S3E39 What If It's Not About You? Developing Resilience through Forgiveness

Friends,

What if some of the things you've taken personally were never actually about you?

In this episode of Forgiveness is for YOU, I explore an idea from forgiveness expert Dr. Fred Luskin: we often take other people's behavior personally and turn it into a story about ourselves.

Someone rejects us, betrays us, criticizes us, or treats us badly, and we begin to believe their behavior says something about our worth, our lovability, or who we are.

That's where we can move from “terrible world and resilient me” to what Luskin describes as “helpless me and terrible world.”

But what happens when we separate what someone did from what we've decided it means about us?

I use the story of Joseph in Genesis to explore this question. Joseph's brothers intended harm. The harm was real. But their actions did not get to become the final word on Joseph's identity or his life.

Forgiveness doesn't mean denying what happened, excusing someone else's behavior, reconciling with someone who isn't safe, or pretending that the pain didn't matter.

A question that may change the way you look at something you're struggling to forgive: What am I making this mean about me?

And then:

What would resilient me look like here?

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