Imagine Yourself Podcast

How Self-Forgiveness Changes Everything

August 10, 2024 Imagine Yourself Podcast Season 6 Episode 12
How Self-Forgiveness Changes Everything
Imagine Yourself Podcast
More Info
Imagine Yourself Podcast
How Self-Forgiveness Changes Everything
Aug 10, 2024 Season 6 Episode 12
Imagine Yourself Podcast

Do you have trouble making peace with past mistakes or regrets over what “shoulda coulda woulda” been? Forgiving yourself is often even harder than forgiving others. First, please be gentle with yourself, you’re not alone. Next, spend the next few minutes with us imagining letting the regret and shame go.

Through relatable experiences, practical tips, and looking to faith, we offer heartfelt advice on how to manage those nagging guilty feelings. We confess some of our own episodes of no-so-nice behavior and tactics we've used to let it go.

If you’re looking for a compassionate and motivating discussion on self-forgiveness, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in and discover how forgiving yourself can truly change everything.



RELATED: Forgiveness 101: How to Let Go and Find Peace

Send us a text

For more info on IMAGINE YOURSELF, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com. You'll find blogs, inspirational quotes and of course our podcasts!

Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, or INSTAGRAM pages. Email at imagineyourselfpodcast@gmail.com

Thanks for being part of the Imagine Yourself Family! Follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

Imagine Yourself is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach. Lanée is a TV writer and producer, motivational speaker and podcaster. Sandy is a radio personality, voiceover artist and podcaster. They come to you from the Detroit Metro area and invite guests from all over the world to help encourage you in your health, career, faith journey and more!

Show Notes Transcript

Do you have trouble making peace with past mistakes or regrets over what “shoulda coulda woulda” been? Forgiving yourself is often even harder than forgiving others. First, please be gentle with yourself, you’re not alone. Next, spend the next few minutes with us imagining letting the regret and shame go.

Through relatable experiences, practical tips, and looking to faith, we offer heartfelt advice on how to manage those nagging guilty feelings. We confess some of our own episodes of no-so-nice behavior and tactics we've used to let it go.

If you’re looking for a compassionate and motivating discussion on self-forgiveness, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in and discover how forgiving yourself can truly change everything.



RELATED: Forgiveness 101: How to Let Go and Find Peace

Send us a text

For more info on IMAGINE YOURSELF, visit imagineyourselfpodcast.com. You'll find blogs, inspirational quotes and of course our podcasts!

Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK, or INSTAGRAM pages. Email at imagineyourselfpodcast@gmail.com

Thanks for being part of the Imagine Yourself Family! Follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

Imagine Yourself is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach. Lanée is a TV writer and producer, motivational speaker and podcaster. Sandy is a radio personality, voiceover artist and podcaster. They come to you from the Detroit Metro area and invite guests from all over the world to help encourage you in your health, career, faith journey and more!

Lanée Blaise [00:00:03]:
Well, hello there everybody in Imagine Yourself land. I'm Lanae here with Sandy and we wanted to build upon something that we talked about last time. We had an episode called forgiveness 101, how to let go and find peace. And so now it's kinda like forgiveness 102.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:24]:
102 and not 201?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:27]:
Still, still do forgiveness 201 seems a little more elevated because this time we talked about it a touch on the last week, but we really wanted to dig into something that is so crucial. And that is when we need to remember and to embrace the concept of forgiving ourselves, forgiving ourselves for what we did maybe in the past, for what we do, forgiving ourselves for what we did not do. Sometimes that's the case, forgiving ourselves for not being enough, forgiving ourselves for not being perfect, for not walking the road and the life that we intended to. Even if it's like forgiving yourself for almost having to apologize to that little version of Sandy or that little version of Lanae or that younger version of yourself where you thought that this life and this version of you would be different. We want to take some of the pressure off. We want to take some of the guilt and the blame away, and we want to dig in today and really talk about how we can utilize self forgiveness. So Sandy, you have really been digging into this a lot. Also, you've got a host of things to share with us today.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:50]:
I'm just gonna let you run away with it first.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:53]:
Well, I'll run away first, but if you wanna grab the ball as I'm running.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:58]:
Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:58]:
Yeah. You might have to tackle it, but you can take the ball. First of all, I don't know. Are you an Adele fan? Do you like Adele, the singer?

Lanée Blaise [00:02:06]:
Of course. I love Adele.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:09]:
She spans generations, literally. Like, it's one of the artists my Gen z son and I share is Adele. But her latest song, Easy on Me, it's a big hit. I'm sure, most people have have heard it. If not, I'm gonna just read a couple lyrics here. She says, go easy on me. I was still a child. Didn't get the chance to feel the world around me.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:30]:
Had no time to choose what I chose to do. Go easy on me. I had good intentions and the highest hopes. Now I'm not sure the exact meaning behind that song, but I was thinking that in terms of how we act, maybe not literally being children, but, like, as you sort of intimated, like, when we're younger. And let's face it. You know, when we're very young adults, know, we haven't really grown up much, and, we can make a lot of stupid decisions. And sometimes those decisions can hurt people or ourselves. So I'm just gonna ask our audience as we begin this road of self forgiveness to go easy on themselves and, you know, maybe think about the lyrics to go easy on me.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:15]:
And that's where I will first start. Thoughts on that?

Lanée Blaise [00:03:19]:
My initial thoughts on that are there is a lot going on in this world. There's a lot going on in our minds. There's a lot going on in our jobs. There's a lot that maybe went on in our past. Even saying the word easy or easy on yourself is just like a soothing balm right now because forgiveness can be a tricky concept or word for people to really get used to or or, you know, have a desire to go in that direction. But self forgiveness gets so overlooked. And, of course, we do want to think about the part about going easy on others. But like you said, with that Adele song, going easy on ourselves.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:02]:
There's just a lot that we can criticize ourselves about past, present, where our future is going, and we wanna turn that around. That's my thought from it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:12]:
Yeah. And it basically and you and I as believers, the basic tenet of Christianity is forgiveness. 1st John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That can be little things. That could be big things. And so many times after we've asked God for forgiveness, we've prayed to God for forgiveness, we haven't let it go. We still remember that we did that. And I don't know why, but it just seems like that's pretty common thing.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:46]:
It is a pretty common thing. And it is something that I wonder if God is just kind of like shaking his head sometimes with a little bit of a somberness like, I forgave you. You are cleansed. It doesn't matter what it was because even though the scripture that you said it, you know, cleansed of all things, even that really dark, terrible thing you did or moment you had or streak of things that you had. And, I mean, I get it that we don't want to continue to do things because there's that whole, you know, go and sin no more concept also from the Bible. But I just really wish we could, again, be be easier on ourselves and really believe that we're clean of it, that we're back, set on the right path, and like I said, I just wonder if that does sometimes give like a, you know, a sorrowful feeling where it would be like if you had a child and there's something that they did when they were a little kid and they've grown up, they've matured, they've apologized for it, they wish they hadn't have done it, you're not gonna hold that over their heads anymore. You're not going to even really see it anymore. And again, many times, it's us that's holding on to

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:12]:
it. That's right. Yeah. Because once your child is is grown, like, we both have kids that are you know, you have a son in college, a daughter in medical school. I have a son who's a young adult, who graduated recently. I don't think about, hey. You know when you were 7 and, you had to have a time out or you had to be disciplined or, you know, or you didn't do remember when you didn't do your homework? You know? It's like, no. I don't think about that when I see him.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:39]:
Right. And and you have such love over the child too. That's the other part, the love that overcomes so much. Right. We talked in the last episode about forgiveness, how sometimes it can be like almost feel like poison, you know, that you're you're and this is we were referring to when you have something that still grabbed hold of you that someone else did to you from the, from the past. But it can be a poison that's running throughout you if you're still holding onto that negative image and negative view of yourself as well.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:14]:
Yeah. I mean, it is poison. And in fact, I was reading about some studies, people that have unforgiveness, and this is not a surprising leap, but they have lower self esteem or that they can have lower self esteem. People that have unforgiveness in general are more you know, contend more towards depression. And this is obviously something to speak to a therapist about, and that is one thing. I mean, we talked a lot about getting therapy for problems with not forgiving someone else. I think it's just as important if you're having a unforgiveness issue.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:48]:
Yes. Sandy, you really hit on it again. There is definitely a time and a place where it goes even beyond talking to a friend, even beyond you listening to this podcast, but where you really actually need a professional therapist, counselor to help you dig deep down into some of the things that you're really struggling with, subconsciously or consciously. That's the other part. There can be sometimes a tape, like a bad, bad broken record running, you know, with some really negative messages in the back of your head. And you have to get to a point in your life where you're ready to stop all of that broken record from running because it's really not helpful. It's it's not protecting you. It's not helping you.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:37]:
It's either a reliving of the of the shame or the guilt and to just stop that broken record.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:44]:
Yeah. Sometimes we don't even realize it's going on. And I thought of that today when I was recording. And when I'm in the studio, I have a lot of soundproofing and whatnot, especially for a voice over for commercials and stuff. But maybe when I'm doing radio or I'm doing a podcast when the atmosphere can be a little more natural, I am not as particular. And in this case, there was some kind of leaf blower going on outside that I didn't really realize it because it was way in the background. And when I listened back to the audio, I was like, oh my gosh. That's not gonna work.

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:20]:
So I had to use my audio processing know, whatever is kinda going on in the background, the chatter. I don't know if there's this sound or this negative self talk, remorse, guilt, you know, whatever is kinda going on in the background, the chatter that we're not even aware of. And we need to take our mental, audio processing, example, you know, we're not aware of it necessarily. So sometimes we kinda have to listen back to those thoughts and do something about them. Use the mental noise reduction.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:00]:
You're right. I mean, I literally I did counseling one time with the lady who kind of talked about that, you know, not with the audio per se, but she would have me listen to an actual tape. Like, this shows how long ago it was cassette tape. You know, an actual tape to play of specific wording, specific affirmations, specific ways to kind of rewire and retalk to myself to play like on a Walkman.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:33]:
a Walkman. the Sony Walkman?

Lanée Blaise [00:10:36]:
Your Sony Walkman. Put it in your ears and listen to a new tape, a new version of ways to think of myself, ways to think of my life, ways to forgive myself, ways to overcome some of those negative thoughts and hurdles. And I truly believe it helped because she'd have me listen to it at night, you know, almost even fall asleep to it. And there is something when you're asleep as well, and it really is a subconscious tape that is literally playing in your ears, in your brain that can really make a difference and really turn things around. And to be fair, I am so grateful to say that I'm I'm not really one of those people who suffers from a lot of negative self talk. I do forgive myself on so many things. There's a few things that, you know, I'll still get caught up on, but it's become easier and easier now for me to work my way out of it, to realize that I'm doing it, to realize that I'm still holding on to the guilt of myself or the blame towards myself, and to unravel it in a more positive way and to really go ahead and accept forgiveness from myself, accept forgiveness from God. Whether or not the world or particular individual person forgives me or not or thinks that I'm good enough on that or not.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:16]:
I remember in the yeah. The last episode, you talked about that specifically. Like, you the girl you said didn't forgive you or you don't know if she did, but you went ahead.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:24]:
I know she didn't.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:25]:
I know

Lanée Blaise [00:12:26]:
she didn't because she just won't talk to me, you know. I tried to reach out to apologize. It's not gonna happen. Like right now, I don't even know where she even lives anymore, so there's like not even any way for me to find her and try again, and I had to let it go. And I knew I was wrong. I know it was it was bad, it was terrible, and I'll never really get to rectify it with her. But I do get to rectify it with God, and I do get to rectify it with myself. And even like we talked last time about forgiving and forgetting, it's not that I forgot, it's just that I have made my own peace with it and with myself.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:11]:
And I pray that she's able to, and I pray that she's, you know, soon or one day not harmed by the lingeringness of it anymore.

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:22]:
That's the thing too. You wonder about when you get older, because man, I think about and because we're doing this episode on self forgiveness, I was thinking about, as I was a younger person, some of the crappy things that I did to people. A lot of them guys, and, you know, all is fair and love and war and all that, people say that. That's I mean, that's not true. I had no I don't wanna say I had no regard for their feelings, but there were some guys I dated just out of convenience. There was one guy that I just moved to a new place and I knew he wasn't my type and he knew he wasn't my type, but he was really smart and I liked talking to him. And I remember him even saying to me now, Sandy, I know you're gonna dump me because you're gonna get tired of me and because he like I said, he's really smart. He's really insightful.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:12]:
And we had these great conversations, but he liked me as more than a you know, I was friend zone, and he was wanted to do a thing.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:20]:
Let's go.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:20]:
Yeah. Didn't last long. I dumped him just like I said I wouldn't. I was like, oh, no. No. This will be great. And knowing absolutely that I was gonna dump him. I mean, just not even considering his feelings.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:33]:
I mean, it was a lot younger. And if it if it makes it seem any better, plenty of guys have done crappy things to me too. So it just it's awful.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:41]:
I caught it all. That was back out really.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:43]:
And so on. It did come back around. But, yeah, things like that. So we are these people that are kinda doing the best we could with what we had. I still can't, for the life of me, figure out how I thought that was okay, but I did.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:57]:
Yeah. And so are you able to forgive yourself for it, or how how are you processing it, all that now?

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:06]:
Well, I kinda had a dream that sorta helped me process that and some other things, and that is probably on the more mild side of things that I need and have needed to forgive myself for, but it is a big one when you're talking about hurting somebody's feelings even if it is dating. Right? Which, you know, there's always up and downs in that. So this is kinda related, although not necessarily specifically dating or relationships, but there were these 2 guys in an airport. I think they were European guys, German or, Dutch, something like that. One of them was an atheist, and I was trying to talk to him a little bit about, why I thought he shouldn't be, you know, without being too pushy. Then there's this other guy. And this other guy has this girlfriend, and her name is Anna. Now Anna's not there at the airport, but she is talked about a lot.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:01]:
In fact, this guy is so gaga over her. She is, like, everybody thinks she's a a jerk. Like, everyone else thinks she's a bad seed, and she's a horrible person, and she's done all these other things to the point where, like, I wanted to avoid ever meeting her. She sounded just, like, terrible. So in the next part of my dream, I'm with this other guy with a girlfriend, Anna, not, like, on a date or anything. In fact, he's singing this song that's about her and just a beautiful love song about Anna. And he leaves, and the song is still in my head. And as I'm kind of singing it in my head, guess who shows up, but Anna.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:43]:
And she kinda looks a little like me, not totally. Oh, boy. And I'm like, she's not that bad. So what did I get out of this is maybe I'm the girl that's supposed to be terrible, this girl from my past or this girl that I was in my past that somebody loves, and I think about that as God or Jesus because of his grace. He sees me through his eyes, and forgives me. And he finally makes me look at myself because I didn't wanna look at Anna. You know, I never wanted to confront her because I heard she's just so terrible.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:20]:
To me, the biggest part is that part where you said it's it forced you to look at yourself. Yeah. Yourself now and even yourself then. Your dreams always fascinate me. They ever since you started telling me about your your dreams that always have these connections that are faith filled and god filled, I've started to have some more robust and faith filled dreams as well. I yeah. I which I'm I'm just grateful to you for that, but this one, I really do think maybe we're being called to go ahead, take a deep breath, and look at that person. Look at the at Anna or look at the the Sandy who's, you know, maybe like 19 years old or whatever, and go ahead and put forgiving eyes on her and, and start to realize somebody, like you said, somebody does love her and that she's not all bad, you know, and that there's of course, some transformation has taken place because another this is, like, way out of left field that I'm about to bring up.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:26]:
You're gonna be like, Lanee. I don't know if you remember a movie. I think it was in the late eighties called Flatliners.

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:33]:
Yes. I do remember that movie.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:35]:
It was

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:35]:
had the

Lanée Blaise [00:18:35]:
Kiefer Sutherland. Yeah. Or no. Kiefer's this one was Kiefer Sutherland, and maybe was it Julia Roberts? Yeah. It's like all these folks were earlier in their career. Like I said, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, even also William Baldwin. But the big part of it was these doctors, and they were testing what it would be like to let themselves die and then bring themselves back to life, and even after the flatlining, and every single time they'd go back, they would go back to some part of their lives that was where they were at their worst, something unresolved, something that they felt terrible about, and, they had to face it. 1 of them had to deal with a family member who had committed suicide, just different things from their past that had actually happened in their past, but it was like they were back in that moment.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:30]:
And I'm pretty sure it was Kevin Bacon who had his was this little boy that he had when they were when he was younger, he had bullied him, tormented him. It was just terrible. And back when he was flatlining and going back, it was actually even like more intense than probably he had thought about it as a little kid. These are the types of things that they had to resolve. The reason I get into all this is because I watched that movie back in, you know, like 1990, and I remembered this is another one. This is still from where I had bullied this little boy so badly, like to the point of tears back in elementary school. In this case, I did get to look him back up. I did get to find him, and my crazy butt reached out and called him.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:22]:
Good for you. And I was like, yeah. I was like, hi. You know, I'm Lanae back from your elementary school, and he's like, oh yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh boy. I was like, I mean, I reached out because I think back in school, I did some really, really mean stuff. He's like, yeah, you were ridiculous, terrible, just all the way off the chart. And I'm like, I am so sorry.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:50]:
He's like, seems like you turned out okay then, If you're if you if you have enough heart to reach out to me, call me and apologize. I said, I do. I sincerely and I told him about the dang on movie too. I was like, ever since I saw that movie, I was like, that was me. That was wrong. And he was just like, okay. And I said, I hope you forgive me, and I do apologize. I'm not that same person anymore.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:15]:
I have changed. I was a lot as a little kid. I was just a real mess. He's like no, you're thank you for calling, thanks for the apology, You can go on your way and I'll go on my way, but it's all it's all clear. And this is the true story.

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:32]:
Wow.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:32]:
His name is McArthur. And, his name is memorable. He forgave me. And and again, remember, I definitely say that it's not necessarily a situation where you're able to find the person and get that forgiveness. And in the movie, Flatliners, I don't think they some things got resolved, some things didn't, but it did help me to realize that there is if he can forgive me, I can forgive me. God can forgive me, you know, and I and I just want to pass that out to everyone else too. Self forgiveness. Don't let that blame and that shame eat you up, poison you up, prevent you from moving forward, prevent you from believing that God will still smile upon your face.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:21]:
Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:22]:
I mean, if you can do that, apologize to someone. That is awesome. It's easier to forgive yourself for that. And if you sincerely regret it and you you ask god for forgiveness, like that scripture we read earlier, you know, he is faithful to forgive. And, one of the other scriptures that I like about this, therefore, if anyone anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come. So think about the old you, it's gone.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:54]:
You know? You may, every once in a while, hear it outside your studio window, but it's gone. It's, and it's forgiven, and you need to forgive yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:03]:
Yeah. And even if it takes a little while. Right? Even if it takes some look like, again, looking at yourself, looking at your how about looking at your heart too? Look at your heart, even how much it has changed, how much it is is has healed. You are a new creation. You're not the same person as you were before, and you don't have to live as if you're still that person from before. And I know our society, of course, if you do something bad, you could find yourself in jail for life sentence. And so that kind of puts it in your brain, like, wow. If I did something bad, I have to carry it around for a life sentence.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:44]:
And, you know, even if you have to go to prison for it, that's a legal thing, but what I'm trying to get at more so is from the spiritual, from the faith filled, from the godly perspective, you don't still have to carry that no matter where you are and what you did.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:02]:
Yeah. Because the the shame and the regret and all of those negative emotions, and they grow in the darkness. So if, you're holding it in, whether it is talking to a friend or journaling about it or, gosh, if it's big, definitely, you know, a a pastor or priest, a professional counselor, therapy, get it out. Get it out of your system. If you're having trouble just forgiving yourself, even if you don't understand, like, in that case, I was talking about, like, that guy, why would I do something like that? There are some times where, you know, hey. Look. I was just I was going through something, and so it caused me to act this way. In this case, I don't know why other than I was just a jerk.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:48]:
Even if you don't know why. Say, okay.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:50]:
And and yeah. And like you said, were. The operative word there is were. You were a jerk in that moment, in that space. Didn't make sense. You didn't have to do it that way, but you have progressed and you've apologized. And another one too, though, like, this is not for everybody, but some people do find it helpful to write a letter to the person even though they won't be able to send it to the person. Because some of these people, you aren't gonna be able to find them, don't even know if they're still alive or, you know, or not, and or some of them you feel like it might actually trigger them worse if you sent it.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:23]:
So in this case, you can write the letter with the apology, and at least that is a form of expression and getting it out as well.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:33]:
Yeah. Definitely. And I think you were talking about, again, in our last episode on forgiveness 101, in this case, it was you were forgiving someone else, but that's what you did. You wrote it, and then you discussed it with a therapist, and you got rid of it.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:46]:
That yeah. Mine because I was so angry at that person, what they did to me. I got that rage out. So in this case, you can get that shame and that guilt and that blame out through writing it down in letter form because, yeah, that one was in letter form to the person who did it, and, it's almost like, what's that? Like, when you have a snake bite and someone has to suck the poison out, it's it really sucked that poison out by writing it down and getting it on paper, and it no longer had to reside within me anymore.

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:21]:
Yeah. I was just reading about some instrument. I don't know. You You know, like a small thing maybe that looks sort of shaped like a needle. It's not a needle, but it when you get a bug bite or a bee sting, it sucks the venom out. Somebody introduced it on Shark Tank or something. I don't know. I just saw an article on that.

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:37]:
So, I don't know why I just but think of that. Just carry it around. And they say, carry it around with you because, you know, especially if you're gonna be out in mosquitoes. So

Lanée Blaise [00:26:45]:
To have your mental version of that ready to extract all that negative, all that pain. And again too, there's even that part with, like, you know, forgiveness that you weren't enough, that you weren't there, that because there's a lot of things too. There's, on Instagram the other day, there was a lady who was so heartbroken because she didn't make it to her grandmother in time before she passed away. Oh. And, you know, it was a logistics thing. You know? Like, she was on her way there, but she didn't make it in time. And there's things like that too. Like it's not just always that we treated someone badly, but feeling like you're not enough or you weren't there to protect someone or you weren't there to say goodbye to someone.

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:31]:
Or for kids activities and the stuff like that. Like,

Lanée Blaise [00:27:35]:
Any of the things. Yeah. Yeah. That you weren't there. I was at work, and I was trying to be a good mom and but I wasn't there for I just really want people to, like, go easy on it. Let a let a spirit of ease wash over us where we don't take that blame so hard. You know, we we come into this world alone. We're gonna go out of this world alone.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:58]:
The only one that really has to be there with another person is god. And your heart your intention was in the right place, and sometimes the logistics didn't work out. But please try to release some of that and focus on what you can do now, what you still have. Because every day, new mercy that's in the Bible too. You know, you wake up every day. New mercies will come. You know, you have that opportunity to start again as opposed to being planted and dredged back in the blame of the past.

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:32]:
Absolutely. So

Lanée Blaise [00:28:34]:
that's is there anything else? You got anything else up your sleeve over there, Sandy?

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:38]:
You know, maybe I'll just before we, do takeaway time or maybe this can be our takeaway time, just going to drop a few quotes. William Shakespeare, I we quoted him in

Lanée Blaise [00:28:49]:
the last episode. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:51]:
Do as the heavens have done. Forget your evil. With them, forgive yourself. Here's another quote. I don't know the author. Forgive yourself for not knowing what you did before you learned it. Forgive yourself for what you think you have done or not done at any moment. You had your reasons for all of your actions and decisions.

Sandy Kovach  [00:29:11]:
You've always done the best you could. Forgive yourself, and, you know, here's just a general quote on forgiveness. And Martin Luther King Junior, forgiveness is not an occasional act. It's a permanent attitude.

Lanée Blaise [00:29:23]:
Wow. Let's drop the mic right there, ma'am. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:29:27]:
Some good stuff, right, from various people.

Lanée Blaise [00:29:30]:
And that's that part where can you imagine if you had a Walkman, a Sony Walkman playing that

Sandy Kovach  [00:29:36]:
message to you? Yes.

Lanée Blaise [00:29:37]:
Because Brady. Right before

Sandy Kovach  [00:29:40]:
it plays Michael Jackson. Exactly. Right. Yes. Wardell. Wardell. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:29:46]:
Yeah. But you've got that kind of stuff, you know, simmering and marinating and flowing throughout your brain instead of I was so terrible. I wish I could do it over again. I'm horrible. I'm still horrible. Not that's not forgivable. Please replace those words with yes. I can look at that moment in time, and I do see I wish that was not the way that I had done things.

Lanée Blaise [00:30:17]:
I wish that's not the way it had gone. Even to say it, that was terrible. However, I'm giving it to God. I'm asking for the forgiveness. I'm accepting the forgiveness from God and I'm accepting forgiveness for myself and I will move differently from now on. That's what we can do. Do the best you can with what you've got in this moment. So I hope this was helpful.

Lanée Blaise [00:30:45]:
I hope it built upon our forgiveness 101. I hope that this forgiveness 202 lesson was helpful for all. And I really, really Sandy and I both, we just we hope that you're enjoying each of these episodes. We hope that you will continue to, listen to each episode. Go on imagine yourself podcast.com. Reach out to us if you have any thing that you, wanna share with us on some some of the stuff might have brought things up for you as well. And overall, we just want you to imagine yourself forgiving yourself safely, happily, and in your own timing.