Speaker 1: Pushkin. Whenever I get sideswiped by events in life that suck,
Speaker 1: if I get sick, or get a dent in my car,
Speaker 1: or lose my keys, I try to remember the Stoics,
Speaker 1: the ancient philosophers who taught that we shouldn't just surrender
Speaker 1: to ill fortune. We should embrace the setbacks of life
Speaker 1: and feel pride in our ability to cheerfully bounce back.
Speaker 1: But sometimes that isn't so easy, especially when the tragedy
Speaker 1: that befalls you is the fault of another person. When
Speaker 1: people around us cause us hurt, it's hard not to
Speaker 1: become fixated on them and their active wrongdoing. We might
Speaker 1: feel affronted, angry, or even betrayed. We almost certainly will
Speaker 1: want justice or that person to pay some price or
Speaker 1: make amends for what they've done to us. But in
Speaker 1: most situations you'll face at home, at school, or in
Speaker 1: the workplace that justice usually won't come, So we can
Speaker 1: end up carrying the negative emotions we ruminate over our injury.
Speaker 1: We stay angry with the perpetrator and even risk letting
Speaker 1: the situation poison our closest relationships with grudges and fugues.
Speaker 1: And if you're thinking that none of this sounds like
Speaker 1: a recipe for a happier life, then you're right. The science,
Speaker 1: unsurprisingly suggests that carrying all these feelings around has a
Speaker 1: negative impact on your physical and mental well being. But
Speaker 1: there is something within your power that you can do
Speaker 1: to fix things. And it's a practice described and explored
Speaker 1: again and again in one ancient religious tradition, Christianity. That
Speaker 1: hard but ever so effective strategy You can forgive. Welcome
Speaker 1: once again to happiness Lessons of the Ancients with me,
Speaker 1: doctor Laurie Santos, I can hear you. Yeah, that sounds good.
Speaker 1: This is my colleague Mirest. Love Wolf, so I think
Speaker 1: we are on. We are recording. He's a theologian at
Speaker 1: the Yale Divi School and the author of Free of Charge,
Speaker 1: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Greece. His
Speaker 1: understanding of what it means to forgive is detailed and academic,
Speaker 1: but it also springs from a real world sorrow. I
Speaker 1: think one of the first plays that I have encountered
Speaker 1: forgiveness was my own home. It was a powerful encounter
Speaker 1: because it was interwoven into the story of our family.
Speaker 1: My older brother, who was five at that time, was
Speaker 1: one of the liveliest kids in the neighborhood. He loved
Speaker 1: to connect with people, and in the vicinity of where
Speaker 1: we lived, the soldiers were stationed, and he befriended those soldiers.
Speaker 1: They loved him, they were his soldiers, and he was
Speaker 1: so proud of them, and often what would happen is
Speaker 1: that they would play with him. And at one point
Speaker 1: they took him driving in the course drawn carriage to
Speaker 1: have a ride with them, and as they were driving
Speaker 1: under a doorpost, his head got stuck between the doorpost
Speaker 1: and that that carriage. My father carried him for about
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty minutes, ran with him to the nearby ambulance,
Speaker 1: and by the time they arrived he had died. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was awful, But what was that moment
Speaker 1: like for your family? A kind of utter devastation, obviously,
Speaker 1: especially for my mother. They were the kind of sense
Speaker 1: of almost a rage about what had occurred. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the most significant things that happened in
Speaker 1: that story is that after my brother was killed, both
Speaker 1: my mother and my father, independently of each other, decided
Speaker 1: to forgive the soldier. They sought also the soldier and
Speaker 1: to talk to him, so that it doesn't remain simply
Speaker 1: something that happened within their own selves, but became a
Speaker 1: gifted that they offered to him, and it was both
Speaker 1: incredibly free for them. At the same time, especially for
Speaker 1: my mother, it was one of the most difficult things
Speaker 1: that she had done to transcend the inner rage, to
Speaker 1: transcend these deep sorrow that ripped her. And when she
Speaker 1: describes that forgiveness was, she would forgive, and then she
Speaker 1: would take the forgiveness back, especially at night when the
Speaker 1: demons come. She would think, why would I want to forgive?
Speaker 1: I cannot forgive, demanding some kind of revenge. And yet
Speaker 1: at the same time she put it to herself a
Speaker 1: text from the Bible, one of the epistles of the
Speaker 1: apostle Paul, who says, forgive one another as you have
Speaker 1: been forgiven in Christ. It is this what God has
Speaker 1: done for her that she felt that she needed to
Speaker 1: display in relationship to others. In other words, she was
Speaker 1: trying to align her character with the beauty of God's characters.
Speaker 1: And this struggle between wanting revenge even and feeling the
Speaker 1: need to leave worthy of what she thought was appropriate
Speaker 1: to her very humanity. That was the inner struggle which
Speaker 1: was there, and of course for a long time that
Speaker 1: sorrow state. Then for me, then the forgiveness became this
Speaker 1: jewel that is very difficult to achieve, but when you do,
Speaker 1: then you have something beautiful. And so your parents are
Speaker 1: really inspired by this idea of forgiveness in Christian thought.
Speaker 1: So like, there are a lot of threads in Christianity,
Speaker 1: but it feels like forgiveness is a really fundamental one
Speaker 1: that runs through a lot of Christian thought. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's a it's a very important one, and I
Speaker 1: think the reason why it is important is that for
Speaker 1: very early in Christianity, for Jesus himself, the love of
Speaker 1: enemy was a kind of fundamental Christian stands. But how
Speaker 1: does one love wrong door? What does it mean to
Speaker 1: love the wrong door? One forgives? And there is a
Speaker 1: saying of Jesus when he's asked how many times should
Speaker 1: I forgive? Seven times? And Jesus basically responds seventy times seven,
Speaker 1: So to say, the infinite number of times is the
Speaker 1: number of times you should forgive, which is to say,
Speaker 1: the stands is really a fundamental one, irrespective in fact
Speaker 1: of what the other person does in response or toward me.
Speaker 1: As I offer the forgiveness, because I think many of
Speaker 1: us get this idea wrong, or at least wrong relative
Speaker 1: to what Jesus meant by this? Can it give me
Speaker 1: a definition of forgiveness as is thought about in Christian thought?
Speaker 1: So maybe a good way to do that is to
Speaker 1: contrast it with what seems to be in popular culture,
Speaker 1: but also in some philosophical literature prevalent way to understand
Speaker 1: forgiveness and forgiveness. There seems to be a way in
Speaker 1: which to deal with one's own turbulent emotions and with
Speaker 1: resentment that one feels primarily motivated by the desire to
Speaker 1: be able, not to have one's life weighed by the
Speaker 1: injury one has suffered, but so that one can live
Speaker 1: it freed from the burden of it in some sense.
Speaker 1: And I think whereas in a Christian tradition this is
Speaker 1: a very important consequence of forgiveness, but forgiveness itself is
Speaker 1: something else, and I have described it in the following way.
Speaker 1: Forgiveness has a structure of a gift. Somebody gives something
Speaker 1: to somebody else. The one who gives is the one
Speaker 1: who has been injured. In this case, the one who
Speaker 1: receives is the injurer, and what one gives is forgiveness,
Speaker 1: and the content of forgiveness is not counting the wrongdoing
Speaker 1: that a person has committed against them. You can put
Speaker 1: it this way, to unstick the deed from the door.
Speaker 1: That's what forgiveness does. When we think about forgiveness. It's
Speaker 1: also easy to get forgiveness wrong. So I kind of
Speaker 1: want to walk through what forgiveness isn't because I think
Speaker 1: sometimes people think forgiveness is about making everything okay or
Speaker 1: saying that the action was all right, or not going
Speaker 1: for justice. So talk about some of these misconceptions we
Speaker 1: have about forgiveness. There are situations in which we say
Speaker 1: it's okay, doesn't matter, you know, somebody bumps into me
Speaker 1: and there's nothing to forgive. Really, right, it's simply to say,
Speaker 1: recognize it's okay, no problem. Forgiveness comes in play when
Speaker 1: the injury is much more significant by the way. Nietzsche
Speaker 1: was against forgiveness precisely because he thought that all wrongdoings
Speaker 1: be treated in the way in which what I've described
Speaker 1: now as a person gumping into somebody, because aristocratic nature
Speaker 1: should be such, the date are not affected by a
Speaker 1: wrongdoing in the Christian tradition, the recognition that the wrongdoing
Speaker 1: has occurred is fundamental to forgiveness, and it's in these
Speaker 1: kinds of situation that forgiveness is necessary. And the reason
Speaker 1: why it's necessary is because the wrong cannot be simply disregarded.
Speaker 1: Injustice has occurred, and somehow that injustice has to be
Speaker 1: taken care of. But the problem, which is what Hannah
Speaker 1: aren't emphasized, especially in the context of her comment that
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ is the one who introduced forgiveness into interpersonal
Speaker 1: and public affairs. The reason we need forgiveness rather than
Speaker 1: simply deployment of justice, is that time does not run backwards.
Speaker 1: The done deed cannot be undone. It stays there and
Speaker 1: it qualifies duer. And the question then becomes, how does
Speaker 1: it stop qualifying the duer and qualifying the relationship that
Speaker 1: I have to the duor. And that's this idea. I
Speaker 1: use the term a little bit earlier, kind of ungluing,
Speaker 1: unsticking the deed from the door, so that the door
Speaker 1: and the deeds do not merge, and so the person
Speaker 1: can be freed from that deed. That I think happens
Speaker 1: through the gift of forgiveness. I simply say, I don't
Speaker 1: count it against you. I relate to you as if
Speaker 1: you had not done that particular wrong, unsticking the deed
Speaker 1: from the door. But like that, forgiveness sounds easy, But
Speaker 1: like many of the practices we discuss on the Happiness Lab,
Speaker 1: it's not something that comes naturally to many of us.
Speaker 1: Our lying minds often tell us that it won't feel
Speaker 1: so great to forgive. So after the break we'll explore
Speaker 1: this misconception and hear about the surprising benefits we experience
Speaker 1: by forgiving others the Happiness Lab We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Theologian mirrors lab Bolth describes forgiveness as a gift that
Speaker 1: we can give to others, and the Happiness Science says
Speaker 1: that all forms of gift giving can improve our well being,
Speaker 1: often more than we expect. But that's not to compare
Speaker 1: the act of forgiveness to mailing somebody a scarf or
Speaker 1: buying them a coffee or something. Forgiveness takes a lot
Speaker 1: of thought and a lot of hard work. Forgiveness is
Speaker 1: this very arduous process, at the end of which there
Speaker 1: is a sense of release, release from the burden of
Speaker 1: the internal turmoil, a sense of having done something that
Speaker 1: deep down within us many of us feel is right
Speaker 1: thing to do, but that it is very difficult to do,
Speaker 1: a kind of release into new possibilities for the future
Speaker 1: that precisely this wrongdoing has robbed us from. If I
Speaker 1: think of my mother's example, it turns us completely backward.
Speaker 1: We are fascinated, we are captured. We are held captive
Speaker 1: by that which has happened in the past. We returned
Speaker 1: back to it, and pretty soon we'd start living our
Speaker 1: lives in such a way that we look not ahead
Speaker 1: but through rear view mirror, so that this kind of
Speaker 1: colonization of our present, end of our future by the
Speaker 1: past is a very troubling and difficult experience. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that forgiveness does it makes
Speaker 1: it possible for us to open and have wide horizon
Speaker 1: and not always look into the future filtered through the path.
Speaker 1: It seems like another thing forgiveness gives us is that
Speaker 1: it can help us heal really ships that are hurting. Right,
Speaker 1: So talk a little bit about how forgiveness can give
Speaker 1: us back social connection. Yeah, And often where we need
Speaker 1: to practice the most forgiveness is when we cannot exit
Speaker 1: from relationships as long as we can exit relationships, we
Speaker 1: can remove ourselves in a to certain extent, we can
Speaker 1: isolate ourselves from what has happened. Maybe we go back
Speaker 1: in our imagination, but nonetheless we're not encountering the person
Speaker 1: or living in the proximity of that person. But especially
Speaker 1: when we need to heal relationships, this is essential work
Speaker 1: that forgiveness does. And that's why, by the way, I
Speaker 1: think that it's important to construe and understand forgiveness not
Speaker 1: simply as dealing with my own internal turmoil, but also
Speaker 1: reconfiguring relationship that I have to somebody else. That's the idea.
Speaker 1: I give the gift of forgiveness, and what I give
Speaker 1: that person is a possibility, not yet actuality, but the
Speaker 1: possibility to open up a way in which the two
Speaker 1: of us, if it's interpersonal relationship, which two of us
Speaker 1: can have a future together. Forgiveness is the first step
Speaker 1: toward reconstituting a relationship, or you can say it's a
Speaker 1: second step. First step might be repentance on the part
Speaker 1: of the person who has done us wrong. But this
Speaker 1: nexus of forgiveness and repentance is a way in which
Speaker 1: we can imagine and live into a joint future. And
Speaker 1: the second way forgiveness seems to boost our happiness is
Speaker 1: through something we talk about a lot on the Happiness
Speaker 1: lab which is that, as you mentioned, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a gift, right. You know, there's so much evidence that
Speaker 1: the act of doing for others improves our happiness than
Speaker 1: doing for ourselves. You know, even the act of spending
Speaker 1: money on other people improves our happiness more than spending
Speaker 1: money on ourselves. And in some ways, as you've talked about,
Speaker 1: forgiveness can really be the ultimate gift to the person
Speaker 1: who's done us wrong. Yeah, that's very interesting that you
Speaker 1: connected to and I think you're exactly right that this
Speaker 1: kind of a gift of forgiveness. Forgiveness cannot be forced.
Speaker 1: If it's forced, it isn't really forgiveness. So it's a
Speaker 1: voluntary act that establishes us. Often i'm asked, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't Christian tradition doesn't Jesus us too much of
Speaker 1: the victims. And the idea is, now the person who
Speaker 1: has suffered wrong also needs to bear a burden of
Speaker 1: somehow repairing the relationship with this stress unforgiveness, And my
Speaker 1: response is we shouldn't think of forgiveness so much as
Speaker 1: the burden, and nobody can truly forgive until they come
Speaker 1: to the point where they can give that gift. But
Speaker 1: many actually do give that gift. And it's an amazing thing,
Speaker 1: right when you think about it, that many who have
Speaker 1: been violated sometimes in their deep ways, are willing to
Speaker 1: forgive and find in that gift that they give strength
Speaker 1: and the beauty. I think of character, and I think
Speaker 1: that in some ways giving the gift to other people
Speaker 1: is also an act of giving ourselves a gift. I
Speaker 1: mean that's where the science comes in, and it's really
Speaker 1: quite remarkable. I mean, the research suggests that forgiveness has
Speaker 1: huge effects both on our physical health and on our
Speaker 1: mental health. So you know, physically there's evidence for reductions
Speaker 1: and things like cardiac stress. You get better sleep once
Speaker 1: you've forgiven. You can even see improvements in immune function
Speaker 1: and less fatigue. And then mentally there's evidence for decreases
Speaker 1: in depression and emotions like anger, increases in good emotions
Speaker 1: like hope and compassion and self confidence. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a gift to the other person, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: a gift that, you know, like doing other acts of giving,
Speaker 1: as we've seen on the happiness lab can really improve
Speaker 1: your happiness, you know, the happiness for the giver too. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: when forgiven us happens, it's not zero sum game. In fact,
Speaker 1: by giving a gift, one enhances oneself in many different domains.
Speaker 1: Life becomes better when we are able to forgive, when
Speaker 1: we are able to transcend preoccupation with the self, which
Speaker 1: injury often understandably causes. And so this moment of self transcendence,
Speaker 1: of transcendence of the self that has been injured and
Speaker 1: growing into something that is beyond that which the injured
Speaker 1: self is, is a therapeutic as an act itself, and
Speaker 1: it has these important positive consequences for the rest of
Speaker 1: our lives. And so talk about how that's helped your
Speaker 1: family heal after your brother's death. For my mother in particular,
Speaker 1: but for both of my parents, there was a sense
Speaker 1: of being able to turn from the injury to the
Speaker 1: life as bits being lived. And very early in the
Speaker 1: experience she was mourning, and mourning of course, closed her
Speaker 1: within her own world nothing else mattered than the loss
Speaker 1: that she had just suffered. But at the same time
Speaker 1: she had two kids who needed her attention, and forgiveness
Speaker 1: made it possible for her to shift and to recognize
Speaker 1: the good which was around her, to invest herself into
Speaker 1: the good which was around her, you know. And in
Speaker 1: some ways this is this is really a strange and
Speaker 1: a little bit burdensome to think of it that way.
Speaker 1: That I, who was then one years old when that occurred,
Speaker 1: I have probably benefited from the attention that was given
Speaker 1: to me both by my nanny and by my mother
Speaker 1: after my brother's death. But it was for her release
Speaker 1: into the future, giving of the hope and possibility to
Speaker 1: invest herself in something that matters and that affirms the good.
Speaker 1: Did she actually have moments to like literally express her
Speaker 1: forgiveness to the soldiers themselves? Like was there kind of
Speaker 1: a direct expression of forgiveness in that case? She did not,
Speaker 1: but my father did. The soul was soon released from
Speaker 1: the unit, and my father actually traveled about half a
Speaker 1: day's journey at that time in order to meet him
Speaker 1: in person and in order to tell him that both
Speaker 1: he and my mother forgive him. And it was really
Speaker 1: important for my father to kind of bear witness. He
Speaker 1: felt that's going to bring a release to their soldier himself,
Speaker 1: and he was completely devastated. The soldier was clearly deeply remorseful,
Speaker 1: and when my father spoke to him, he experienced also
Speaker 1: kind of a release. I'm sure it stayed with him
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. But life on both sides
Speaker 1: received new growth and new green leaves started sprouting on
Speaker 1: the tree of both of those lives. And so it
Speaker 1: seems like forgiveness is obviously good for the person who
Speaker 1: needs to be forgiven. It seems like it's fantastic for
Speaker 1: the physical and mental health of the person who forgives.
Speaker 1: But it's also really hard, and so I want to
Speaker 1: help us. You know, how can we get towards forgiveness?
Speaker 1: You know, what are practical steps that we can take
Speaker 1: to achieve forgiveness even though it's really hard. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting how it happened in my mother's and father's case.
Speaker 1: And obviously it happened part of that way because they're
Speaker 1: part of a religious tradition. They had to invoke command
Speaker 1: from the biblical text. Obviously there had to be some
Speaker 1: kind of a willingness to go that route. But they
Speaker 1: both quoted to themselves the same scriptural text that kind
Speaker 1: of nudged them, that propelled them, that justified this action
Speaker 1: that they were willing to undertake, and that indicates that
Speaker 1: it's a it's a difficult thing to do, and religious tradition,
Speaker 1: in this case Christian tradition, that's one of the key
Speaker 1: things that it commands. That's the same move in that direction,
Speaker 1: you will be given strength actually to forgive. But I
Speaker 1: think even more than that. So that's the forgiveness at
Speaker 1: the beginning. But her experience and my experience and my
Speaker 1: study of forgiveness always says that forgiveness isn't one time event.
Speaker 1: You forgive and then you start moving forward. You always
Speaker 1: return to it. You forgive, and then you take back
Speaker 1: what you have forgiven at moments, and then you forgive again.
Speaker 1: You forgive some parts of it, but not the whole
Speaker 1: of it. It's a messy process of forgiveness, and if
Speaker 1: we are not happy with the messiness of it, we
Speaker 1: want to have it clean. We probably won't ever get
Speaker 1: to forgiveness. And it's in this messiness, in this gradual
Speaker 1: character of forgiveness, that we actually grow into forgiveness. And
Speaker 1: forgiveness ends up not being so much an act as
Speaker 1: it ends up being a practice. And I think that's
Speaker 1: very important to emphasize, especially for those who would want
Speaker 1: some kind of a purity and forgiveness. If you want
Speaker 1: pure in forgiveness, then you would have to agree on
Speaker 1: what exactly was the wrong that was committed, what exactly
Speaker 1: was the apportioning of the faults on both sides, or
Speaker 1: maybe of one side, and that kind of agreement, that
Speaker 1: kind of alignment rarely occurs. And so I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that is emphasized also in the Christian
Speaker 1: tradition is kind of to live with the provisionality of it,
Speaker 1: that the good that is there, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: there in a broken way is notetheless the good that's
Speaker 1: worth pursuing. And so you've got initial motivation, but you've
Speaker 1: got accompaniment of a practice that you inculcate without expecting
Speaker 1: that would be perfect. And obviously practice is carried by
Speaker 1: the grand story of the Christian faith. This is a
Speaker 1: story about God who forgives. This is a story in
Speaker 1: Luke's Gospel. It's very interestingly illustrated with the story of
Speaker 1: the prodigal son. Prodigal son leaves the home, squanders the
Speaker 1: inheritance that he is taken with him, returns back, and
Speaker 1: upon return back, it doesn't even get to the point
Speaker 1: of asking his father to forgive him. Father runs to
Speaker 1: him and embraces him. Now that's the story that governs
Speaker 1: that the entirety logic of the Christian tradition. If you
Speaker 1: tell yourself this story, then you'll suddenly realize, Ah, this
Speaker 1: is the kind of character that I've got to imitate
Speaker 1: and becomes a part of one's own practice. And I
Speaker 1: love that you brought up this idea that you know,
Speaker 1: forgiveness isn't perfect, that it comes a bit by bit,
Speaker 1: and that it can be really messy because you know,
Speaker 1: if it's with another of the things we need to
Speaker 1: do when we take on this idea of forgiveness, which
Speaker 1: is to forgive ourselves, right, you know, we're not going
Speaker 1: to be perfect and sometimes we're going to need some
Speaker 1: help and some grace too, Right. Yeah, No, I think
Speaker 1: that that's right. I think one of the most difficult
Speaker 1: things in my experience speaking engagements about forgiveness is people
Speaker 1: have hard time forgiving themselves. There's this opportunity today they've missed,
Speaker 1: or there's this thing that they've done and it has
Speaker 1: changed lives of others, changed their own lives. How do
Speaker 1: I forgive myself? And to me, it's a very important question.
Speaker 1: You mean, you asked the question about how does practically
Speaker 1: forgiveness work, And in some ways a theoretical side of
Speaker 1: it is really important. And here's what I mean by that.
Speaker 1: To forgive myself, I somehow have to distinguish between who
Speaker 1: the core of myself is and what I have done.
Speaker 1: I cannot have an account of the self that is
Speaker 1: simply some of what I have suffered and what I
Speaker 1: have committed. If I have that kind of account of
Speaker 1: the self, there's no way to delete that from the self,
Speaker 1: because that is integral. My wrongdoing is integral to myself.
Speaker 1: But in the in the Christian tradition, it has always
Speaker 1: been other traditions as well. To significant degree, it's always
Speaker 1: been there's always been a sense that there's a kind
Speaker 1: of core of the self that is loved by God
Speaker 1: and that we ought to love in each other that
Speaker 1: is untouched by anything what that person might or might
Speaker 1: not have done, or what that person has suffered. And
Speaker 1: I sometimes illustrated in this way. You know, when my
Speaker 1: son was I think four years old or something like that,
Speaker 1: we were driving once to see my sister. He's kind
Speaker 1: of bored in the sitting back in the in the car,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to entertain him. I told him the
Speaker 1: story Metamorphosis, which was what I saw in the night
Speaker 1: before in theater, and I described a little bit metamorphosis.
Speaker 1: And then I come to this idea of Lucius trying
Speaker 1: to transform himself into a bird by imitating certain forms
Speaker 1: of incantations and he ends up looking like a donkey.
Speaker 1: And Nathaniel is listening to this, and he says to me, Daddy,
Speaker 1: would you love me if I became a donkey? You know,
Speaker 1: at first I was stunned by this question, but immediately,
Speaker 1: of course, of course, and no matter what happens to you,
Speaker 1: you're mine, no matter what you turn into. And I
Speaker 1: felt this is a really profoundly important intuition about what
Speaker 1: love is. What forgiveness also is it differentiates between the
Speaker 1: core self and the donkeyness that we might turn and
Speaker 1: become by what we do and what others do to us.
Speaker 1: And so do you think we'd be happier as a
Speaker 1: culture if we forgave more? It feels like in some
Speaker 1: ways forgiveness is something that's that's not getting better in
Speaker 1: our culture. In some ways it's getting harder and getting worse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it is getting worse, and it would be
Speaker 1: very interesting to ask reasons why that is the case.
Speaker 1: I think that there is no happy, successful You can
Speaker 1: say beautiful interpersonal relationship without forgiveness, without just what I've described,
Speaker 1: without this sense. This person with whom I live, with
Speaker 1: whom I interact, there's something sacred about them. There's something
Speaker 1: that's part and parcel of who they are, and it's
Speaker 1: unchangeable and that I need to love and hold in
Speaker 1: its integrity, and when it gets to be disturbed, I
Speaker 1: need to concentrate on that which is absolutely essential and holy,
Speaker 1: and then I can transform my own relationships and that
Speaker 1: person sometimes, and I think that's the only way in
Speaker 1: which we can thrive, not just as individuals, but also
Speaker 1: as community. I'm grateful to Miroslav for sharing the story
Speaker 1: of his brother's tragic death and how it set off
Speaker 1: a cycle of anger, guilt, and finally released through forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Few of us will have to endure the trauma of
Speaker 1: such a terrible bereavement, but we all face smaller acts
Speaker 1: of wrongdoing on a near daily basis. We receive snubs
Speaker 1: and slights. Things we value are damaged, are taken from us.
Speaker 1: We're subjected to harsh or unfair words and treated unjustly
Speaker 1: by loved ones or even complete strangers. If you're anything
Speaker 1: like me, you might tend to store up these hurtful
Speaker 1: acts and omissions, mulling them over and hoping the wrongdoer
Speaker 1: will face a reckoning or make amends. But having talked
Speaker 1: to Miroslav, I'm going to try a different strategy. I
Speaker 1: now recognize that I can improve how I'm feeling through forgiveness.
Speaker 1: It won't be simple and it won't be easy, but
Speaker 1: it's something I can do to feel better. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The
Speaker 1: show was mastered by Evan Viola and our original music
Speaker 1: was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to the entire
Speaker 1: Pushkin crew, including mil LaBelle, Carlie Migliori, Heather Faine, Sophie Crane, mckibbon,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent, Ben Davis. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 1: meet doctor Laurie Santos