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How Forgiveness Works · Stuff You Should Know

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