Decide On Joy
How and Why to Forgive
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Decide on Joy. It's a podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Jim Kovalt.
Pjae:And my name is Rev. Dr. P. J. Stanley, and welcome to the show.
Jim:And we're talking about various basic principles in New Thought Spirituality. I guess we can have, again, the brief review of what that might be, if you're coming in for the first time.
Pjae:Right. So when we say New Thought Spirituality, what we're really talking about is that we, we teach and we talk about the principles of life, what makes your life good, the universal principles that apply to everyone, and that. Whatever is going on in your life, you can have a new thought, another thought about it. Essentially change your mind, understand what the principles are to co create a great life and do that, to have a great life. So that's really all new thought means. It's just having, making a decision to have a different thought about how your life is going and decide on joy.
Jim:Okay and today we're talking about why and how to forgive and the first question that comes to my mind is what do we mean exactly by forgive?
Pjae:Exactly. I, I think people have so many different ideas about, about what forgiveness is. But to me in this new thought reality in terms of having, changing your mind and having the best life possible forgiveness is really, is a decision that you make. You make a decision to simply, and it's a, it's an emotional process to move through all the, the hurts and the offenses that you've had in your life. Just let them go. And the reason that you let them go is because they are pain points in your life and as long as you have those pain points, you can't be free. So, it's not, it doesn't involve anyone else. I mean, it, you may be forgiving someone else, but you don't, they don't have to be around for you to do that. It is a personal process for you to let go of old hurts and become the best you that you can be, full of love and light and not be hanging on to all this pain and misery because that's all that these hurts do is, is cause pain and misery in your life and you have control over whether those things control you and the life you're living. So that's what forgiveness is, the way we speak of it, and the way I'm speaking of it.
Jim:Right. I mean, you often hear it combined with forget. There's forgive and forget. And there are different things though. You're not necessarily forgetting that the thing happened. You
Pjae:are not. You are not. So, and so I'm glad you brought that up because I'm going to talk about what it, what it is. What it doesn't mean, what forgiveness is not. It's not that meaning that we believe what happened, whatever, whatever happened, that it was okay. We're not saying what you did or what happened was okay. That's not what we're saying. We're not saying that we forget the offense. We're not saying that either and we're not saying that we're excusing Someone's poor behavior. They had poor behavior. That happened. We're just trying to release all those offenses from our hearts and stopping our hearts from moving forward because those pain points keep pulling us back into a negative situation we don't want to be in. So that's the reason for it for you. But it's not saying, and for me, I'd actually, I actually do let it go out of my heart and out of my mind. I don't want to keep rolling it over. But that's not necessary. That's just a process I use, but it's not necessary to forget it. And
Jim:you might still, I mean, if it was. Something that a particular person did to you, you might still be
Pjae:a
Jim:bit on guard as far as that person went. Just like if a dog bit you, you might be wary of that dog in future, but that doesn't mean you don't forgive the dog because it was just being a dog. Being a dog.
Pjae:And that, oh, I love what you just said there because I think it was Maya Angelou who says, When a person tells you who they are, believe them. Believe them. So the dog is a dog. It's going to bite you if it's a wild dog, whatever. It hasn't been trained It's going to bite you every time it sees you so you don't have to be upset about it You can figure the dog, but then if you're going to keep going around the dog, well, that's on you Because you know what the dog does and we can talk about human dogs and everything else. Yeah, they show you who they are Why are you still hanging out? You got to ask yourself what's going on with you,
Jim:right? Okay. Yeah. So why forgive?
Pjae:You know, you, if you, again, it's a, it's, it's a personal thing. It is for you. This show is about deciding on joy. And, and having all these little hurts and pains, little nicks in your heart that stops you from, from living a full life and being as happy as you can. So it's just a, it's a direct path. It's a direct path to letting go of the past. And that's really where the hurts are. The hurt, you know, you can have a new hurt coming up, but the hurts we're talking about right now are things that have happened already, that we need to let go of, so it's just a direct path of letting go of all those hurts, so that you can live your life more fully and completely and, and, the, the, the bigger thing for me, because I, I believe in, in unconditional love, I think it, it allows us to open up our hearts, so we can open up our hearts to embrace Not only love, but love also allows peace, and it brings in hope. If you're, if you're still hanging on to things you need to, that are nagging you, and things you need to forgive, where's the hope of a better future? There isn't one. So it's a direct path to having more love in your heart, for having peace and hope for a brighter future.
Jim:Yeah, and they, they, they, The energy you're getting rid of there is basically a negative sort of energy. It's exactly
Pjae:that. And it's just, it's just such a, it's just such a, I'm just gonna say it's a suckle. You know what I mean? That energy is a suck. And, and, you know, why, why live that way? It's not necessary. And it's so, it's not easy to do, but it's a simple process. And, and, and because, you know, we said it's a, you know, what does it mean to forgive? You have to decide. It's a decision that we make. And I remember being in a, in a group when I first got into this way of thinking this, this new thought spirituality back in 1995, I was in a group and this woman was suffering from cancer and she'd had relapse and all of that. And, and. Her doctors, her psychiatrists, everybody was telling her she, because she had this hate that she had for her father. And we were talking about that and saying, well, you know, the path to healing is to release and let go of that hate. And she said, I've earned that hate. Well, okay. And you're earning the life that you're getting from that hate as well. But it's your decision. Every, each one. Each one has their own. Everybody has their own right to love, to hate, to have peace. It's your life. We're, we're talking about deciding on joy. Well, why would you live up, why would you take this beautiful life that could be so much and live it filled with hate and resentments and, and, and people that you're mad at. How, how is that a good life? That's a dark cloud, but that's just my thoughts on life. I don't want to live under a dark
Jim:cloud. No. Maybe for some people like that. I don't know. I'm not a psychologist. I shouldn't venture here, but it seems like that becomes part of their identity, you know. I
Pjae:think so. It clearly was her identity. She was a person who, that was her revenge on her father was to hate him. But it's also revenge on yourself, you know, as well. So I'm not, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do, I'm going to try as best I can to recognize the things that I do that are hurting me and release that and let that go.
Jim:Right. Yeah.
Pjae:So yeah, I was just, you're looking at what I was talking about earlier and just thinking about my thoughts. And one of the things that she was doing, and I'm certainly talking about it now, if we, if we cannot or will not forgive, then we're just living in this self created. Hell. It's a self created hell we can step out of, and what we believe in New Thought is that heaven and hell is right here, with us right now. Deciding on joy is heaven. Deciding on hate and not to forgive is hell. And we get to decide that, and it's right here, right now.
Jim:Right. Yeah. Is is Is there anything that can help with making that decision? Yeah. To forgive? We,
Pjae:We were, We were, I was on a call today and having a conversation a gentleman who wrote a book called Drops of Wisdom. And, and he believes like I do in unconditional love. And, and I think he and I weren't at agreement with this, and I don't really, so I don't really have the answer. I can tell you what I, I, I know. What my What my experiences have shared with me. I have, I have been around people that I care about and love. And I cannot, I cannot get them no matter what I say or how I live or how I show up. I can't get them to let go or to, to adventure into and examine how they're living. Examine the things that are drawing unnecessary pain into their lives. They simply won't stop. Long enough to look at it because there's fear there. One of the things that I know is all of these, these pains and hurts and things that we need to forgive, they come mostly from our childhood. From parents, from things that happen from older sisters or brothers, siblings who may have been picking on us. Whatever they are. And we learned as children defense mechanisms. How to, how to deal with that and handle that. Yeah. Well, so now if you're saying, let go and forgive those people, now what we're saying is that the thing you learned to do, we're asking you to let go of. And the question that comes into your mind, whether you know it or not, whether you're conscious of it or not, comes with what, what do I, how do I handle that? How do I handle my heart? If I let go, that's what, that's what saved me. That's what saved me. And now you're telling me to let it go. Yes, it saved you then, but now you're an adult and you can look back on it and have it save you in an even greater way. So you can let go of that which you, which you used as a child because you were a child. You did not know the things that you could actually do and you could, because you couldn't do them. That would, that would have saved you as well, but now you're an adult and you can look back and go, okay, hating someone and holding onto that anger is a childish way to do things. And still holds that hate. And that person. Yeah. in my soul. If I could do it another way, by just actually forgiving them and releasing them completely out of me, now I don't have to keep going back to that. Now it's completely gone. And I don't have to remember that. Oh, you can remember it, but you don't have to remember it with pain and hurt and sorrow.
Jim:Is there, is that a thing, I mean you just decide, okay, I'm forgiving this person or whatever. Or is there a process? Is there a
Pjae:process? So I, and people say that there is, there is a process, and I, I know how it happened for me. So there's several, several examples that I could give you. I'm going to talk about two because it happened two different ways. One was for giving my father, you know, for some abuse that he had done. And what happened was, I, I, I wanted to, my sisters, my siblings were having a relationship with him. And I was not. And he was around. Family and all of that kind of thing. So I thought, okay, I, I need to do something about this because he's going to be around so let me just see what I can do. So let's just talk to him. Because my sister, older sister, said she had talked with him about what had happened with her. So I went to talk with him. And he absolutely did not remember what he had done. And that, it didn't kill me, but it made me wake up and I thought, so you are suffering. And you continue to suffer behind something that he doesn't even remember. So perhaps you should let it go as well. And so that started me on this decision to let it go. That didn't happen the moment that that I realized, Oh, I'm, I'm, I, he has entered my adult life and is continuing to affect my life. I simply wanted to take control of my life and not have someone outside of me. Controlling my life. And so I made a decision right then and there. And it came to, there was a lot of things that I did with thinking about him and just thinking about him with love in my heart, which is not easy. And so you do it as long as you can,
Jim:right?
Pjae:And then let that go. So it was, it was kind of those things, it was a decision. I thought, why would I, why do I keep suffering when he's not suffering? So the very, why? So it was a decision just to stop suffering and then to figure out how, how could I. Love him because and I started thinking about all the things that he did in my in my life that were good That were actually great the things that he sacrificed so that we would have a great life I just started thinking about all the wonderful things that he actually did and so it took some time But that was one process, for that particular thing because that happened in my childhood The other thing that I remember was quite different Was, I had a, a gentleman that I was working with. We, we were friends. We'd been friends a long time when I was living overseas and had a band. And he was my bass player and my drummer. And we had a gig. And we, we could have been a permanent gig and it was, but it was at a five star resort. So the customer wanted us to dress nicely. You know, he said, can you guys, you know, just dress up to kind of look like the people who are here. Okay. And so that's what I told the band. And the first night we had a, a show. My friend showed up. And I'm not kidding, with a backwards baseball cap, a wife beater t shirt, and raggedy jeans. Alright, so he played the gig and I said, and I just talked to him, because it was me that got the gig. So it was my gig. I said, listen, sweetie, we, we can't, we can't show like this. What's the, what's the situation? You know, he said, I don't see why we have to dress up. Okay, I get that. But this is what the customer wants and he's paying us. So I need you to, to dress like that. Can we, can we do that? Are we okay with that? He said, yeah. And I said, all right, all right. So next time we came, he came in exactly the same way. He did not dress up. And so I said, Okay, well it looks like this is not gonna be a gig that we can keep. So I'm gonna let it go. I'm just gonna let the gig go. Well once I let the gig go, he started, I'm not kidding, threatening my life. He said, I know a lot of mafioso people, and I will have them drive a truck through your living room. And you know. And I was like, what? What just happened there? Because I, I honestly thought he just simply didn't want to do the gig. Because I told him exactly what the thing, I didn't want to do it. And I was shocked and hurt. So I prayed about it. Because I have a good relationship with spirit. And I said, what is going on? And all of our friends were asking me, what's going on with you and him? What's going on? I have no idea. So I talked to God and I said, how do I get my friend back? And Spirit said very clearly to me, you have to apologize. Wha ha ha ha ha! No. Why am I apologizing? I didn't do anything wrong. Spirit said to me, that's not what you asked. You asked how to get your friend back. And if you want your friend back, then you have to apologize. Essentially, seek forgiveness. And so I said, well, okay, that's fine if that's what I need to do, but you're gonna have to give me the words because I don't know what I'm asking for forgiveness for. So spirit gave me the words. I went back and I talked to him and I said, I just need to talk with you for a minute. And I apologize. I apologize for taking money out of his pocket. I said, I understand you have a family that you're taking care of. And I, I, I took money out of your pocket. I apologize for that. That's not what my intention was and blah, blah, blah. And he just came down. That was it. That's it. And we and he said I yeah, i'm so sorry It just it just went and so he apologized to me back and forth. My point is this I don't know all all forgiveness doesn't work the same way I think the moment you decide that you're going to forgive spirit will show you the way that's how it works to me That's how it works I think people think there's a process and a way but it's like grieving all grieving doesn't work the same way I i've grieved for very many different people and I grieve very differently for them So Once you make the decision, just trust that the universe is going to show you the way to have it work for you. And that's the best I can say about a process.
Jim:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. And, so, benefits of forgiveness.
Pjae:Well, the, the, the biggest thing is that you're, you're free. I mean, as long as my father was on my mind and I'm thinking about the past and what all he did to me, what a horrible person he was, what kind of a life do I have? Once I was able to let that go and remember all the wonderful things he actually was beyond that one issue, which was just, it was one issue, it was a big one, but it was just one I was free. I was free and it wasn't even about him because he didn't remember that he did it. So it wasn't about him My heart was free and I was free around my family. I was just I was free from that whole incident I was free so it frees up my heart makes more makes more space in my heart for love That's what it does. It frees you up. You don't have to spend head or heart space Not liking somebody hating somebody. That's really what we're doing when we're not forgiving somebody. We're angry with somebody. We're hating somebody we're Judging we're doing all kinds of things and all of that is gone When you actually are able to forgive not say that you are but you actually have forgiven them and again I haven't forgotten the incident, but there's no heat around it. There's no angst around it when I think of it. There's no angst Yeah, that's what it does. And we you know, so it frees our mind. So it's not it wasn't it's not controlling me. It kind of was It, it, it, it, it changes your, your, your spiritual well being. Your heart feels better. Your emotional well being. I'm not just all emotional about the issue or, or the issue, even, even because the issue happened. I, I, I, I'm, you know, it's like people say that they don't like people kicking dogs. There's something in your past that, you know, that you don't have to like that, but I mean when you get emotional about it and you, then there's something, there's something in your past you need to forgive. If you're not emotional, you can look at that and go, okay, that's not right, but with no emotion on it. Then, then it's not bothering you. It's not, it's not building up in your past. And then the biggest thing I think is that you're free to build relationships with yourself and with others. If you, if you're not a forgiving person, you have no business in a relationship because it could be a lot to forgive, right? In a relationship. And really this, this is a topic for, this is the time for another conversation. When you're doing, when you're loving unconditionally, there is nothing to forgive. Yeah. But until you can get there, there's a lot to forget.
Jim:Yeah. Yeah.
Pjae:Yeah, those are the benefits.
Jim:Okay. Yeah Well, it's a good place to stop for this episode. Thank you all for being here. We'll see you next
Pjae:time. We'll be here