Latest / The You Project / #1574 Forgiveness - Dr. Fred Luskin

Transcript

#1574 Forgiveness - Dr. Fred Luskin · The You Project

0:01
Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome to another installment of you project.
0:04
Speaker 1: It's Harps Craig Anthony harp I hope you're bloody terrific.
0:07
Speaker 1: Another installment of us. Today, I'm talking with doctor Frederick Luskin,
0:14
Speaker 1: who's a world renowned I don't know if he likes
0:17
Speaker 1: to call himself authority, expert, guru, he's probably all of that.
0:20
Speaker 1: In the area of forgiveness, and in heading towards two
0:24
Speaker 1: thousand episodes, We've never had a conversation around forgiveness, so
0:30
Speaker 1: I've been somewhat negligent. But today is that day. Hi Frederick,
0:34
Speaker 1: how are you?
0:36
Speaker 2: I'm fine? Thank you.
0:39
Speaker 1: In all of that time, I've never done an episode.
0:42
Speaker 1: It's funny because Melissa, who runs My Life, who would
0:45
Speaker 1: have sent you or your team the inquiry about getting
0:48
Speaker 1: you on the show. She said, oh, you're interviewing I've
0:51
Speaker 1: got three episodes today And she said, oh, you're interviewing
0:54
Speaker 1: someone who's fascinating in the morning. This said this to
0:56
Speaker 1: me yesterday and I said who and she said, oh,
1:00
Speaker 1: this PhD dude who's a guru one forgiveness. And I
1:05
Speaker 1: went like, I've never even thought to do a standalone
1:10
Speaker 1: episode on that. But anyway, I appreciate you. I'm super
1:13
Speaker 1: glad that you're here. And could you, rather than me
1:16
Speaker 1: read a bio, could you tell my audience a little
1:19
Speaker 1: bit about you please.
1:22
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a ex hippie who has start at Stanford
1:29
Speaker 2: University for about thirty years, and for most of that
1:34
Speaker 2: time have done my best to continue to at least
1:38
Speaker 2: keep a shred of hippie nature going. So I teach meditation.
1:45
Speaker 2: You had mentioned sports. I am. I'm the mindfulness teacher
1:51
Speaker 2: for a couple of Stamford sports teams. I go into
1:56
Speaker 2: the corporate world and try to teach them about peace,
1:59
Speaker 2: love and grenelle try to be nice people. So I have.
2:06
Speaker 2: I've tried not to fully give up on that kind
2:09
Speaker 2: of innocent hope for a better future.
2:13
Speaker 1: Well, you've just given me the title of the show
2:16
Speaker 1: in the first one minute of our conversation, which which
2:19
Speaker 1: is peace, love and granola. So I'm just writing that
2:23
Speaker 1: down right now.
2:24
Speaker 2: Well that's that was one of the ways of kidding
2:28
Speaker 2: about the sixties.
2:31
Speaker 1: How yeah, I imagine what when you say you were
2:34
Speaker 1: trying to hold onto your kind of your hippie.
2:37
Speaker 2: Roots, did you did?
2:40
Speaker 1: Were you? Were you right caught up in the middle
2:43
Speaker 1: of the hippie movement. Yeah, you're not that old, right,
2:46
Speaker 1: How what do you.
2:49
Speaker 2: I missed it by a bit. But so during high
2:53
Speaker 2: school I was a little young, but when there was
2:59
Speaker 2: a pro test against the war in Vietnam, we marched
3:04
Speaker 2: to the local park and we sang songs. And I
3:09
Speaker 2: remember going to school things where we would push for
3:16
Speaker 2: housing for low income people and that black people should
3:21
Speaker 2: be able to live in our community. So I remember
3:24
Speaker 2: that kind of positive protest energy. I dropped out a
3:30
Speaker 2: graduate school like a million years ago and started a
3:35
Speaker 2: vegetarian restaurant at the beach about an hour and a
3:40
Speaker 2: half south of San Francisco. And we used to get
3:44
Speaker 2: just dozens of people, you know, who would travel around
3:48
Speaker 2: and follow the grateful dead, and you know, we caught
3:54
Speaker 2: catered things for Neil Young's people because Neil Young lived.
4:00
Speaker 2: And so yes, I missed the heart of it, but
4:05
Speaker 2: my heart was there, and whenever I could bump up
4:09
Speaker 2: against it, I was delighted.
4:12
Speaker 1: And was there any for you at that time? Was
4:15
Speaker 1: there any kind of underlying spiritual philosophy or was it
4:20
Speaker 1: just about doing good and being good and connecting with
4:24
Speaker 1: others and helping.
4:28
Speaker 2: I was born Jewish, and while my parents were not
4:33
Speaker 2: religious at all, and there is a cornerstone to the
4:40
Speaker 2: Jewish something which says that you do your religion in
4:46
Speaker 2: the world. It's not otherworldly, it's how you treat your partner.
4:54
Speaker 2: That whole idea of heal the world social act is
5:01
Speaker 2: very resonant with that part of Jewishness. So I got
5:06
Speaker 2: that in Osmosis. You know that in order to be
5:10
Speaker 2: a good Jew, so to speak, you were supposed to
5:14
Speaker 2: do something of value. A little later in my life
5:20
Speaker 2: I did discover, like so many people of my generation,
5:25
Speaker 2: yoga and meditation, and again people a little older than
5:31
Speaker 2: I was, they went off to India and met gurus
5:36
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah blah. But I'll tell you one
5:40
Speaker 2: interesting story of this kind of link. Yeah, this was
5:45
Speaker 2: in the very late seventies, so this is a long
5:48
Speaker 2: time ago. And we had this restaurant, and I knew
5:54
Speaker 2: that Ramdas was living about ten minutes from where the
6:00
Speaker 2: restaurant was. So we sent him a letter, the three
6:05
Speaker 2: of us hippies who had started this place, and we said,
6:10
Speaker 2: you know, we love you, we thank you, We already
6:13
Speaker 2: be here. Now come visit us and we'll give you
6:18
Speaker 2: free food. So three days later he pulled up to
6:24
Speaker 2: the front of our place in a little red MG convertible,
6:30
Speaker 2: gets out of the thing, walks into our restaurant and said,
6:34
Speaker 2: you sent me a lovely letter. Here I am. So
6:39
Speaker 2: he sat with us for three four hours, telling us
6:44
Speaker 2: all of his stories about India and meeting his guru.
6:49
Speaker 2: And you know, he was saying to us, you're doing
6:52
Speaker 2: the right thing, you know, like you want to bring
6:56
Speaker 2: spirituality to action. We didn't fully know what he was
7:00
Speaker 2: talking about. We were young, but it was it was
7:05
Speaker 2: a very powerful meeting of somebody clearly much more at
7:13
Speaker 2: tune than I was to the spirit, who sabled us
7:17
Speaker 2: literally for hours. He sat in our kitchen and talked
7:21
Speaker 2: with us and you know, kitted around with us and
7:25
Speaker 2: guided us. And that was that helped to me articulate
7:35
Speaker 2: some of the inco wait things that were there inside
7:39
Speaker 2: of me but didn't have words for.
7:42
Speaker 1: Amazing now now didn't wasn't around us originally? Excuse my ignorance.
7:48
Speaker 1: Was he not originally a psychology professor or something? Yeah?
7:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the really the reason so, yes, he was
7:58
Speaker 2: a psychology profer us or at Harvard, Yes, but he
8:03
Speaker 2: had gotten his PhD at Stanford, right, right, So not
8:10
Speaker 2: ten years about seven years later I was teaching at Stamford.
8:16
Speaker 2: This is like maybe it was, yeah, about ten years later,
8:20
Speaker 2: a little more, I was teaching at Stanford. I wrote
8:23
Speaker 2: him another letter saying that you know, you came into
8:28
Speaker 2: our little hippie place. We thank you. I had bumped
8:31
Speaker 2: into a couple of times before. But I'm now a
8:35
Speaker 2: PhD student at Stanford. Will you come talk to one
8:39
Speaker 2: of my classes? He said yes, So he came down
8:45
Speaker 2: to Stanford because he hadn't been back on that campus
8:50
Speaker 2: in a decade and he had gotten his PhD there.
8:55
Speaker 2: And so we met again and he spent ninety minutes
8:59
Speaker 2: speaking to the class and then we went to snack
9:03
Speaker 2: together at the union. But part of his discussion with
9:07
Speaker 2: the class was his history of being a doctoral student
9:13
Speaker 2: at Stanford in the fifties, and you know, it was
9:17
Speaker 2: just a wonderful interaction.
9:20
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, this is a weird question, but I'm just interested, like,
9:26
Speaker 1: when you are around somebody like him, is there is
9:31
Speaker 1: there a different energy? Like do you feel you know,
9:35
Speaker 1: and I'm not talking about some psychological perception, but do
9:39
Speaker 1: you feel a different energy around somebody who is that
9:43
Speaker 1: deep into the journey.
9:48
Speaker 2: Yes and no. Right, I'm going to tell you that
9:52
Speaker 2: I'm more taken not by energy but by behavior. Okay,
9:58
Speaker 2: so let me tell you a ramda story and then
10:02
Speaker 2: a John Cabbage Zinn story. Okay. Yeah. The Ramdas story
10:09
Speaker 2: is when he came to Stamford to give that talk,
10:15
Speaker 2: I had handed out to everybody in the class a
10:21
Speaker 2: reprint of an article from Yoga Journal to introduce Ramdas. Now,
10:29
Speaker 2: I had given the class part of one of his
10:32
Speaker 2: books to read, but the book was old. But I
10:36
Speaker 2: gave him like a current you know, Yoga Journal. But
10:40
Speaker 2: I didn't read the issue. I just handed it to
10:44
Speaker 2: the class before he showed up. I started to read
10:49
Speaker 2: the issue and I was mortified. Oh wow, it wasn't
10:53
Speaker 2: it wasn't that flattering. And when Ramdas showed up at
11:00
Speaker 2: Stanford through the School of Education, I go up to
11:03
Speaker 2: him and I literally am going, oh shit. So I
11:08
Speaker 2: go round us. I can't thank you enough for coming,
11:11
Speaker 2: but I have to apologize because I didn't that the
11:16
Speaker 2: article that I gave the students about what you're doing now,
11:19
Speaker 2: and it wasn't that positive. You know, it didn't paint
11:23
Speaker 2: you in the best of lights, and I'm embarrassed. And
11:28
Speaker 2: he looked at me with a hundred percent sincerity, right
11:35
Speaker 2: in the eye and said, it doesn't matter to me
11:38
Speaker 2: when anybody writes about me. Wow.
11:43
Speaker 1: Wow.
11:43
Speaker 2: And he said it with such conviction and such there
11:49
Speaker 2: was no embellishment. It was just this is his truth. Yes,
11:56
Speaker 2: that he taught me something that all the speeches couldn't
12:01
Speaker 2: have taught me. Yeah, don't be attached to your ego,
12:06
Speaker 2: don't worry about the world, just do your thing. So
12:10
Speaker 2: that was his teaching about that. He was in front
12:15
Speaker 2: of the class and didn't even blink one hair on
12:21
Speaker 2: his head about that they had seen something not totally
12:26
Speaker 2: flattering about him. Wow. So that's a Ramdas story, a
12:31
Speaker 2: John cabot Zinn story who started the mindfulness stuff. I'm
12:39
Speaker 2: at a group where he and I are participants. There's
12:43
Speaker 2: about twenty five people in a room and we're all
12:47
Speaker 2: there for I don't even remember, like holistic health or something,
12:53
Speaker 2: and somebody in the room objects to what John Caputsn
12:59
Speaker 2: had just said. He had just made a statement. A
13:03
Speaker 2: woman in the room like said to him, John, that's
13:08
Speaker 2: such a sexist thing to say, Like, why would you
13:12
Speaker 2: say something like that. Yeah, and John Capitsin looked at
13:17
Speaker 2: her and said, no, I would never have thought that
13:22
Speaker 2: be sexist. Explain to me what you mean. So she's
13:27
Speaker 2: told him. He thought about it for a minute and said,
13:32
Speaker 2: you know, it's still not something that would be natural
13:36
Speaker 2: to me. But I'm really sorry that I didn't have
13:39
Speaker 2: enough awareness before I said what I said, And I
13:44
Speaker 2: thank you for educating me. Wow, And that was That
13:48
Speaker 2: was the entire end of the discussion. The woman was happy,
13:52
Speaker 2: he was happy, everybody was happy. And again I watched
13:58
Speaker 2: what an untached ego sounded like. Is that a good
14:06
Speaker 2: answer for you? Yeah?
14:07
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. I love that. It's
14:10
Speaker 1: all about what people are doing, and yeah, it's why
14:15
Speaker 1: do you think? I don't know if this is in
14:18
Speaker 1: your wheelhouse, but I'm sure you have an opinion. Why
14:21
Speaker 1: do you think we are so worried about what people
14:26
Speaker 1: think of us? Why are we so attached to approval
14:29
Speaker 1: and validation and often from people will will never meet.
14:34
Speaker 2: Well, I can speak from my own insights, Yeah, that
14:40
Speaker 2: there's a piece of me that wants to be liked
14:45
Speaker 2: and approve of because my own self approval is not sufficient,
14:53
Speaker 2: So I'm weak you know, I don't have a deep
14:57
Speaker 2: enough sense of being okay, So I require somebody else
15:04
Speaker 2: to validate me, come in and rescue me. And if
15:08
Speaker 2: they take it away or don't offer it, then then
15:13
Speaker 2: my lack becomes larger and I get anxious. Oh my god,
15:20
Speaker 2: I don't have enough like self love in here. So
15:24
Speaker 2: if they take theirs away, I'm like skating on thin
15:27
Speaker 2: ice withold hot choose. That's what it. That's what it
15:30
Speaker 2: kind of feels like. So that's one two. I think
15:37
Speaker 2: as human beings, we are social creatures, so we have
15:44
Speaker 2: some built in survival needs to belong, yeah, you know,
15:49
Speaker 2: to to have a group, to be approved of, to
15:54
Speaker 2: have shared values, and to know that if things happened,
16:01
Speaker 2: there are people who will help us. So when we're rejected,
16:07
Speaker 2: that that builds up a legitimate social anxiety to some degree.
16:14
Speaker 2: Then I think there's also the i'm gonna say the
16:19
Speaker 2: cost that many people have had of poor parents. You
16:26
Speaker 2: know that they didn't get validated, they didn't get mirrored,
16:30
Speaker 2: they didn't get loved as children enough. So there's a deficit.
16:36
Speaker 2: You know, there's a their upbringing was not sufficient, Like
16:41
Speaker 2: they didn't get enough soul, food and so they're always
16:46
Speaker 2: looking for it because it wasn't there developmentally when they
16:51
Speaker 2: need it. So that's three right off the top of
16:57
Speaker 2: my head.
16:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I agree. And it's interesting
17:05
Speaker 1: how even as a coach or a mentor or you know,
17:08
Speaker 1: sometimes I sit with people that I'm meeting for the
17:10
Speaker 1: first time and they're way more worried about what I
17:14
Speaker 1: think of them than what they think of them. And
17:18
Speaker 1: you know, that's something that we talk about. But anyway,
17:22
Speaker 1: let's talk about your Well, I'm sure you've got many
17:25
Speaker 1: fields of expertise, but so I want to talk about forgiveness,
17:29
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about your books, your research.
17:33
Speaker 1: There's maybe the dumbest question, but I just want to
17:36
Speaker 1: start with it. So can you define forgiveness? Like what
17:41
Speaker 1: is forgiveness? Like? What is it? What does it mean practically,
17:46
Speaker 1: like emotionally, psychologically?
17:50
Speaker 2: So do you need validation that that was the dumbest question?
17:56
Speaker 1: No, I'll just believe it, can you? No, I need
18:02
Speaker 1: validation that it wasn't the dumbest No, Craig, that's not
18:05
Speaker 1: a dumb question. No, you're not a dummy. You're a
18:07
Speaker 1: bit of a dummy. But no, exactly what I did
18:12
Speaker 1: what I did. That's that's why you're the smile one.
18:14
Speaker 1: You're going, Okay, So what is rough? What is?
18:18
Speaker 2: You know?
18:18
Speaker 1: What is what is forgiveness as a process, as a
18:22
Speaker 1: psychological construct, as a as an expression of emotion. I
18:26
Speaker 1: don't know.
18:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. Forgiveness is the ability to
18:36
Speaker 2: see your life clearly enough, including the suffering. You know,
18:43
Speaker 2: it's not denial, it's not minimizing. It's I may have
18:48
Speaker 2: had really bad parents, or I may have been beaten,
18:53
Speaker 2: or I may have been abandoned. Is to see your
18:57
Speaker 2: life clearly enough, both the bad and the good, so
19:04
Speaker 2: that you don't have to live back there, but can
19:09
Speaker 2: see it, accept it, and open your life enough to
19:15
Speaker 2: what's next. It's like right here, right now, I can
19:22
Speaker 2: tell you. You know, I've been deeply loved at times, and
19:27
Speaker 2: other times I've been rejected. You know, there's a truth
19:30
Speaker 2: and a presentness. But the forgiveness goes from Okay, when
19:37
Speaker 2: some of those rejections I may have gotten stuck in,
19:43
Speaker 2: I forgive that so I can be in the present
19:47
Speaker 2: with clarity and not leave lots of my energy or
19:52
Speaker 2: thing behind. So I'm just open to my life. The
19:56
Speaker 2: whole thing you know, it's like, I don't kept to
20:00
Speaker 2: constantly go over like the person who mistreated me in
20:06
Speaker 2: two thousand and ten. But I don't ignore it or
20:11
Speaker 2: minimize it.
20:12
Speaker 1: I don't pretend it didn't happen. Hey, that. Yes, I've
20:17
Speaker 1: spoken a little bit doc lately about I'm listening to
20:22
Speaker 1: a book by an author. Her name is Abigail Schreier.
20:26
Speaker 1: She wrote a book called Bad Therapy and Bad Therapy.
20:31
Speaker 1: She talks about the idea that revisiting, you know, past trauma,
20:37
Speaker 1: and going every Tuesday and sitting down with your psychologist
20:40
Speaker 1: or your psychiatrist and you know, talking about that thing
20:45
Speaker 1: as you alluded to, that happened ten years ago or
20:48
Speaker 1: whatever it was. For some people, it's there are peutic.
20:51
Speaker 1: For some people, it's actually quite destructive and toxic. And
20:54
Speaker 1: all it does is reopend.
20:57
Speaker 2: Tell you that for most people it's destructive. Yeah that
21:04
Speaker 2: when enough time has passed, Yeah, and you've shared the
21:09
Speaker 2: woe with me story so that some people have heard you. Yeah,
21:16
Speaker 2: generally speaking, redoing it over and over is not a
21:20
Speaker 2: good thing.
21:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that I've always thought that, but I hadn't
21:24
Speaker 1: heard anyone, you know, kind of say that out loud.
21:28
Speaker 1: And yeah, and I think also, you know, one of
21:32
Speaker 1: the things about you know, so I told you I
21:35
Speaker 1: come from an exercise science background, so prescribing exercise for people,
21:39
Speaker 1: and you know, talk about nutrition and lifestyle and sleep
21:42
Speaker 1: and all of those things. And I'm doing, you know,
21:46
Speaker 1: my doctorate in europsych at the moment and all of that.
21:49
Speaker 1: And like, my experience is that there's no set formula
21:53
Speaker 1: for everyone, right, and so what will work for what
21:56
Speaker 1: will work for one person won't for another. You know,
21:58
Speaker 1: this exercise prog for you might be perfect for me,
22:02
Speaker 1: it's terrible for you. Eat a certain food and it
22:05
Speaker 1: works for your body, but it doesn't work for my body.
22:08
Speaker 1: I give you some advice that's good advice for you,
22:11
Speaker 1: But someone else with a similar issue, I give them
22:13
Speaker 1: that advice. It doesn't work or it's terrible. And I
22:16
Speaker 1: think this like in science and psychology sometimes and medicine,
22:23
Speaker 1: like there's almost this prescriptive thing that you know, this
22:28
Speaker 1: is the problem, this is the solution, rather than taking
22:32
Speaker 1: into account individual variability. Like I can eat almonds, I
22:37
Speaker 1: love them. You eat almonds, you have an anaphylactic reaction,
22:40
Speaker 1: you know, So trying to understand the individual needs of
22:44
Speaker 1: the person.
22:47
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I'm going to articulate it. Both are
22:51
Speaker 2: true that there are general tendencies and then within those
22:58
Speaker 2: general tendencies, lot of individual variants. But for the exercise world,
23:07
Speaker 2: clearly it's better to move than not, you know, for
23:13
Speaker 2: the diet world, it's clearly better to have a varied
23:18
Speaker 2: plant based diet than not. But that doesn't mean there
23:22
Speaker 2: are absolute prescriptions that fit everybody. That would be my taking.
23:30
Speaker 2: With getting over being wounded or being mistreated, there are
23:38
Speaker 2: a couple of like global truths. So one of them
23:44
Speaker 2: is you have to grieve that wound, so you have
23:50
Speaker 2: to acknowledge it, you have to honor the suffering that
23:55
Speaker 2: comes from being wounded, you have to have a community
24:01
Speaker 2: of some people to share it, and you have to
24:04
Speaker 2: give it some time, like the brain requires time to
24:10
Speaker 2: integrate hurtful experience. So it would be generally wrong to
24:17
Speaker 2: tell people, you know, if you come home and your
24:19
Speaker 2: partners in bed with someone else, to just get over it,
24:24
Speaker 2: because generally speaking, on nervous system can't do that. The
24:30
Speaker 2: issue comes with let's say it six months later, and
24:36
Speaker 2: some people have been smart enough to yell, kick, scream,
24:41
Speaker 2: hate the person, talk badly about them, draw little deaf
24:45
Speaker 2: things about them, and then they get that through their system,
24:49
Speaker 2: and six months later they're ready to go, Okay, I
24:52
Speaker 2: got it out of my system. I'm ready to move on. Yeah,
24:56
Speaker 2: some people, maybe a year later are are still struggling
25:01
Speaker 2: with all sorts of things. But maybe two years later
25:06
Speaker 2: it then becomes okay to tell people, you know, whatever
25:11
Speaker 2: it is, enough time has passed and you need to
25:14
Speaker 2: move on. But nobody can know whether that's appropriated six
25:18
Speaker 2: months or eighteen months for somebody, but you can know
25:23
Speaker 2: that you know this has gone on long enough when
25:26
Speaker 2: it's like excessive. So that's one dimension where how long
25:34
Speaker 2: and how intensely do you great grieve and argue? Another
25:39
Speaker 2: dimension is like within your suffering, Like some people are
25:47
Speaker 2: more private, and some people don't, you know, they don't
25:52
Speaker 2: need to let twelve people know. So you might have
25:56
Speaker 2: somebody who has you know, and I hate hue party
26:01
Speaker 2: for their ex spouse, and somebody else just takes themselves
26:05
Speaker 2: out to dinner. However, the research is clear that you
26:12
Speaker 2: have to tell a couple of people. If you just
26:16
Speaker 2: stuff it inside, yeah, you're going to suffer more. So again,
26:21
Speaker 2: I hope you see what I'm getting at There are
26:23
Speaker 2: some general tendencies, and there's a lot of variance within
26:30
Speaker 2: those tendencies.
26:32
Speaker 1: What's it the opposite end of the style of forgiveness?
26:37
Speaker 1: So what's the antithesis of forgiveness? What word or term
26:41
Speaker 1: would you use?
26:43
Speaker 2: A grievance, a grudge, you know, a story that cements
26:52
Speaker 2: you as a victim. Those might be opposites to forgiveness.
26:58
Speaker 1: What's the What are some of the potential physiological consequences
27:05
Speaker 1: of both? Like, what might you know? Real forgiveness to
27:09
Speaker 1: me seems like not only mentally and emotionally a healthy thing,
27:13
Speaker 1: but physiologically a healthy thing. And you know, resentment hate
27:18
Speaker 1: has you know, a physical consequence. So like, apart from
27:23
Speaker 1: the mental and emotional benefits, I guess it's also good
27:26
Speaker 1: for our body. I guess it's also good for our
27:29
Speaker 1: physical health.
27:31
Speaker 2: Well, just you know, if you're going to sit there
27:34
Speaker 2: right now and imagine that you need to spend the
27:38
Speaker 2: next ten minutes, I'm not asking you to do it
27:42
Speaker 2: talking about the worst people in your life or the
27:45
Speaker 2: people who have harmed you the most. Even just thinking
27:49
Speaker 2: about it makes your whole body feel heavier, yes, and
27:54
Speaker 2: it disrupts your heart rate you can feel it just
27:57
Speaker 2: by anticipating it. You go, oh shit, and your heart
28:01
Speaker 2: starts getting a little chaotic and your muscles get tired.
28:06
Speaker 2: That's just thinking about it. If, on the other hand,
28:11
Speaker 2: you think about, well, you know, where was I the
28:14
Speaker 2: most resilient? Where where did I take life shit? And
28:20
Speaker 2: you know, deal with it successfully and move on and
28:24
Speaker 2: not be stuck about there. When you think that, you
28:28
Speaker 2: have an upsurge in energy and a deeper sense of like, wow,
28:34
Speaker 2: I'm good. But it's not just a mental thing. It's
28:38
Speaker 2: a full body thing. Yeah, So if you think of
28:44
Speaker 2: your day as some parts of your day you're just bitching.
28:49
Speaker 2: You know, nothing's good enough. You hate everybody, like the
28:53
Speaker 2: traffic sucks. Everything sucks. It's a full body experience, you know,
28:59
Speaker 2: all you know absol yourselves everything. They get that. And
29:05
Speaker 2: then you think of other parts of your day when
29:07
Speaker 2: you say you're forgiving, like you know, if you live
29:10
Speaker 2: with somebody, they make a mistake and you go, honey,
29:13
Speaker 2: that's okay, You're you're basically a wonderful person. Why would
29:17
Speaker 2: I hold this? You can feel in your body the
29:22
Speaker 2: freedom of that. When you hold a grudge time after
29:29
Speaker 2: time after time, you stress your body. Yes, yes, and
29:36
Speaker 2: over time that kind of stress can wear out the
29:42
Speaker 2: weakest aspects in your body.
29:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thoughts and feelings have a physiological consequence, and
29:51
Speaker 1: I always talk about this with groups about your body.
29:55
Speaker 1: Can't distinguish between what is real and what you think
29:58
Speaker 1: is real. You know what you're focusing on? What about doc?
30:02
Speaker 1: What about people who are listening to this and they're
30:07
Speaker 1: thinking this all makes sense, except he doesn't understand my
30:10
Speaker 1: partner or my ex partner, who's a complete prick, who
30:13
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve forgiveness, who never said sorry, who is a
30:18
Speaker 1: fucking idiot, like, who's just a self centered narcissist, who's
30:23
Speaker 1: a fucking sociopath?
30:25
Speaker 2: Like fuck that guy?
30:27
Speaker 1: Right, Well, that somebody's listening, going, yeah, that makes sense,
30:30
Speaker 1: But you haven't met this person in my life. What
30:33
Speaker 1: do you have to say to them? And I'm not
30:36
Speaker 1: questioning per se. I'm just curious around that.
30:41
Speaker 2: When I said to you, what is forgiveness? And I
30:46
Speaker 2: implied that it was a pleasant, centered acceptance of the
30:51
Speaker 2: truth of your live. You can say that I dated
30:57
Speaker 2: or married very poorly. I made a big mistake. I
31:04
Speaker 2: didn't recognize the signs I enabled terrible behavior and the
31:12
Speaker 2: guy was a girl was much worse than I thought possible.
31:16
Speaker 2: That's all true, but that doesn't keep you stuck five
31:21
Speaker 2: years ago. It's just true right when you're in that
31:27
Speaker 2: he's an idiotic sociopath who should rotten. Hell, you're still
31:33
Speaker 2: in argument with your own life. Yeah, and the only
31:39
Speaker 2: person who can suffer from arguing with your own life
31:43
Speaker 2: is you. So if you like, I'm just going to
31:48
Speaker 2: give you a funny example. Because a very good friend
31:53
Speaker 2: of mine that I taught with at the university for
31:57
Speaker 2: twenty years, she retired. You know, she's ahead of me
32:03
Speaker 2: a little bit, and she was talking about this past week.
32:11
Speaker 2: She went with somebody close to her to the doctor
32:15
Speaker 2: because it was an anxiety producing thing, and she went
32:20
Speaker 2: to support this person and that was wonderful, but she
32:25
Speaker 2: brought up a time in her past when her partner
32:30
Speaker 2: then had not supported her. And this was, believe it
32:35
Speaker 2: or not, in the eighties, and she still referred to
32:40
Speaker 2: him as an idiot. So at that moment, at that
32:49
Speaker 2: very second, she's still blaming them for something that was
32:56
Speaker 2: forty years ago.
32:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
32:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, So she hasn't fully forgiven because in the present moment,
33:05
Speaker 2: she can't say you know, I had a very trying
33:11
Speaker 2: experience when I was vulnerable and the person I depended
33:16
Speaker 2: on simply failed me. That's a truthful statement, but that's
33:24
Speaker 2: in the present and is not blaming somebody for ruining anything.
33:31
Speaker 2: And so I can simply live my life. You know, Yes,
33:35
Speaker 2: this person let me down, but of course I've forgiven
33:39
Speaker 2: it because this moment and tomorrow I want to be
33:44
Speaker 2: able to love as best I can and not be
33:48
Speaker 2: burdened by all the crap that I've gone through.
33:52
Speaker 1: So the forgiveness, the act of forgiving, is not for
33:55
Speaker 1: the other person.
33:56
Speaker 2: It's for us, of course, because the act of ruining
34:01
Speaker 2: your life is for you.
34:04
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, So when somebody says, when someone says he
34:09
Speaker 3: or she doesn't deserve my forgiveness, they're actually getting it wrong.
34:15
Speaker 2: They might be right, but that's not a reason to suffer.
34:20
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, I think some people get confused on
34:26
Speaker 1: that because it's like, I feel like the idea of saying, oh,
34:31
Speaker 1: it's okay that you hit me, that you mistreated me,
34:34
Speaker 1: that it's not fucking okay. But I feel like when
34:38
Speaker 1: they say I forgive you, then that's what they think
34:43
Speaker 1: they're saying. And so there's a reluctance there, but it's
34:45
Speaker 1: not really that at all. It's really I'm liberating myself
34:50
Speaker 1: from that bullshit. Well who decides, Yeah, like, who decides
34:57
Speaker 1: if they deserve my forgiveness? So judge of the universe, that.
35:01
Speaker 2: Do you know?
35:03
Speaker 1: Well, I am thanks for asking.
35:06
Speaker 2: So at least that's being truthful. Yes, Like, this person
35:11
Speaker 2: behaves so badly that I decided that I'm never letting
35:15
Speaker 2: it go. Well, that's fine, But to say they don't
35:20
Speaker 2: deserve it, you, first of all, have no idea whether
35:23
Speaker 2: they deserve it. They might have such a hard life
35:28
Speaker 2: and maybe their unkindness to you was tripped in them
35:33
Speaker 2: something become a better person? Who knows? Yes, But your
35:38
Speaker 2: judgment of them is never accurate enough because let's say,
35:45
Speaker 2: you know, let's even take something awful like a hitting
35:49
Speaker 2: r U driver kills your kid, and you know, you
35:54
Speaker 2: don't even know who they are, but you could ten
35:59
Speaker 2: years later they don't deserve my forgiveness. What they did
36:03
Speaker 2: was unforgivable and you don't even know who they are.
36:07
Speaker 2: How do you know? Yes, they might have made a mistake,
36:12
Speaker 2: and who knows. I'm not excusing bad behavior, but you
36:17
Speaker 2: asked me what it is, and it's an ability to
36:21
Speaker 2: tell the truth. It's different than your throwing around your
36:27
Speaker 2: judgments and your opinions and your hostile ideas forever.
36:34
Speaker 1: Did you have a moment in your hippie dyes, in
36:37
Speaker 1: your vegetarian restaurant dies when you stepped away from academia,
36:42
Speaker 1: you know, because obviously you stepped back into academia at
36:45
Speaker 1: some stys. Did you have a moment an epiphany which
36:49
Speaker 1: was the genesis for this curiosity around forgiveness?
36:53
Speaker 2: I had two of them.
36:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:57
Speaker 2: I was very badly hurt decades ago by an abandonment
37:05
Speaker 2: and it literally ripped to my life for about three years,
37:12
Speaker 2: like I didn't trust after that, I had a bitterness
37:18
Speaker 2: to my tone, like you know, if this person can
37:22
Speaker 2: do this, then all bets are off and life is scary.
37:27
Speaker 2: And it's true, you know, some of it. I hadn't
37:31
Speaker 2: made peace with the truth. But for like three years,
37:35
Speaker 2: I was a bitch and I subjected my wife to
37:40
Speaker 2: like nastiness that she didn't deserve because I had lost faith.
37:47
Speaker 2: And then one day we had a child. This is
37:52
Speaker 2: a long time, it's thirty years ago, and she's at
37:56
Speaker 2: home with the baby and I get home, and she says,
38:00
Speaker 2: I need you to go shopping, and I'm in a grouchy,
38:04
Speaker 2: paint in the s mood. I don't want to go shopping.
38:07
Speaker 2: She hands me a shopping list, she says, you got
38:10
Speaker 2: to go here, you got to get these items. And
38:13
Speaker 2: now so I go out, giving myself a full pity
38:18
Speaker 2: party about I'm working all day and I have this
38:21
Speaker 2: battle axe wife who's like, I mean, I'm just ha
38:25
Speaker 2: ha ha, I'm in oh ruin my life mode. I
38:32
Speaker 2: get to the store and they don't have what she wanted,
38:36
Speaker 2: Like she said, you got to go to this store
38:39
Speaker 2: because they have this I had a park like two
38:42
Speaker 2: miles away. Anyway, I get to that spot, they don't
38:48
Speaker 2: have what she wants, and my mind literally blows or fuse,
38:54
Speaker 2: like nobody loves me. Life isn't fair, you know, all
38:58
Speaker 2: sorts of self pitying nonsense. And then something inside of
39:05
Speaker 2: me snaps and I noticed that I'm in a supermarket
39:12
Speaker 2: in San Jose, California, and all I am is sitting
39:18
Speaker 2: in a supermarket and they don't have a couple of items,
39:22
Speaker 2: and everything else in my life is abundant. Everything. I
39:29
Speaker 2: have a partner, I have a child, I have a job.
39:32
Speaker 2: The only problem was me. And that moment of looking
39:38
Speaker 2: at all the food and this big supermarket in a
39:43
Speaker 2: shopping center change me wow, Like, wow, boy, do you
39:49
Speaker 2: complain a lot? Fred? And you have this lovely person
39:53
Speaker 2: waiting for you at home? What the hell is wrong
39:55
Speaker 2: with you? But I had used that wound, that pretty
40:03
Speaker 2: bitter betrayal. It made me act as if that was
40:09
Speaker 2: like an eclipse and the sun no longer was out.
40:13
Speaker 2: I had put this wound up between me and the sun,
40:17
Speaker 2: and I said, well, Son's gone. I hate the world.
40:20
Speaker 2: My life isn't right. The minute I took this wound away,
40:27
Speaker 2: the Sun's there and it had always been there, but
40:31
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen it. Wow. And that's what came to me.
40:36
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Fred, So you, by your terrible handling of
40:42
Speaker 2: this very painful thing, you ruined a couple of years
40:47
Speaker 2: of your life. Not them, they did terrible things, and
40:51
Speaker 2: then you ruined your life. That was the epiphany that
40:56
Speaker 2: I had.
40:58
Speaker 1: That's the spice between life situation and life experience. And like,
41:04
Speaker 1: sometimes our situation is great, but in the middle of
41:09
Speaker 1: that situational circumstance, our self created experience is anything back.
41:15
Speaker 2: Right, yep. And so the other definition that we have
41:25
Speaker 2: of forgiveness, the simpler definition is making peace with the
41:31
Speaker 2: word no. Yeah, that's our simpler definition. Like, you're going
41:38
Speaker 2: to get a lot of ways that life doesn't give
41:41
Speaker 2: you what you want? Do you think you need? And
41:44
Speaker 2: instead of holding grudge about it, you forgive it. You
41:50
Speaker 2: forgive the fact that you get no. So the no
41:54
Speaker 2: in that situation is I didn't get loyalty and connection.
42:03
Speaker 2: But we I mean, you know, I've been doing this
42:07
Speaker 2: for a long time, and I get bored if I
42:09
Speaker 2: say the same thing, So I over time, I vow
42:13
Speaker 2: different things. But there's so much pain you would ask
42:19
Speaker 2: me a half hour ago, And we're so attached to
42:24
Speaker 2: getting what we want that we have a hard time
42:28
Speaker 2: forgiving the world when it doesn't give it to us.
42:33
Speaker 1: I've got a question, maybe my last question. What is
42:37
Speaker 1: the question that you would want people to ask you
42:41
Speaker 1: around this that they tend not to like. I feel
42:45
Speaker 1: like you probably get asked a lot of the same stuff.
42:49
Speaker 1: What is a great question that you wish somebody would
42:52
Speaker 1: ask that might be more enlightening and more helpful.
43:00
Speaker 2: Why in this short life when I'm not here for
43:06
Speaker 2: that long on planet Earth. I spend so much of
43:10
Speaker 2: this precious time that I have arguing and fighting about
43:16
Speaker 2: what I didn't get, rather than spending more time saying
43:21
Speaker 2: thank you for what I did get. That would be
43:26
Speaker 2: the most pressing question to ask people.
43:29
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I could talk to you for hours, Doc,
43:33
Speaker 1: So let me just give a quick plug for your book.
43:36
Speaker 1: So Forgive for Good, a proven prescription for health and happiness,
43:40
Speaker 1: Forgive for Love, the missing ingredients for a healthy and
43:43
Speaker 1: lasting relationship, stress free for good, ten scientifically proven skills
43:48
Speaker 1: for health and happiness. Is there another one? Or is
43:51
Speaker 1: that the three?
43:53
Speaker 2: I'm just about to publish early next year, a book
43:58
Speaker 2: called Forgive for Recovering. We've been teaching people in recovery
44:05
Speaker 2: from addiction a lot about self forgiveness so they will
44:09
Speaker 2: have fewer triggers. That's that's the latest research I'm doing,
44:14
Speaker 2: So that would be it. The general book that sold
44:20
Speaker 2: a lot of copies and help people all over the
44:23
Speaker 2: world is Forgive for Good. That is as accessible a
44:29
Speaker 2: result of research that exists in this field. And if
44:34
Speaker 2: people want to look up any more about me, my
44:37
Speaker 2: website is Fred Luskin dot com. And you know there's
44:41
Speaker 2: like YouTube videos all over the place. I'm a public
44:46
Speaker 2: It's not hard to find me. And you know, forgiveness
44:51
Speaker 2: is good for you. It is.
44:54
Speaker 1: Forgive for good is on audible. I suppose it's not.
45:00
Speaker 2: They never made a really a companion for it. Yeah,
45:05
Speaker 2: I don't know why forgive for love is but for good.
45:09
Speaker 2: Probably it was too long ago.
45:12
Speaker 1: Yeah cool, Hei, Well say goodbye, but Fred, thank you
45:16
Speaker 1: so much for chatting with me.
45:17
Speaker 2: You're a gem.
45:18
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, and you didn't need to do this,
45:21
Speaker 1: but you graciously did so. Thank you very much.
45:25
Speaker 2: Thank you, And I have to tell you part of
45:28
Speaker 2: my appreciation over these thirty years for the fact that
45:36
Speaker 2: so many people in this world who have sought out
45:39
Speaker 2: the Stanford Forgiveness Project. I mean, yeah, we didn't. We
45:44
Speaker 2: didn't start it with any illusions. I'm thankful enough that
45:49
Speaker 2: we got some influence that I generally say yes to
45:55
Speaker 2: people who are like nice and normal as a way
45:58
Speaker 2: of paying something forward for all the publicity we got
46:04
Speaker 2: when we started. So that's partly my answer back to you.
46:08
Speaker 2: Thank you for asking.
46:10
Speaker 1: Absolute pleasure