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Selects: How Forgiveness Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and I thought for my
0:03
Speaker 1: picks this year, I would kick off twenty twenty six
0:06
Speaker 1: with a very sweet, moving, and also eye opening episode
0:10
Speaker 1: on forgiveness. It turns out all of us have the
0:13
Speaker 1: capacity to forgive, but that's not always the best course
0:17
Speaker 1: of action for any given circumstance. This episode also has
0:21
Speaker 1: a lot of really great stories of amazing acts of
0:24
Speaker 1: forgiveness by people who forgave others against all odds. It's
0:28
Speaker 1: a good episode and I hope you enjoy it, and
0:31
Speaker 1: I hope your year is going wonderfully so far.
0:37
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:46
Speaker 1: Hey, you, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:49
Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
0:51
Speaker 1: should know. Some philosophical waxing is going to happen in
0:57
Speaker 1: this one. I think it's inevitable. Pull Chuck, that's right,
1:02
Speaker 1: and Don Henley songs Oh yeah, that's a good one too,
1:06
Speaker 1: Heart of the Matter. Mm hmm. You like it sure,
1:10
Speaker 1: all right? That part where he's like, I'm learning to
1:14
Speaker 1: live with that, dude. No, it stirs my soul every time. Forgiveness. Yeah,
1:20
Speaker 1: you'd have to be dead inside to not be stirred
1:22
Speaker 1: by that part. I agree, it's good, good song, but
1:25
Speaker 1: he really kind of nails it in that because he's
1:28
Speaker 1: talking about forgiveness and the heart of the matter. Sure,
1:34
Speaker 1: and he's he wants forgiveness, he needs forgiveness, even if
1:38
Speaker 1: like it's the end of the relationship.
1:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, even if she doesn't love him anymore.
1:42
Speaker 1: Sure. So, on the one hand, that is a certain
1:46
Speaker 1: kind of forgiveness that an individual or person can that's
1:50
Speaker 1: a path someone can set down. But there's been a
1:53
Speaker 1: lot of research starting starting in the very beginning stages
1:58
Speaker 1: at the middle of the twentieth but really picking up
2:01
Speaker 1: in the nineties, research into forgiveness, like legitimate scientific research,
2:06
Speaker 1: and it's a multidisciplinary thing because there's a lot of
2:08
Speaker 1: different fields disciplines, sure, that have said, hey, this actually,
2:15
Speaker 1: this is something we can study and measure and produce
2:18
Speaker 1: articles and work on. And they have, They've produced some
2:22
Speaker 1: really good, legitimate work. But what most of them have
2:25
Speaker 1: been focused on is not the Don Henley position of
2:30
Speaker 1: somebody who needs to be redeemed, who needs redemption to
2:33
Speaker 1: feel better, who needs forgiveness, yeah, but rather the person
2:36
Speaker 1: doing the forgiving the person who has originally transgressed against,
2:41
Speaker 1: not the offender, but the offendee. That's where most of
2:44
Speaker 1: the research has been done on forgiveness. Right.
2:48
Speaker 2: Don Henley is a rock star, so he's writing a
2:51
Speaker 2: song about wanting to be forgiven for a foursome he
2:55
Speaker 2: had in Saint Paul backstage. Sure, even if you don't
3:01
Speaker 2: love me anymore, can you forgive me that?
3:03
Speaker 1: You know? Can you blame a guy? Is what he's saying. So, yeah,
3:10
Speaker 1: I think that's probably exactly what that song is about.
3:12
Speaker 1: Now that you mentioned that's the subtext. So I think
3:16
Speaker 1: we should start by pointing out something about forgiveness. Is
3:20
Speaker 1: that a lot of people there's a lot of stories
3:24
Speaker 1: about people not forgiving. We call it revenge, and people
3:29
Speaker 1: love revenge, you know, Like think about the revenge movie
3:33
Speaker 1: genre and how many entries there are pretty great? Like
3:37
Speaker 1: have you ever seen I Saw the Devil? Yeah? Have
3:40
Speaker 1: you ever seen Old Boy? Yeah? Have you ever seen
3:45
Speaker 1: Death Becomes Her? Yeah? Have you ever seen She Devil? Nope?
3:52
Speaker 1: Oh you haven't. With Roseanne Barr and Ed Bigley and
3:56
Speaker 1: Mary Movie, yes, all of them great revenge movies. Can
4:01
Speaker 1: I shout out one of my favorites? Yeah, please do.
4:04
Speaker 2: Like legitimately, it's kind of a smaller indie movie called
4:07
Speaker 2: Blue Ruin.
4:09
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I saw that one.
4:10
Speaker 2: Great great revenge movie. If you're into revenge movies and
4:13
Speaker 2: I am, I enjoy it. There's a cap arsis involved
4:15
Speaker 2: because I'm a big forgiver, So I think I like
4:18
Speaker 2: seeing movies where revenge happens.
4:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll talk a lot about, you know, revenge,
4:24
Speaker 1: because they're virtually two sides of the same coin, and
4:28
Speaker 1: they really interact in some surprising ways that are sensible
4:31
Speaker 1: when you see it laid out, but you might not
4:33
Speaker 1: necessarily be walking around thinking about. But on the other side,
4:37
Speaker 1: if you look up movies about forgiveness, almost all of
4:41
Speaker 1: them were produced by a megachurch somewhere in the South.
4:46
Speaker 1: Or you've got Magnolia and then the Fisher King are
4:51
Speaker 1: like the two like legitimate contenders for movies about forgiveness.
4:55
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, because I think there's a fine
4:59
Speaker 2: line sometimes between redemption stories and forgiveness stories.
5:03
Speaker 1: Okay, they can kind of go hand in hand. There
5:04
Speaker 1: are plenty of redemption stories. Okay, like what what redemption stories? Yeah,
5:10
Speaker 1: let's hear it. Oh, I mean.
5:13
Speaker 2: Hoosiers one of the great sports redemption movies.
5:19
Speaker 1: Okay, I think that's a pretty loose definition of redemption.
5:23
Speaker 2: Now, former alcoholic coach who who was not working because
5:28
Speaker 2: of some bad deeds gets redeemed by looking a team
5:31
Speaker 2: to a championship. Dennis Hopper gets redeemed as the alcoholic father.
5:36
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, was was Gene Hackman on the road
5:40
Speaker 1: to redemption? I thought he came in and basically got
5:43
Speaker 1: Dennis Hopper redeemed a double redemption. He was getting redeemed
5:47
Speaker 1: as well. All right, Okay, okay, okay, So plenty.
5:50
Speaker 2: Of redemption stories, and I think there's a lot of
5:52
Speaker 2: movies that wrestle with the idea of forgiveness and really weighty,
5:57
Speaker 2: heavy ways, like these true stories that you hear about
6:02
Speaker 2: these awful things that happen, whether a family member is
6:06
Speaker 2: accidentally killed by someone or murdered by someone, like, there's
6:10
Speaker 2: a lot of that stuff in movies.
6:12
Speaker 1: Okay. So my thesis is this, and this is strictly
6:15
Speaker 1: me editorializing here, I think there's some validity to it,
6:19
Speaker 1: and that is that the reason why it's much easier
6:22
Speaker 1: to name revenge movies is because revenge appeals to our
6:26
Speaker 1: baser instincts. It makes sense, it's universally understood. And like
6:31
Speaker 1: you said, you even consider yourself a big time forgiver,
6:35
Speaker 1: and yet you enjoy revenge movies. It's cathartic for you.
6:37
Speaker 1: There's something to be delivered by a revenge movie. Yep,
6:40
Speaker 1: a movie about forgiveness, it's just more complicated, it's harder.
6:45
Speaker 1: We're not as good and we're not as automatically adept
6:53
Speaker 1: at forgiveness as we may be with revenge. That's why
6:56
Speaker 1: I think there's fewer forgiveness movies. But that's not to
7:00
Speaker 1: say that we're not moved by it, because I think
7:02
Speaker 1: if you hear whenever you hear real life stories of forgiveness,
7:07
Speaker 1: they just bowl you over. Oh yeah, even when you
7:10
Speaker 1: step back and think about like what the person's actually doing,
7:13
Speaker 1: you're like, yes, legitimately, anybody could do what they just did.
7:17
Speaker 1: It's it's akin to hearing somebody's solo climbing Mount Everest
7:23
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's it makes the news literally
7:26
Speaker 1: when somebody forgives in like a really deep way that
7:31
Speaker 1: the average person might.
7:32
Speaker 2: Not, yeah, like a big time transgression. A lot of
7:35
Speaker 2: times you'll hear of a courtroom scene where someone has
7:39
Speaker 2: forgiven the person who like murdered their relative or loved
7:43
Speaker 2: one or something, and that man, that stuff is powerful.
7:46
Speaker 2: You're right every time you see these stories. You dug
7:50
Speaker 2: up this one story from Berkeley the Greater Good magazine
7:57
Speaker 2: Science Based Insights for a Meaningful Life out of UC
8:00
Speaker 2: Berkeley of this woman who was a nurse's aide who
8:07
Speaker 2: hit a guy. She had been drinking hit a guy
8:09
Speaker 2: in her car. He went through the windshield and was
8:13
Speaker 2: stuck there, and she was so impaired she didn't realize
8:17
Speaker 2: it for a while. Eventually realized that got out of
8:21
Speaker 2: the car, could not get the guy out, who was
8:24
Speaker 2: still alive, mind you, and so drove home and parked
8:28
Speaker 2: her car in the garage to let this guy slowly
8:30
Speaker 2: die yeah, in her garage.
8:33
Speaker 1: Over the course of a couple of days, and like
8:35
Speaker 1: she sobered up, would go out and chuck on him
8:38
Speaker 1: once in a while, but refused to call for help
8:39
Speaker 1: because she was too concerned about getting in trouble, so
8:42
Speaker 1: instead she let him die, had a couple friends come
8:46
Speaker 1: help her hide the body, move the body, and then
8:49
Speaker 1: actually got found out later on because four months later
8:52
Speaker 1: she was at a party and she joked about it
8:55
Speaker 1: to an acquaintance who went and told the cops, and
8:57
Speaker 1: this woman ended up getting fifty years in pre that's
9:01
Speaker 1: a horrible story, Like that's one of the worst things
9:03
Speaker 1: that a human being could possibly do. There were so
9:06
Speaker 1: many opportunities for this woman to save this man's life.
9:09
Speaker 1: And by the way, everyone involved in that court case
9:12
Speaker 1: who had a medical degree said that had she called
9:16
Speaker 1: the cops, the fire department taken the guy to the hospital,
9:19
Speaker 1: he almost certainly would have survived those injuries. But given
9:23
Speaker 1: that she didn't for days get him medical aid, he
9:26
Speaker 1: finally did succumb to them, but he probably would have survived,
9:29
Speaker 1: almost certainly would have survived. Like what she did was
9:32
Speaker 1: about as horrific as what a person could do and
9:35
Speaker 1: just so irresponsible with human life. And she rightfully got
9:39
Speaker 1: a fifty year prison sentence for that crime. And yet
9:44
Speaker 1: despite how horrific that was, what made news just as
9:48
Speaker 1: much as that is that a short time later that
9:51
Speaker 1: man's son, the man who was hit and killed publicly
9:55
Speaker 1: forgave that woman for killing his father.
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Speaker 2: Yes, at the sentencing said quote, there's no winners in
10:05
Speaker 2: a case like this. Just as we all lost Greg,
10:08
Speaker 2: you all will be losing your daughter to her family.
10:12
Speaker 2: I still want to extend my forgiveness to Chante Mallard
10:15
Speaker 2: was her name, and let her know that the Mallard
10:17
Speaker 2: family is in my prayers. And this is the kind
10:20
Speaker 2: of stuff, like you said, that makes the news where
10:22
Speaker 2: I think it hits everybody because it makes everybody stop
10:27
Speaker 2: for a second and.
10:28
Speaker 1: Say, could I do that? Yes?
10:31
Speaker 2: Could I reach that point of forgiveness? And that's a
10:36
Speaker 2: big weighty question because there's all kinds of forgiveness. There's
10:42
Speaker 2: a couple partners together who get in a fight and
10:46
Speaker 2: someone says they're sorry for doing a certain thing, and
10:49
Speaker 2: they're forgiven or not. There are situations at work where
10:54
Speaker 2: people are forgiven. There are friends who maybe betray you
10:57
Speaker 2: by like cheating on on somebody with someone. I had
11:03
Speaker 2: a situation like that where I had a former friend
11:07
Speaker 2: I felt like cheated with my barely ex girlfriend and
11:11
Speaker 2: I spent quite a few years being upset about that
11:14
Speaker 2: and then forgave him. And it's a powerful thing. So
11:17
Speaker 2: there's like levels. But when you get to this kind
11:20
Speaker 2: of thing where someone caused the death of a loved
11:24
Speaker 2: one and then even laughed about it, like to be
11:27
Speaker 2: able to forgive like that is just that's next level.
11:30
Speaker 1: It is. It is so much so, Chuck, that a
11:33
Speaker 1: group of convicted murderers who were serving sentences in prison
11:37
Speaker 1: heard about this, and I guess got in touch with
11:39
Speaker 1: one another and raised funds and got a ten thousand
11:44
Speaker 1: dollars scholarship together, Wow, for Brandon Biggs to go to college.
11:51
Speaker 1: The convicted murderer sent the kid to college because this
11:54
Speaker 1: very generous act of public forgiveness of his own father's murderer.
11:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, it is. It's an astounding thing. And yet
12:02
Speaker 1: everything that like the research that really, like I said,
12:07
Speaker 1: started to take off in earnest in the nineties has
12:10
Speaker 1: shown us is that we're all perfectly capable of doing that.
12:15
Speaker 1: The answer is, yes, yes, you can do that, You
12:17
Speaker 1: totally could do that, but that we don't necessarily fully
12:21
Speaker 1: understand how to. And yet there's a lot of evidence
12:25
Speaker 1: also that it's evolutionarily wired into us to do that. Yeah.
12:30
Speaker 2: And you know, we'll get into religiosity of it a
12:33
Speaker 2: bit more in detail later, but all religions talk a
12:37
Speaker 2: lot about forgiveness. There's you know, a pretty famous story
12:40
Speaker 2: in the Bible where Peter said to Jesus, lord how
12:44
Speaker 2: many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who
12:46
Speaker 2: sends against me up.
12:47
Speaker 1: To seven times?
12:49
Speaker 2: And Jesus said, I tell you not seven times, but
12:52
Speaker 2: seventy times seven. And Peter said so four hundred and
12:55
Speaker 2: ninety times, and Jesus said, oh, Peter, are always so literal. Yeah,
13:01
Speaker 2: that one's pretty good. But you know, you can read Hindu,
13:03
Speaker 2: you can read the Buddhists talk about it. Like everyone,
13:07
Speaker 2: every religion talks about. Forgiveness is kind of a maybe
13:11
Speaker 2: a cornerstone of the religion in some cases, so.
13:15
Speaker 1: Much so that when science started looking into forgiveness and
13:20
Speaker 1: just trying to figure it out, generally people is just
13:25
Speaker 1: presumed forgiveness was under the realm and the domain of religion.
13:29
Speaker 1: That's where that's where you went for answers about forgiveness.
13:32
Speaker 1: And science said, oh, we we can top that. Well,
13:37
Speaker 1: surely we can beat that four hundred and ninety number.
13:39
Speaker 1: And that's what they've said about doing Yeah.
13:41
Speaker 2: I mean, Jesus forgave his crucifiers. It's like one of
13:46
Speaker 2: the few things Jesus said on the cross. According to
13:48
Speaker 2: the Bible, they know not what they do, like forgive
13:52
Speaker 2: them for they know not what they do.
13:54
Speaker 1: Right. And like you said, it's not just Christianity. Although
13:58
Speaker 1: Christianity gets all the all the accolades for forgiveness, Jainism
14:03
Speaker 1: is a big one. There's a there's a kind of
14:05
Speaker 1: a mantra from Jainism that says, I grant forgiveness to
14:08
Speaker 1: all living beings. They all living beings, grant me forgiveness.
14:12
Speaker 1: My friendship is with all living beings. My enmity is
14:15
Speaker 1: totally non existent. And that's I mean, when you look
14:20
Speaker 1: at that, especially if you're not a Janist, you're you're like, wow,
14:24
Speaker 1: how would you ever? How would you ever reach that level?
14:27
Speaker 1: And I think the point is it's like you never
14:29
Speaker 1: reach that level. It's an ideal, a goal that you
14:32
Speaker 1: try to achieve, probably on a daily basis if you're
14:34
Speaker 1: a Janis, but it's certainly over a lifetime, you know. Yeah.
14:38
Speaker 2: And I'd like to read this again, not to pile
14:41
Speaker 2: on the religious stuff, but the Hindu one really spoke
14:43
Speaker 2: to me.
14:44
Speaker 1: Uh.
14:46
Speaker 2: This one part in the middle says what can a
14:47
Speaker 2: wicked person do? And to him or into one who
14:51
Speaker 2: carries the saber of forgiveness in his hand? And that
14:54
Speaker 2: one really speaks to me in that it's the it's
14:58
Speaker 2: a powerful tool to forgive, and it's for you as
15:02
Speaker 2: the forgiver. I think a lot of times people think
15:05
Speaker 2: it can clear the conscious of someone who's done something wrong.
15:08
Speaker 2: I guess that certainly happens, But to me, it's really
15:11
Speaker 2: about it's a powerful weapon you have to regain your
15:16
Speaker 2: own strength as a human.
15:19
Speaker 1: Yes, that seems to be the bulk of what psychology
15:22
Speaker 1: is coming up with as far as studying forgiveness goes
15:25
Speaker 1: that it's really the person who is who has been wronged.
15:30
Speaker 1: That's what forgiveness is more about. That's the psychological aspect
15:35
Speaker 1: of it. Like we said, it's a multidisciplinary investigation, and
15:39
Speaker 1: so you've got evolutionary biologists who like, that's really great psychology,
15:42
Speaker 1: but we found a different reason for forgiveness and it
15:45
Speaker 1: doesn't quite fit that mold. And then like the medical
15:50
Speaker 1: field says, no, it's even better than that. You can
15:53
Speaker 1: actually like improve your health by genuinely forgiving somebody. So
15:58
Speaker 1: there's all these different inputs that are coming together to
16:01
Speaker 1: create this really like complex, contextualized picture of what forgiveness
16:06
Speaker 1: is and what it does for us and why we
16:08
Speaker 1: have it. That's right. I think it's a great setup.
16:12
Speaker 2: I agree, you want to take a break, I might
16:14
Speaker 2: just not come back and feel so good about that.
16:17
Speaker 1: No, we have to finish. We got to complete, all right.
16:20
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a minute to talk about what
16:22
Speaker 2: I think is probably the most interesting part of this
16:24
Speaker 2: is the evolutionary aspect.
16:25
Speaker 1: Right after this.
16:38
Speaker 3: Learn and stuff with Joshua job stuff you shine up.
16:58
Speaker 1: So this was this, this is the correct forgiveness? Was
17:03
Speaker 1: the Dave Ruse joint.
17:04
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I thought this was Livia. So yeah, thanks
17:07
Speaker 2: to Dave for this. He did a great job with
17:09
Speaker 2: this research. But the evolutionary aspect of forgiveness is super
17:13
Speaker 2: interesting to me because I think that a lot of
17:15
Speaker 2: people assume that it's what Dave calls a higher virtue,
17:20
Speaker 2: like you know is took took in the gang. We're
17:24
Speaker 2: so base as you know, kind of primitive thinkers, is
17:29
Speaker 2: that they didn't have the capacity forgive. They would they
17:32
Speaker 2: would smite somebody if if someone punched, took took in
17:34
Speaker 2: the face, took, took punch back, or someone attacked took took, took,
17:38
Speaker 2: took attack back, maybe even harder. And there is quite
17:42
Speaker 2: a bit of evidence that they're not mutually exclusive and
17:46
Speaker 2: that that fighting back and forgiving both have a big
17:50
Speaker 2: evolutionary advantage.
17:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the big evolutionary advantage of revenge is if
17:56
Speaker 1: you live in a social group and somebody takes advantage
17:59
Speaker 1: of you, or they hit you, or they steal your
18:01
Speaker 1: food or whatever, if you don't do something to right
18:05
Speaker 1: that wrong, you're broadcasting to the rest of the group
18:08
Speaker 1: that you are open for exploitation. And that's not good
18:12
Speaker 1: for you. It's also not good for the chances that
18:15
Speaker 1: you're going to pass along your genes, and so under
18:18
Speaker 1: the auspices of natural selection, it makes sense for you
18:22
Speaker 1: to hit that person that steals your food or who
18:24
Speaker 1: hits you, And that's revenge, and revenge forms that function
18:28
Speaker 1: in a social group. It says to everybody. It signals
18:30
Speaker 1: to the rest of the group you are not to
18:33
Speaker 1: be messed with. This guy tried it, and look what
18:35
Speaker 1: happened to him. Nobody else should try that. Go pick
18:38
Speaker 1: on somebody else. And there's actually been studies that have
18:41
Speaker 1: showed that not just among apes and primates, but among
18:45
Speaker 1: human cultures, revenge is found pretty much universally. And I
18:50
Speaker 1: saw a study Chuck that said that the mere presence
18:53
Speaker 1: of a person a third party who's witnessing an argument
18:57
Speaker 1: increases the chances that the argument is going to come
19:00
Speaker 1: to blows because you're signaling to the rest of the
19:03
Speaker 1: group and in this case, just that third person you
19:06
Speaker 1: are not to be messed with. That That's the purpose
19:09
Speaker 1: of revenge is to broadcast that signal.
19:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would say that any kind of dumb,
19:16
Speaker 2: drunk bar fight, half of it is the fact that
19:19
Speaker 2: someone didn't want to back down in front of other people.
19:23
Speaker 1: Sure, you know more than have totally.
19:26
Speaker 2: And that if those two guys were just in an
19:28
Speaker 2: alley somewhere, they may just hug it out.
19:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably not, but you never know. It's possible, or
19:34
Speaker 1: they might talk it out at least.
19:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, or disagree that it's domb and leave. Yes, but
19:40
Speaker 2: you talked about studies in the animal world. There's a
19:44
Speaker 2: primatologist name Franz Deval who looked at wild chimps recorded
19:51
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty encounters aggressive encounters between these gymps
19:55
Speaker 2: and then what happened afterward, And in fifty one percent
19:58
Speaker 2: of these encounters, the chimps would literally kind of kiss
20:02
Speaker 2: and make up and touch each other and embrace each
20:06
Speaker 2: other after a fight. We've seen the same thing in
20:08
Speaker 2: bonabos and great apes. There's sheep, there's dolphins, there's goats.
20:14
Speaker 2: Even hyenas have shown traits of forgiveness. So it's not ubiquitous,
20:18
Speaker 2: but it is all over the animal kingdom. Animals fighting
20:22
Speaker 2: and then animals making up with one another.
20:24
Speaker 1: Right, So, I mean, the revenge one's pretty easy to understand,
20:27
Speaker 1: but then you're like, okay, well, why would there be
20:29
Speaker 1: the making up part? But that also ties into the
20:32
Speaker 1: fact that these same animals are also living in social
20:36
Speaker 1: tight knit social groups, and so you have a limited
20:39
Speaker 1: amount of people that you can possibly have a dispute
20:42
Speaker 1: or a feud with, and if you're not working together
20:46
Speaker 1: cooperatively in that sense, also your chances of survival are decreased.
20:52
Speaker 1: So what makes sense is what's called the valuable relationship hypothesis,
20:58
Speaker 1: which says, if somebody hits you, you should hit them back,
21:02
Speaker 1: but then after that you should make up with them.
21:04
Speaker 1: So you're sending that signal you're not to be messed with.
21:06
Speaker 1: But then you're repairing that relationship, that valuable relationship that
21:10
Speaker 1: you depend on to help your survival in the social group.
21:16
Speaker 1: You're repairing it, and then you guys can move forward.
21:18
Speaker 1: And that that is how revenge and forgiveness are basically
21:24
Speaker 1: two sides of the same coin, or at least work
21:26
Speaker 1: in conjunction with one another to keep the group functioning
21:31
Speaker 1: at its best right.
21:33
Speaker 2: And that kind of dovetails with a second part of
21:36
Speaker 2: that thing, which is called negative reciprocity, which is if
21:41
Speaker 2: someone hits Tiktook and Tiktook goes c razy and just
21:47
Speaker 2: starts wailing on the other person who just slapped him
21:50
Speaker 2: in the face. Yeah, that's not good either, because everyone's
21:53
Speaker 2: going to go, whoa Tiktook. I'm not sure I trust
21:57
Speaker 2: him now. He's definitely burned that bridge for between him
22:00
Speaker 2: and the other guy. And none of this is very good.
22:04
Speaker 2: So what they found is negative reciprocity. If you if
22:08
Speaker 2: someone smites you, you smite them back the same amount
22:12
Speaker 2: and then forgive them. Like if someone takes off their
22:15
Speaker 2: glove and slaps you across the face, you don't kick
22:19
Speaker 2: them between the legs and then wail on their face.
22:22
Speaker 2: You slap them back with your glove, and then you
22:25
Speaker 2: talk about forgiving one another. And everyone sees that you
22:28
Speaker 2: can work with people, You can you can stand your ground,
22:31
Speaker 2: but you can also forgive and work with people, which
22:34
Speaker 2: means you're valuable to the group and you're valuable to
22:36
Speaker 2: have around.
22:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so kind of tie it into what you
22:39
Speaker 1: were saying earlier about you know how, there's this idea
22:43
Speaker 1: that you know, revenge is a base instinct and forgiveness
22:47
Speaker 1: is a higher instinct, rather than realizing that they're both
22:50
Speaker 1: pretty basic instincts for among the animal kingdom. Is there's
22:55
Speaker 1: this idea that in human society, we have created like
23:00
Speaker 1: these social institutions in these contexts so that the individual
23:05
Speaker 1: doesn't have to carry out revenge and then forgiveness, that
23:09
Speaker 1: they can just focus on forgiveness as long as those
23:12
Speaker 1: social institutions are doing what they're supposed to do, as
23:15
Speaker 1: long as there is like a pursuit of justice, and
23:19
Speaker 1: you can rely on the idea that the person who
23:22
Speaker 1: transgressed against you by killing your father is going to
23:24
Speaker 1: be caught and punished and sentenced to jail. You don't
23:27
Speaker 1: have to worry about revenge. It's being conducted for you,
23:31
Speaker 1: and then you, the individual in this well functioning society,
23:34
Speaker 1: can just focus on whether you want to forgive or not,
23:37
Speaker 1: and that that's that kind of higher and lower echelon.
23:40
Speaker 1: Because in the opposite situation where there isn't like a
23:44
Speaker 1: good sense of justice, where it does seem like if
23:47
Speaker 1: you want justice you have to go seek it out yourself,
23:49
Speaker 1: revenge is going to be much more exercised, much more
23:53
Speaker 1: frequently than forgiveness.
23:55
Speaker 2: Will Yeah, which says a lot about the United States
23:59
Speaker 2: these days, you know. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying
24:02
Speaker 2: to be cynical even, I mean, that's just sort of
24:04
Speaker 2: what we see around us. I think a lot of
24:06
Speaker 2: people feel like the sense of justice in this country
24:09
Speaker 2: is pretty skewed, and that's why you might see the
24:13
Speaker 2: increases in things like vigilanteism or revenge. And I don't
24:18
Speaker 2: know what societies you look to to do a study
24:20
Speaker 2: like that. I'm kind of curious on the ones that
24:22
Speaker 2: are very well policed and the justice is sort of
24:25
Speaker 2: fair and equal. But I think that's one of the
24:30
Speaker 2: problems in the in the States these days, for sure. Yeah,
24:34
Speaker 2: without getting two far down that rabbit.
24:36
Speaker 1: Hole, but also even you know, it's it's kind of
24:39
Speaker 1: eye opening to me because I've never really thought about
24:41
Speaker 1: the courts and the justice system is set up to
24:46
Speaker 1: help individuals move along. Yeah, it should do. You just
24:49
Speaker 1: think of it as punishment. It's a system for punishment,
24:52
Speaker 1: not for redemption necessarily, but it's also to help the victims.
24:59
Speaker 1: I just never saw it that before.
25:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about that guy in court,
25:03
Speaker 2: and a lot of times you'll hear the courtroom forgiveness.
25:07
Speaker 2: Sometimes you'll also hear the opposite, and you hear the
25:10
Speaker 2: courtroom like, I will never forgive you for what you
25:13
Speaker 2: did to me, And I think not always, but it
25:16
Speaker 2: seems to be a lot of time tied to whether
25:20
Speaker 2: the transgressor has really acknowledged what they've done and sought
25:25
Speaker 2: forgiveness and said that's the worst thing I've ever done
25:29
Speaker 2: in my life, and I don't think you should ever
25:31
Speaker 2: forgive me. Like it's an interesting sort of dance that
25:34
Speaker 2: happens there because it's not a one to one thing.
25:36
Speaker 2: It's not like every time a bad criminal that does
25:39
Speaker 2: something really asks for forgiveness and says it was a
25:42
Speaker 2: terrible thing, the other person forgives. So sometimes the person
25:45
Speaker 2: could laugh it off like this lady did and not
25:48
Speaker 2: ask for forgiveness. Any other person could forgive, which I
25:51
Speaker 2: think goes back to the notion that forgiveness comes from
25:54
Speaker 2: the forgiver.
25:55
Speaker 1: Right, that it's really about the person who's been wrong too.
26:00
Speaker 1: It's about and so yeah, now we've reached the kind
26:02
Speaker 1: of psychologies domain over the concept of forgiveness, which is
26:07
Speaker 1: that it's about you, the individual who suffered a wrong,
26:12
Speaker 1: releasing the pain and the anger and the resentment and
26:16
Speaker 1: all the negative feelings that you're experiencing so that you
26:19
Speaker 1: can feel better. And that it doesn't matter whether the
26:22
Speaker 1: other person is asking for forgiveness, and that it doesn't
26:25
Speaker 1: even matter if the other person deserves forgiveness or not.
26:29
Speaker 1: That genuine forgiveness psychologically speaking, according to some psychologists, will
26:34
Speaker 1: hear that some disagree, but that genuine, true forgiveness is unconditional,
26:40
Speaker 1: that you forgive the person whether they deserve it or not.
26:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is to where the language to me
26:46
Speaker 2: is a little I could see people debating this because
26:51
Speaker 2: it is forgiveness in a way, but to me, it's
26:54
Speaker 2: almost more of just a letting go. Yeah, I agree
26:57
Speaker 2: with you, of an anger, it's not. It's so tricky
27:02
Speaker 2: with the definition because when you think of forgiveness, you
27:05
Speaker 2: think I'm saying and it's really not what it is.
27:09
Speaker 2: What you're not saying is it's okay what you did. Okay,
27:12
Speaker 2: so yes, you know what I mean. That's not what
27:14
Speaker 2: That's not a key component of forgiveness.
27:17
Speaker 1: No, No, it's not. You're that's and that's a very
27:20
Speaker 1: confusing thing for a lot of people too. Is that
27:23
Speaker 1: the idea that if you forgive somebody, you're you're you're
27:26
Speaker 1: condoning their behavior. You're saying it's okay what they do.
27:29
Speaker 1: That's not the point of forgiveness. From from what psychologists
27:34
Speaker 1: who research this are coming up with. They're saying, No,
27:38
Speaker 1: what you're doing when you forgive somebody is to say,
27:40
Speaker 1: I know what you did, you wronged me, and I
27:43
Speaker 1: can live with that. It doesn't make it any better. Yeah,
27:47
Speaker 1: it doesn't make it any better. It doesn't excuse what
27:49
Speaker 1: you did, right, and it does it certainly doesn't excuse
27:53
Speaker 1: future repeated instances of what you just did. But it's saying, like,
27:58
Speaker 1: I'm willing to let go of the I have associated
28:01
Speaker 1: with this act you did against me, that you this wrong,
28:05
Speaker 1: and I'm going to move forward with my life, and
28:08
Speaker 1: in doing that, I'm willing to let you move forward
28:11
Speaker 1: as well. Well.
28:12
Speaker 2: Or I think sometimes in a case like this, that
28:15
Speaker 2: kind of forgiveness can make the transgressor suffer worse sometimes yeah,
28:20
Speaker 2: just a guilt, Yeah, and they want to be admonished
28:24
Speaker 2: and hated as part of a punishment. But you know,
28:28
Speaker 2: ts you know, because again, forgiveness is not for you,
28:32
Speaker 2: it's for the person. Dave even makes a great point
28:35
Speaker 2: the person being forgiven is secondary or even unnecessary to
28:40
Speaker 2: the process, and that's sort of the key. You don't
28:43
Speaker 2: even have to tell that person necessarily. We'll get to
28:48
Speaker 2: later some kind of like how to forgive. Some people
28:50
Speaker 2: say that you should tell someone out loud, like literally
28:55
Speaker 2: tell someone, But you don't necessarily have to tell that
28:57
Speaker 2: person if it's a situation like this, or even if
29:00
Speaker 2: it's like a close personal friend like I think usually
29:03
Speaker 2: you do when it's someone you know, because that's a
29:05
Speaker 2: part of communicating with one another in a healthy way.
29:08
Speaker 2: But if it's the person who who killed your family,
29:12
Speaker 2: you don't have to tell them to forgive them, and
29:14
Speaker 2: you can still forgive them.
29:16
Speaker 1: Yes, So some psychologists define forgiveness, like a full forgiveness
29:21
Speaker 1: as including you actually seeking out contact with that person, right,
29:26
Speaker 1: and that if you forgive them but don't tell them,
29:29
Speaker 1: or you still avoid them afterward, where it's like, hey,
29:31
Speaker 1: I forgive you, but good luck with the rest of
29:33
Speaker 1: your life. You're not in my life anymore. That to
29:36
Speaker 1: some psychologists, not all. Some psychologists say that's not genuine forgiveness.
29:41
Speaker 1: That's akin to what you were saying, which is letting
29:44
Speaker 1: go of anger and moving on, but not really actually forgiving.
29:47
Speaker 1: I still say it's forgiving. I'm not one of the psychologists, sure,
29:50
Speaker 1: and it's very much debated, for sure. But then that
29:53
Speaker 1: also leads to another point too, that if you forgive somebody,
29:57
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily mean you forget, and that's not part
30:02
Speaker 1: and parcel to it. Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting. You can forget.
30:06
Speaker 1: I'm actually really good at that kind of thing, where
30:09
Speaker 1: like I forgive because it just unless it was a
30:13
Speaker 1: really huge wrong, it just kind of phased from my
30:16
Speaker 1: memory fairly easily, and I don't dwell on it, so
30:22
Speaker 1: it can it can go hand in hand. But if
30:24
Speaker 1: you've been deeply wrong by somebody where you're actually going
30:27
Speaker 1: through the process of forgiving, which we'll talk about, and
30:30
Speaker 1: it is a it's a deliberate step that you're taking
30:34
Speaker 1: toward finding peace with yourself and your life again, then
30:38
Speaker 1: you know very well, what that wrong was, and you're
30:40
Speaker 1: not going to forget it, but eventually the aim is
30:43
Speaker 1: that you will have divorced the emotional attachment from that
30:47
Speaker 1: memory of that wrong to where it becomes akin to
30:50
Speaker 1: like a movie you saw once or a trip you
30:53
Speaker 1: took once, Like it's not it's just a thing that
30:56
Speaker 1: happened in your life, rather than this, this this crisis
30:59
Speaker 1: that is sucking up your attention and emotions.
31:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really like this definition from Fred Luskin, who
31:08
Speaker 2: is a psychologist and forgiveness expert for what It's worth,
31:13
Speaker 2: director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects. And Fred's definition
31:19
Speaker 2: is to forgive is to give up all hope for
31:22
Speaker 2: a better past, And that really lays it out there
31:27
Speaker 2: in this in a very practical sense, that what has
31:31
Speaker 2: happened has happened. You may not be there yet in
31:34
Speaker 2: your journey to forgiveness or the letting go, but you
31:39
Speaker 2: cannot change what happened, no matter how angry you are,
31:42
Speaker 2: or how much you want someone to pay for it
31:44
Speaker 2: or suffer, or how much revenge you want. So there
31:47
Speaker 2: is no better past that's impossible. So giving up hope
31:51
Speaker 2: for a better pass, it's sort of a blaque definition,
31:53
Speaker 2: but one that I think is pretty instructive.
31:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's also a realistic definition too if you
32:01
Speaker 1: think about it. Because you can't change the past one
32:03
Speaker 1: way or another. You can only alter how you let
32:06
Speaker 1: the past continue to affect you or not. And the
32:10
Speaker 1: other thing I really want to say here right now,
32:12
Speaker 1: because it can be confusing for me too when I
32:15
Speaker 1: think about forgiveness and anger and stuff like that, is like,
32:19
Speaker 1: this is not No one is talking about a something
32:23
Speaker 1: like throwing a switch or like, rather than feeling anger,
32:27
Speaker 1: you feel forgiveness. That's actually counterproductive, as we'll see. Like
32:31
Speaker 1: you like, you can't replace anger with forgiveness. Forgiveness is
32:35
Speaker 1: meant to come after anger because you use anger or
32:38
Speaker 1: hurt or resentment or whatever your version of that is
32:42
Speaker 1: to to to protect and guard your own boundaries. So
32:46
Speaker 1: it's unnatural for you to not have some sort of
32:50
Speaker 1: negative emotion or negative response to being wronged. But you
32:57
Speaker 1: don't want to replace that or try to replace it
32:59
Speaker 1: with forgiveness because you may accidentally trip up the process
33:03
Speaker 1: and you're not really legitimately feeling forgiveness. You're basically just
33:07
Speaker 1: setting yourself up to be wronged again.
33:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, my deal personally is Emily always talks about what
33:13
Speaker 2: a forgiving person I am because I really crave.
33:20
Speaker 1: To forgive.
33:22
Speaker 2: I don't know, I was about to say crave forgiveness.
33:24
Speaker 2: I crave forgiving. I guess it sounds funny, but I
33:27
Speaker 2: just all I need is for someone to say they're
33:31
Speaker 2: sorry for something, and then it's done. Nine times out
33:35
Speaker 2: of ten, that's done for me. And as far as forgetting, like,
33:39
Speaker 2: I'm a pretty good forgetter too. I don't know about
33:42
Speaker 2: like literally forgetting something, but I definitely look back on
33:46
Speaker 2: a lot of relationships, especially with like ex girlfriends that
33:49
Speaker 2: were terrible, and go, oh that was so bad in there.
33:53
Speaker 1: In that relationship, we.
33:54
Speaker 2: Were pretty good, right, Sure, No, we weren't pretty good
33:57
Speaker 2: at all. Right, I just have rose colored glasses. And
34:01
Speaker 2: I think you and I are both like as podcasting
34:05
Speaker 2: partners and family and team good about when we have
34:08
Speaker 2: little dust ups for giving one another. If the other
34:11
Speaker 2: person likes says they're sorry, like you and I both
34:13
Speaker 2: get over that stuf pretty quickly. Yeah, which is yeah,
34:17
Speaker 2: it's very key though, you know, like, oh, yeah, you can't.
34:21
Speaker 2: Forgiveness is like from the heart if you really if
34:23
Speaker 2: you're hanging on to something, then you're not done with
34:25
Speaker 2: it yet.
34:26
Speaker 1: No, but so and that is so important, Chuck. That's
34:30
Speaker 1: important for the individual to remember that if you if
34:33
Speaker 1: you are unable to forgive, that means that you're you're
34:37
Speaker 1: still hanging on to it. That doesn't mean you'll never forgive,
34:40
Speaker 1: And that also doesn't mean you have to hurry up
34:42
Speaker 1: and forgive. It means you're still in the process and
34:44
Speaker 1: that's reaching the point where you can forgive. It's a
34:47
Speaker 1: deliberate choice. From everything I've seen in the research, you
34:50
Speaker 1: are making a deliberate choice to forgive somebody. But it's
34:53
Speaker 1: not throwing a switch. It's part of a process. And
34:55
Speaker 1: during that process, while you're on the road to forgiving
34:58
Speaker 1: the person, you're still going to be kind of angry
35:01
Speaker 1: at them. Maybe not the whole time, but every once
35:02
Speaker 1: in a while it might hit you before you've fully
35:05
Speaker 1: forgiven them, and then you're going to be mad about
35:07
Speaker 1: it all over again. That's okay, that's normal, that's natural.
35:10
Speaker 1: You can't really rush it. You can, but it's going
35:13
Speaker 1: to be detrimental. What you want to do is just
35:15
Speaker 1: kind of let it play out and have faith that
35:17
Speaker 1: if you're on the path of forgiveness, you'll ultimately will
35:20
Speaker 1: forgive the person and things will be good again.
35:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and depending on your life and your childhood, like
35:26
Speaker 2: you probably have an inclination or an instinct to forgive
35:29
Speaker 2: or not based on what you saw, what was modeled.
35:32
Speaker 2: There's both nature and nurture involved. But I think people
35:36
Speaker 2: generally have an instinct of revenge or forgiveness, and to
35:40
Speaker 2: do one of the other that is against that instinct
35:43
Speaker 2: requires great effort, especially in the case of forgiveness, because
35:47
Speaker 2: you may not be inclined to be a forgiver at all.
35:49
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean something's wrong with you. That just means
35:52
Speaker 2: that's probably what you saw growing up, or maybe something
35:55
Speaker 2: happened to you when you were young that makes it
35:57
Speaker 2: harder for you. But it's still possible to get there.
36:00
Speaker 2: It just might be tougher.
36:02
Speaker 1: Well, what's neat is another thing that the feel of
36:04
Speaker 1: psychology is telling us about forgiveness is that it can
36:07
Speaker 1: be taught. You can learn to forgive. Even if you
36:09
Speaker 1: were raised in an unforgiving environment where you never learned
36:15
Speaker 1: how to do that, you can learn how to do it.
36:18
Speaker 1: And I say we kind of jump to those to
36:21
Speaker 1: how to forgive before we go into physical health because
36:25
Speaker 1: I feel like we're kind of there right now. Yeah, well,
36:27
Speaker 1: let's take a break.
36:29
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take our final break, and we'll talk about
36:32
Speaker 2: that when we get back, as well as this one
36:34
Speaker 2: sort of interesting study i'd like to hit real quick too.
36:36
Speaker 3: Okay, learn and start with Joshua job stuff.
36:53
Speaker 1: You shine up, all right.
37:09
Speaker 2: So there's this study that Dave dug up that I
37:13
Speaker 2: thought was interesting.
37:14
Speaker 1: I think it's flawed. But Inreme Social psychology, they took
37:19
Speaker 1: forty six people. They divided them into two groups.
37:21
Speaker 2: One wrote about a time when they had something some
37:26
Speaker 2: wrong committed against them, but they forgave. The other wrote
37:29
Speaker 2: about a time when they had something wrong committed against them,
37:32
Speaker 2: but they did not forgive. And then they told those
37:34
Speaker 2: people to stand at the bottom of a hill to
37:37
Speaker 2: estimate how steep it was, and also, in a separate
37:41
Speaker 2: part of the study, to jump as high as they could.
37:43
Speaker 2: The unforgiving group guessed that the incline was five degrees
37:47
Speaker 2: steeper on average than the forgiving, and the forgivers jumped
37:52
Speaker 2: seven centimeters higher. So the takeaway here is is you
37:57
Speaker 2: literally it's more difficult for you. You see the world
38:02
Speaker 2: as being more difficult and steeper, and you can't jump
38:05
Speaker 2: as high and you can't accomplish as much if you're
38:08
Speaker 2: holding on to that all kinds of red flags study,
38:12
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to the jumping part. Yeah, but
38:16
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting the guessing the incline of
38:18
Speaker 2: the hill.
38:19
Speaker 1: There may be something to that. Well, yeah, and I
38:21
Speaker 1: mean it is backed up, Chuck, by the physical the
38:24
Speaker 1: physiological studies of how stress and anger affect you and
38:31
Speaker 1: how releasing those can actually help you. There's a lot
38:34
Speaker 1: of research that shows that you can suffer from chronic
38:37
Speaker 1: stress when you're angry all the time, and that that's
38:40
Speaker 1: tied to everything from high blood pressure to diabetes to
38:45
Speaker 1: poor cardiovascular outcomes. Just a whole host of chronic conditions
38:50
Speaker 1: can be traced back to chronic stress, and chronic stress
38:53
Speaker 1: can be traced back to chronic anger. And what they're
38:56
Speaker 1: discovering is that forgiveness can actually undo that can actually
39:01
Speaker 1: reverse that. There was a study that rated people based
39:07
Speaker 1: on the life stresses they'd had, and they apparently recruited
39:10
Speaker 1: participants for the study who'd been through a lot of
39:13
Speaker 1: stress so much so that they were basically always chronically
39:16
Speaker 1: stressed because they have had so many terrible events in
39:20
Speaker 1: their life, and there was one group that actually did
39:25
Speaker 1: not have poor health compared to the rest of the group.
39:29
Speaker 1: And they found that when they gave them a test
39:31
Speaker 1: of forgiveness of how forgiving they were generally, they found
39:35
Speaker 1: that this subset was actually overall a very forgiving group
39:40
Speaker 1: and that that somehow was battling back the chronic stress
39:44
Speaker 1: or the effects of chronic stress on their health in life.
39:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that makes complete sense. If
39:50
Speaker 2: you were someone who really has a problem with forgiving
39:54
Speaker 2: and just holds on to these deep, deep resentments against people,
40:00
Speaker 2: usually against people very close to you in your family,
40:03
Speaker 2: even that just that can't be good for you physically.
40:09
Speaker 2: I've seen it happen. I don't want to get too personal,
40:11
Speaker 2: but there are people in my family who haven't spoken
40:15
Speaker 2: for twenty plus years over dumb stuff that it's like,
40:20
Speaker 2: you see that kind of like stubbornness coupled with resentment,
40:26
Speaker 2: and it's just, man, that is just no way to live. Yeah,
40:30
Speaker 2: no way to live.
40:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there was another one that another study that
40:36
Speaker 1: Dave turned up that shows that even like in a
40:40
Speaker 1: very short term, thinking about holding a grudge can actually
40:45
Speaker 1: affect you physiologically by activating your sympathetic nervous system, as
40:50
Speaker 1: Dave put to the battle or skidaddle impulse. And they
40:55
Speaker 1: found that this these they cut these two groups into
40:59
Speaker 1: or they cut the participants into two groups. All of
41:02
Speaker 1: the people had to think about some time when they
41:04
Speaker 1: were deeply wronged in the past, and then one group
41:07
Speaker 1: was taken through an exercise where they learned to forgive
41:09
Speaker 1: the person. The other group, this is so mean, was
41:13
Speaker 1: encouraged to hold a grudge. They were basically taught, they
41:16
Speaker 1: went through an exercise to hold a grudge and be
41:19
Speaker 1: angry and resentment was resentful about that. And they found
41:23
Speaker 1: that the people who were taught to hold the grudge
41:25
Speaker 1: had elevated skin conductance, which meant their nervous system was aroused,
41:29
Speaker 1: higher arterial blood pressure, not good. They also had muscle
41:33
Speaker 1: tension in the brow area you know when your brows
41:36
Speaker 1: furrowed when you're stressed out or madge, and that they
41:39
Speaker 1: the symptoms. Even after they went through an exercise to
41:42
Speaker 1: basically de escalate everything, the symptoms persisted. And this was
41:46
Speaker 1: just an exercise where you were just thinking about being
41:49
Speaker 1: wronged and then holding a grudge about it. Just like
41:53
Speaker 1: probably this was like an hour out of their lives
41:55
Speaker 1: and that was the effects. That was the findings of that.
42:00
Speaker 1: It's pretty clear that yes, anger can affect you physically,
42:06
Speaker 1: and what they haven't we don't have the reams of
42:09
Speaker 1: data that we have supporting it like we do that
42:11
Speaker 1: anger hurts you physically, But there seems to be the
42:16
Speaker 1: opposite of that holds true, which is releasing that anger,
42:20
Speaker 1: which is forgiveness in whatever form it takes, can actually
42:23
Speaker 1: improve your health as well.
42:25
Speaker 2: Right earlier in the episode, we were talking about religion.
42:28
Speaker 2: All religions talk extensively about forgiveness and when they do
42:32
Speaker 2: studies these days, usually like questionnaires and stuff. Depending on
42:37
Speaker 2: the studies you look at, you would think religiosity does
42:40
Speaker 2: play a role in that people who describe themselves as religious,
42:46
Speaker 2: supposedly in some studies are two and a half times
42:49
Speaker 2: more likely to say that others should be forgiven unconditionally.
42:53
Speaker 2: But I know you found some studies that found that
42:56
Speaker 2: religiosity does not play as big a role as a
42:59
Speaker 2: lot of people think it does, and that sometimes religious
43:04
Speaker 2: people may be more inclined to say that they are
43:07
Speaker 2: forgiving when they aren't because it's the right thing to do.
43:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, the study found that when when you ask basically,
43:15
Speaker 1: when you survey them, people who are religious tend to
43:19
Speaker 1: come off as more forgiving. They self report is forgiving,
43:22
Speaker 1: but then if you ask them other certain questions, I
43:26
Speaker 1: guess the in real world situations, they're no more forgiving
43:30
Speaker 1: than other people. But so that would be an interpretation
43:33
Speaker 1: that they think they're more forgiving or tell people they're
43:36
Speaker 1: more forgiving than they actually are. But there was another
43:40
Speaker 1: way to look at it too, and they went back
43:41
Speaker 1: and followed up on that study and they found that
43:45
Speaker 1: over a longer term, people who are religious actually do
43:50
Speaker 1: tend to be more forgiving in their lives. It wasn't
43:53
Speaker 1: like the most set in stone study, but I found
43:55
Speaker 1: it interesting that they were. They had it harder. The
43:58
Speaker 1: religious people in this study had more difficulty in relating
44:04
Speaker 1: grudges that they're carrying around compared to the control group
44:07
Speaker 1: of people who weren't religious. Yeah, makes sense. Sure there
44:13
Speaker 1: was some redemption there. Yeah.
44:15
Speaker 2: As far as how to forgive, like we said, hopefully
44:18
Speaker 2: we've gotten it through that is something you can learn.
44:21
Speaker 2: If you are not an inherent forgiver, you can learn
44:24
Speaker 2: how to through practice. There's a psychologist named Worthington, Everett Worthington,
44:32
Speaker 2: Edward Everett, Everett Worthington, there should be a third after that,
44:36
Speaker 2: if he asked, I.
44:37
Speaker 1: Mean, totally should be.
44:39
Speaker 2: And Worthington has developed a reach model which we'll go through.
44:43
Speaker 2: It's an acronym.
44:46
Speaker 1: Of course.
44:47
Speaker 2: Recall is the first step, and that's to really recall
44:51
Speaker 2: the event in detail, but in the sort of an
44:54
Speaker 2: objective way, and not necessarily something that was done to you,
44:57
Speaker 2: but just to look at the detail of it, try
45:00
Speaker 2: not to judge yourself or the other person, just simply
45:04
Speaker 2: bring that back to your mind.
45:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the point of that is to feel the
45:07
Speaker 1: feelings like we have. We humans have such a tendency
45:10
Speaker 1: to try to get away from negative feelings and run
45:13
Speaker 1: toward positive feelings. And I think Worthington's position is that
45:18
Speaker 1: we have to feel whatever feelings are associated with it,
45:20
Speaker 1: and that's a huge part of it. That's we have
45:23
Speaker 1: to go through that experience. It's part of the recall.
45:26
Speaker 2: Right to the E stands for empathy. This is one
45:29
Speaker 2: that is I don't know about controversial, but it's not
45:33
Speaker 2: everyone agrees at all on whether or not you need
45:35
Speaker 2: to actually have empathy to forgive. But empathy can certainly
45:40
Speaker 2: help you forgive. If someone has broken into your home
45:46
Speaker 2: and stolen from you, it might help to forgive them.
45:49
Speaker 2: To empathize and think about where they may be in
45:52
Speaker 2: their life to feel like they needed to do something
45:54
Speaker 2: like that is one example.
45:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he points out also like you're not using
46:00
Speaker 1: their behavior right, you're just thinking about them beyond just
46:03
Speaker 1: a villain or criminal or a person who wronged you,
46:06
Speaker 1: for sure. And actually we should say Everett Worthington had
46:09
Speaker 1: to put his money where his mouth was because his
46:12
Speaker 1: mother was actually murdered by a burglar. Yeah, I think
46:15
Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety seven, yep. And he put himself
46:18
Speaker 1: through this the Reach method, and he said he came
46:22
Speaker 1: out on the other side better off than he had been.
46:24
Speaker 2: And I think he was already doing this right. That
46:28
Speaker 2: didn't inspire his career, did it?
46:30
Speaker 1: No? No, I think he was already doing it. Coincidentally, Wow,
46:33
Speaker 1: the ironies. So the A stands for altruistic gift. And
46:37
Speaker 1: the point of this is that you realize that you
46:40
Speaker 1: were actually giving a gift by forgiving somebody, even I
46:47
Speaker 1: guess if you don't tell them, even if you don't
46:49
Speaker 1: necessarily empathize with them. But the way you do this,
46:52
Speaker 1: the way you recognize that your forgiveness is an altruistic gift,
46:56
Speaker 1: is to think about times where you've wronged somebody and
46:59
Speaker 1: that they've been forgiven or forgiving, and even if you
47:03
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily deserve it, and what a gift that that was,
47:06
Speaker 1: you're kind of bringing it to mind, which I think
47:09
Speaker 1: is really suspiciously kind of tied in with empathizing.
47:12
Speaker 2: If you ask me, yeah, I mean he was trying
47:15
Speaker 2: to make the word reach sure, commit to. This is
47:18
Speaker 2: what I mentioned earlier about telling someone else that necessarily
47:21
Speaker 2: have to be the person you're forgiving, although that could
47:24
Speaker 2: help if you want to go that route, but telling
47:27
Speaker 2: someone else, at least in Worthington's mind, makes it, gives
47:31
Speaker 2: it a degree of permanence. Man it basically makes it
47:34
Speaker 2: part of your story, like you're changing the story essentially exactly.
47:39
Speaker 1: And then hold, and this is very important too that
47:42
Speaker 1: we said earlier you can forgive and it doesn't necessarily
47:46
Speaker 1: mean you're going to forget. So when you do remember
47:49
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, you're still going through the process
47:51
Speaker 1: and you're still angered by it. You're still hurt by it,
47:54
Speaker 1: but you're on the path of forgiveness. You have to
47:56
Speaker 1: hold on to the idea that you're working on for
48:00
Speaker 1: giving them. That is not an instantaneous thing, So you
48:02
Speaker 1: have to hold the fact that you're forgiving them even
48:05
Speaker 1: in the face of, you know, being triggered by or
48:07
Speaker 1: flooded by this again when you think about the memory
48:10
Speaker 1: of it.
48:11
Speaker 2: Right, Luskin has a nine step process, which we weren't
48:15
Speaker 2: We're not going to really get into, but step eight
48:17
Speaker 2: is interesting. Just like rim says, living well is the
48:20
Speaker 2: best revenge is the sort of the nuts and bolts
48:23
Speaker 2: of number eight, and there's something to be said for that,
48:26
Speaker 2: but I think it also makes it much harder to
48:29
Speaker 2: forgive and move on if you're not able to live well.
48:32
Speaker 2: And that doesn't mean you know, money and riches and
48:35
Speaker 2: stuff like that, right, that means just living a full life.
48:38
Speaker 2: But if you were not able to forgive and get
48:41
Speaker 2: past that, I mean, there are plenty of movies of
48:43
Speaker 2: people that have been have some awful thing from their
48:46
Speaker 2: past that they're just wallowing in all these years later,
48:49
Speaker 2: and that's the central plot of the film.
48:51
Speaker 1: You know, she devil Hoosiers, that's right, but that's I mean,
48:58
Speaker 1: that's the that's the point of forgiveness is too, is
49:01
Speaker 1: to free yourself, to find peace within yourself. And yes,
49:05
Speaker 1: it's great for the person who wronged you if you
49:09
Speaker 1: overtly forgive them and let them know, but you don't
49:11
Speaker 1: have to. And then also, Chuck, there's a whole school
49:14
Speaker 1: thought in psychology that says, not only do you not
49:18
Speaker 1: have to tell the person that you're forgiving them, you
49:21
Speaker 1: don't have to forgive them right at all, and that
49:25
Speaker 1: there's this this whole almost kind of not culty but
49:30
Speaker 1: really kind of dogmatic idea that if you don't follow
49:34
Speaker 1: these steps and you don't like, genuinely fully forgive somebody,
49:38
Speaker 1: you really haven't worked out of the process. There's something
49:41
Speaker 1: wrong with you. Maybe you're an unforgiving person and that
49:44
Speaker 1: makes you tacky. That's what psychologists call it. And there's
49:48
Speaker 1: a whole group of psychologists say no, no, no, there's
49:51
Speaker 1: there's way more to this process than just you know,
49:54
Speaker 1: nine steps or the reach method like there, there's it's
49:57
Speaker 1: more nuanced than that, and that you can be a
50:01
Speaker 1: fully functioning, emotionally developed person who says, you know what,
50:06
Speaker 1: I don't forgive you, I may never forgive you. But
50:09
Speaker 1: I'm still going on with my life, right, And if
50:12
Speaker 1: the point of forgiveness is to achieve peace in yourself,
50:16
Speaker 1: If you can achieve peace in yourself and you do
50:19
Speaker 1: it without forgiving somebody because you don't want to forgive
50:22
Speaker 1: them or you don't feel like you should forgive them,
50:25
Speaker 1: then that's okay too. As long as you're getting inner peace,
50:28
Speaker 1: that's the point.
50:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there is a school of thoughts saying that
50:33
Speaker 2: in cases where like it's a harm has been committed
50:37
Speaker 2: to you that could happen again, you may be more
50:41
Speaker 2: likely to have that harm committed to you again if
50:44
Speaker 2: you do forgive too much. Yeah, there is research about
50:48
Speaker 2: spousal abuse that when you are too or when you're
50:51
Speaker 2: quick to forgive the abuser, then you are victimized more
50:54
Speaker 2: regularly than spouse's who aren't as forgiving, And that's based
50:59
Speaker 2: on operant learning. Basically, you're less likely to engage in
51:02
Speaker 2: a behavior that has a negative consequence. So they've done
51:06
Speaker 2: plenty of research on that, and a lot of psychologists say, like, yeah,
51:11
Speaker 2: forgiveness is great, but while you shouldn't be bitter, there
51:14
Speaker 2: are a lot of times when you should not forgive
51:16
Speaker 2: somebody and that's okay, Yeah.
51:18
Speaker 1: There's a whole There's an article from nineteen ninety nine
51:22
Speaker 1: on Psychology Today called Must We Forgive? And it is
51:26
Speaker 1: really interesting. It's fascinating that this psychologist writes about probably
51:30
Speaker 1: half a dozen or more people and they're different individual
51:33
Speaker 1: circumstances and the reasons they chose not to forgive, and
51:38
Speaker 1: she kind of pigeonholes them into like three general categories,
51:41
Speaker 1: but because psychologists love doing that. But it's a really
51:45
Speaker 1: compelling article and it's definitely worth reading, and it provides
51:48
Speaker 1: this kind of alternative idea that like, no, there's definitely
51:51
Speaker 1: situations where some people don't deserve your forgiveness. One of
51:54
Speaker 1: the chief among them is if you say, like a
51:58
Speaker 1: sibling or a family member of some sort you have
52:02
Speaker 1: a like some sort of falling out with or they've
52:05
Speaker 1: wronged you, and you choose not to forgive them. You
52:08
Speaker 1: might feel tremendous pressure from the rest of your family
52:11
Speaker 1: to just go ahead and forgive them. That's a terrible
52:13
Speaker 1: reason to forgive somebody. And if you do forgive them
52:16
Speaker 1: under those circumstances, or say because your religion decrees it,
52:20
Speaker 1: you're like, that's not full forgiveness, and it may actually
52:24
Speaker 1: harm you because you may suffer from a distorted self
52:29
Speaker 1: image or lowered self respect because you basically went back
52:33
Speaker 1: to this person who not only wronged you in the past,
52:36
Speaker 1: is unrepentant about it, but it's just going to continue
52:39
Speaker 1: the behavior again in the future. So there's definitely instances
52:42
Speaker 1: that where you probably shouldn't forgive, But that doesn't mean
52:47
Speaker 1: that you should be stuck in resentment and anger and
52:50
Speaker 1: letting that person have power over your life. You might
52:53
Speaker 1: just need to move on without them and without forgiving them,
52:56
Speaker 1: and you can make that work as well.
52:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there was one terrible story that you
53:02
Speaker 2: said about the woman who as a child had this
53:04
Speaker 2: terribly bullying and abusive older brother.
53:08
Speaker 1: And we won't even.
53:09
Speaker 2: Talk about the awful things this guy did, but the
53:12
Speaker 2: parents were really always pushing like, oh, he just doesn't
53:16
Speaker 2: he doesn't know how to say he loves you, he
53:17
Speaker 2: doesn't know how to talk to you, so he does
53:19
Speaker 2: these things and you really need to forgive him. And
53:21
Speaker 2: that's just that's bonkers. You know, that is a situation
53:25
Speaker 2: where you were doing such great harm as a parent
53:28
Speaker 2: to teach your daughter to accept this kind of behavior.
53:33
Speaker 2: And not only accept it but forgive it. It's like
53:35
Speaker 2: just setting her up for unless she really therapies through
53:39
Speaker 2: that stuff later in life of just a series of
53:42
Speaker 2: terrible relationships. So exactly, yes, yes he can't. Forgiveness isn't
53:47
Speaker 2: always the thing. I have a friend who had a
53:54
Speaker 2: terrible thing happened to him when he was younger, and
53:57
Speaker 2: we talked a lot about this, and he has forgiven
53:59
Speaker 2: that person in his heart and I was like, well,
54:03
Speaker 2: I haven't, and it's like I'm still angry about it.
54:06
Speaker 2: And he was like thanks, Like that helps, Like I'm
54:10
Speaker 2: angry and have not forgiven on his behalf. And I
54:13
Speaker 2: thought he was going to say like, no, man, you
54:15
Speaker 2: need to do the same, and he was like brother,
54:17
Speaker 2: he was like thank you man, Yeah, I appreciate that.
54:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that's another thing worth pointing out too,
54:24
Speaker 1: is we have this concept of people who forgive others
54:27
Speaker 1: being saintly. Yeah, And it's not necessarily that kind of
54:31
Speaker 1: a thing. It's not necessarily that kind of a process.
54:34
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is just straight up self preservation. Like you are,
54:37
Speaker 1: that's the way that you're going to get to a
54:40
Speaker 1: point where you can feel peace again in your life
54:42
Speaker 1: and That doesn't mean you're a saint, or you're even
54:44
Speaker 1: feeling saintly or you're conducting yourself in a saintly manner,
54:47
Speaker 1: And that doesn't matter as long as you're feeling inner
54:50
Speaker 1: peace in your life is no longer turmoil and this
54:52
Speaker 1: person who wronged you doesn't have power over you any longer.
54:55
Speaker 1: That's the point of forgiveness.
54:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was totally the deal in his case,
54:59
Speaker 2: is that was his only way forward to healing himself.
55:03
Speaker 2: But since this wasn't something that happened to me, I
55:06
Speaker 2: was able to not forgive and remain upset about it,
55:10
Speaker 2: and he was okay with that.
55:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, And still to this day, you won't buy that
55:15
Speaker 1: guy of beers Man. So there's one other thing that
55:20
Speaker 1: has started to kind of come out of the shadows
55:23
Speaker 1: that's just getting picked up by psychology as far as
55:25
Speaker 1: forgiveness goes in it's self forgiveness, And we don't really
55:28
Speaker 1: have room to talk about that here, but it's worth
55:30
Speaker 1: exploring sometime maybe in short stuff. Yeah, that's a big deal.
55:34
Speaker 2: Just a lot of times when I'm beating up on myself,
55:36
Speaker 2: Emily says, you need to be nicer to my friend.
55:40
Speaker 1: Oh, I know, you've told that before. I was just
55:42
Speaker 1: in one of the sweetest things I've ever heard. What
55:44
Speaker 1: a kind thing to say. It works. You know who
55:48
Speaker 1: needs to hear that? Don Henley, You got anything else
55:54
Speaker 1: on forgiveness? Yeah, nothing else. This is a good way
55:57
Speaker 1: to eat philosophical discussion. I like these, agreed. Thanks a
56:00
Speaker 1: lot to Dave Bruce for helping us out with this one.
56:03
Speaker 1: And if you want to know more about forgiveness, you
56:06
Speaker 1: should seriously go out and do some reading, especially if
56:09
Speaker 1: you have something to forgive. It's not something you necessarily
56:12
Speaker 1: can understand just instinctively. It helps to see what the
56:16
Speaker 1: experts say. So maybe go explore that and free yourself.
56:20
Speaker 1: Since I said free yourself, that of course means it's
56:22
Speaker 1: time for listener maw.
56:25
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this dental art. Hey, guys, been a
56:28
Speaker 2: listener for a while. I've nearly finished with the sandwiching method.
56:32
Speaker 2: Before I knew it was even cool, we were talking
56:36
Speaker 2: a few shows. You were talking a few shows back
56:38
Speaker 2: before the holidays about putting a kidney stone and Chuck's
56:42
Speaker 2: replacement tooth. This would be unusual, but people actually get
56:46
Speaker 2: custom in lays and artwork made for their crowns inlayser
56:49
Speaker 2: generally gold or gymstone with a custom artwork, and it's
56:52
Speaker 2: referred to as a tooth tattoo, which is hand painted
56:54
Speaker 2: onto the crown before it gets a final clot of glaze.
56:58
Speaker 2: The most common request here in the Chicago Land area
57:01
Speaker 2: are sports logos.
57:02
Speaker 1: Oh no, like a little Chicago Cubs logo.
57:05
Speaker 2: Too, But I've seen names, company logos, even a tiny
57:09
Speaker 2: version of Starry Night on a tooth. While a lot
57:12
Speaker 2: of modern crown in Bridge manufacturing has gone digital, highly
57:16
Speaker 2: leveraging cam, A, CAD and three D printing for most restorations,
57:19
Speaker 2: tooth tattoos are unique manifestation of the relatively unknown artistry
57:23
Speaker 2: of a subset of dental technicians.
57:25
Speaker 1: Wow.
57:26
Speaker 2: While I recognize the dentistry as a whole as widely
57:28
Speaker 2: disliked and a pain to endure, I appreciate you guys
57:31
Speaker 2: probably unknowingly helped to destigmatize restorative dental work by openly
57:36
Speaker 2: talking about your dealings with it. Toothware and decay is
57:39
Speaker 2: part of the human condition. No need for shame. After all,
57:42
Speaker 2: we will keep me and my CADRA employed and happily
57:45
Speaker 2: listening to stuff you should know. Many regards that is
57:48
Speaker 2: from Eric Crowley or Crowley probably Crowley.
57:53
Speaker 1: I'm going with Crowley in park Ridge, Illinois. Very nice.
57:56
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Eric, that's awesome. Can you imagine seeing
57:59
Speaker 1: Starry Night on a tooth? I gotta look that up. Wonderful.
58:02
Speaker 1: I'd have this scream that's a good one, and then
58:05
Speaker 1: you could scream whenever you reveal it too. Yeah, just
58:08
Speaker 1: freak people out. And speaking of sports teams, Chuck, I
58:12
Speaker 1: feel like we should congratulate our Georgia Bulldogs for winning
58:14
Speaker 1: the national championship.
58:16
Speaker 2: Yes, never thought I would see the day. What a great,
58:20
Speaker 2: great game, Just unbelievable feeling. Two championships in three months
58:26
Speaker 2: for this long suffering Atlanta slash Georgia van.
58:29
Speaker 1: I know, it's amazing.
58:30
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to reconcile these feelings that
58:32
Speaker 2: I'm having lately.
58:34
Speaker 1: And they'll be robbed from you next year. Don't worry.
58:37
Speaker 1: I'll show her back to normal. But that is pretty
58:39
Speaker 1: great to go out on a highlight. Probably that was great.
58:42
Speaker 1: Go dogs, Go dogs, indeed. And if you want to
58:45
Speaker 1: get in touch with Chuck and I and Jerry or
58:47
Speaker 1: Frank the Chair or Harry dogg even we can probably
58:51
Speaker 1: pass along emails you send. You can wrap your emails up,
58:54
Speaker 1: spank them on the bottom, and send them off to
58:56
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59:02
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