: powerful than we usually expect. Let's face it, we're all

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Speaker 1: going to get hurt by somebody at some point, but

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Speaker 1: we only make that hurt worse when we hold onto

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Speaker 1: our pain, letting grudges blot out all the good things

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Speaker 1: we still have in life. So this springtime, why not

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Speaker 1: take a look at the grievances big and small that

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Speaker 1: might be sitting there in the back of your emotional closet.

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Speaker 1: Why not ask yourself how much lighter you'd feel if

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Speaker 1: you cleared out all that unnecessary junk suffering. Why not

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Speaker 1: give yourself the gift of forgiveness. In our next episode

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Speaker 1: in this new season on Spring Cleaning your well Being,

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Speaker 1: we'll turn back again to the Happiness Lab archive. We'll

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Speaker 1: get some throwback insights about six sucessful strategies for clearing

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Speaker 1: out our bad habits, and we'll here's some evidence based

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Speaker 1: tips to make new space for the healthier kinds of

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Speaker 1: goals that we all want to pursue.

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Speaker 4: When you observe people when they are being effective at

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Speaker 4: controlling their behavior and doing the right thing, they're not

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Speaker 4: exerting willpower. What people do is they set up the

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Speaker 4: situations around them to make it easy to repeat the

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Speaker 4: desired behavior. We don't realize how much of that we

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Speaker 4: really could harness if we just knew how it worked.

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Speaker 1: That's all next time in our special spring cleaning season

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Speaker 1: of the Happiness Lab with meet doctor Laurie Santos