We are going to talk about a very requested topic today, forgiveness. Forgiveness is something that I feel is not always in the forefront of people’s healing. It’s something that we consider getting to eventually or some day in our spiritual growth and healing.
The text below is an excerpt from the interview. Donna’s passion is to help people to rise above the pain and disappointment that life brings and to live the life. They have always dreamed with confidence and ease. Donna says I work with clients in coaching, in groups and one-on-one as well as I have a podcast and I’ve written some books.
I feel when somebody brings forgiveness up, it’s often that forgiveness has to be about somebody else.
Forgiveness is always relevant, in any situation. It is timeless.
But today, specifically in the times that we’re living, there’s so much polarization that’s going on in the society and our world. Learning to what forgiveness really means is a really important step to be able to understand what that looks like.
What’s your definition of forgiveness? The primary thing to go through is what it’s not first.
And some of the reasons for unforgiveness that I’ve heard from clients:
“They’re not, not even sorry or they keep doing it. They did it again. And they like doing it again again, it’s like, how can I forgive them?
They keep doing it. Or if I forgive them, they’ll get away with it. Somehow they’re going to get away with it. And somebody needs to pay. They need that. They need to, they need to be accountable for this. And if I forgive them, it means they get away with it. Or they never told me, they’re sorry, how can I forgive them? They never even said, they’re sorry.”
A lot of those things are what I’ve heard. And, and in my experience too, like yours is that as long as somebody stays in that polarization perspective and including themselves in that it’s, it’s hard to come to a different perspective.
Forgiveness can be a shift in perspective.
One of my favorite, I don’t know who said it. And now I’ve said it enough that I’m making it mine, I guess. But unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick or maybe even dies if that’s where your thoughts are.
And we think that for not forgiving them means they’re going to be some somehow punished. But the only person who’s truly being hurt is us.
It is really important to understand the shift when forgiveness is not.
What you think is that it’s all about setting you free. It’s about setting yourself free from the chains of whatever happened to you, whatever that person did.
You hold the key and forgiveness is how do we get over our past? How do we get move on forward? Forgiveness is a big key to it.
Now the important thing to remember is everyone sooner or later, reaps what they sow. That’s really what forgiveness is. Is your actions setting you free?
Donna shares her story: Growing up I was vulnerable and someone that I knew hurt me. And I became pregnant at the age of 15. So I am 15 years old with a brand new baby and a decade of the society, which did not approve of premarital sex or, or relations or babies outside of marriage.
It was much more frowned upon. And so my mother actually hid me, kept me secluded. And it was an, I was an embarrassment. All the things, shame, hurt anger, rejection, all of it. And I could have in those feelings are justified. If you will, all of those things were true. It, it was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened. And all of that and all of those emotions are justified if you will.
But if I can continue in that, I would have been a statistic of what a teenage pregnancy can be. You usually have more and you usually end up in all kinds of bad situations, but I didn’t.
And the only key I can have, well to describe those years and say they were hard. But the thing that brought me through is at a very young age, at the age of 12, I had an encounter with God. That brought me through that super difficult and painful part of my life.
And I can say today, cause it was a lot of years ago that God’s never failed, but without learning how to forgive.
I get freer and freer and freer because I pursue forgiveness as a lifestyle, not a one-time event.
The reason is stuff keeps coming to your world and you can need to continue to process.
You have Donna that really truly shaped your life. What is the one best thing that has come out of your journey in relation to forgiveness for you Being free? I don’t know how to, I mean, that just sounds so small, but freedom’s not, maybe another better word is liberated.
I don’t let people’s drama get to me as most of the time. You know, people are getting upset about stuff. That’s about them. So learning how to live drama free to live liberated.
And in that inner freedom expansion that you have gone through it’s an amazing story you have. I know you’re helping multiple people to work with forgiveness, but all also other aspects of life.
I think that society overall has trying to de-stigmatize mental health, emotional health and that kind of process. But I also think the last two years that we lived, people got still in a way that they hadn’t before we didn’t have all the busyness and there was, you couldn’t go anywhere.
You couldn’t do anything. There was just you and your family and things come up. And so when we get still things come to the surface. It just means that there’s more opportunity for freedom and more healing for you.
What are some of the practices or resources in addition to what you just shared that can be really powerful in the process of forgiveness in your experience?
Accountability is really important.
I think everyone should have a life coach or a mentor of some sort, absolutely everyone. And it isn’t something that ends. I still have coaches. We need people to help hold us accountable and help us see what we can’t see.
And to me, that is invaluable to be able to have someone help me be the best version of me that I can be.
So that’s one of the tools because without accountability, we have good intentions for that diet or workout program, but when we’re not accountable, it lasts for a little while.
But if we know we’re going to be checking in or much more apt to stay true, to do what we actually really want to do, that’s what accountability is for. It’s not somebody making you do something you don’t want to, it’s helping someone, helping you to accomplish what you actually want to do.
It’s like accountability is a word that needs to be transformed, because accountability is support and guidance.
So where do someone begin? If somebody is ready today to take an action on, on forgiveness specifically, if you want support, schedule a call with me right on my website schedule a complimentary consultation. And I’ll give you some tools to your journey because your journey is different than everyone else’s journey.
So if you want personalized help from Donna and tools to be able to find the right resources for you on your journey schedule a call on ivibrantliving.com.
Learn more about Ulrika here.
