Unlocking the Power of Forgiveness: A Journey to Growth and Empowerment | Part One

Over the past few episode's we've covered a number of fascinating and thought-provoking topics meant to propel us to living a life beyond our default:

• Maintaining a healthy relationship with our own ego, good ego vs. bad ego, and what to do if we let our ego get the best of us.
• How important it is to be mindful of the language we use to talk to ourselves about ourselves, and how this can directly impact how we move through the world.
• Reshaping the role fear plays in our lives based on our unique experiences, so it doesn't become a destructive force.
• The importance of the relationship we cultivate with ourselves, as well as the relationships we cultivate with others.

What's interesting about these topics is that, although they are distinct topics – each very much deserving of their own dedicated and focused conversation – George and I noticed a pattern emerging as we talked through them.

⚡ Go Deeper: What does it mean to live Beyond Your Default?

At some point, your personal journey tackling each of these opportunities and challenges will involve some element of forgiveness — whether that means we need to forgive someone else or, most of all, we need to forgive ourselves.

For instance, the language we use to talk about ourselves to ourselves can skew in a deeply negative way if we don't view ourselves worthy of self-compassion or forgiveness. On the other hand, the quality of relationships with cultivate, nurture, and maintain with others will almost always inevitably require us to forgive others.

Because of the complexities of the topic of forgiveness, it's impossible for us to cover it in a single episode. So, over the course of the next two episodes, we will be exploring both sides of forgiveness coin in depth.

We begin our adventure into the land of forgiveness a conversation of what it means to truly forgive others, why the forgiveness of others matters, and what it looks like in practice.

Questions We Explore

• Why is our ability to forgive others tied so deeply to our ability to live a life that extends us beyond our default?
• How has George's relationship with forgiving others changed over the years?
• What are the benefits each of us have realized in our lives as we've integrated a more forgiveness-forward mindset?
• What disparities do we see between what the true definition of forgiving others and how most folks tend to define it?
• What makes it's so hard for some of us to truly forgive others?
• How do we approach sensitive situations (trauma, abuse, etc.) where victims can embrace a forgiveness mindset without needing to absolve or engage with bad actors in their lives?
• What are the most important questions someone should ask themselves if forgiving others is an area of their lives in which they struggle?

Creators and Guests

Host

George B. Thomas

A catalyst for growth!

Host

Liz Moorehead

Content therapist and speaker.

What is Beyond Your Default?

What Is Beyond Your Default? "Everyone keeps telling me I should be happy, but I'm not." “I feel stuck.” “I have a calling, but where do I start?"

Right now, you have a choice. You can continue living within your default norms, playing it safe, clocking in and out every day, and scraping by to achieve what's supposed to make you happy hopefully. Or you can choose to accept the challenge of living beyond your default. Stop wishing to live your "best life” and start living your best life. Success leaves clues. And they're waiting for you to discover them.

George B. Thomas: 00:03

Well, wait a minute. If I want other people to forgive me, if I want other humans to realize I'm just a human, then I should probably treat these other humans like they're humans too. This was the beginning of me saying, you know what? I don't hate my math teacher. And what what was interesting over a couple year period, I went from, I hate my math teacher.

George B. Thomas: 00:25

I'd love to punch him in the face, to, man, I really wish I could see him again because I would thank him. There's a dramatic chasm, a very wide canyon between you wanna punch somebody in the face and you would thank them. And what's funny is the only thing that changed was my heart. The only thing that changed was my perspective. The only thing that changed is the way that I looked at how my hatred, my unforgiveness was affecting me.

Liz Moorehead: 01:00

Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I'm your host, Liz Moorehead. And as always, I am joined by the one and only George b Thomas. How are you? It has been a while since we've saddled up on the mic.

Liz Moorehead: 01:11

Yeah.

George B. Thomas: 01:12

It's it's been a hot minute. I did a little bit of vacation, you know, trying to, rest and relax. And, of course, when I say rest and relax, Liz, I mean do 4 Disney parks in 4 days. So probably, like, 18 to 18 to 20000 steps.

Liz Moorehead: 01:29

I'm gonna repeat to you what I said to you. We've literally had episodes about understanding the limits of humanity, and I feel like you going out there and doing 4 parks in 4 days is testing those limits.

George B. Thomas: 01:44

Yeah. It was fun. Let's just say my dogs were barking at the end of the day, but I did have a ton of fun. And what's funny is this podcast and saying things on this podcast put me in positions that historically I'd kept myself from. Meaning, literally, there was a ride, Tron, by the way.

George B. Thomas: 02:02

Tron is an amazing ride. Historically, I would have not rode that ride because being afraid of heights and just don't really like roller coasters. But when my son, Noah, basically said my words back to me about fear as we are getting ready to get in line for the ride. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

George B. Thomas: 02:21

And so I said, you know what? I can't be a punk. Like, if I'm gonna say this to the world, I have to embrace it all the time for myself as well. So I literally got on the ride. We rode it.

George B. Thomas: 02:31

It was amazing. Did multiple rides that I would have historically not ridden because I was pushing myself. It's funny that you mentioned, you know, limits to humans. Sometimes we put fake limits on ourselves. Not why we're here today.

George B. Thomas: 02:46

I fully understand this is a completely different conversation. Sometimes we put limits on ourself that really aren't supposed to be there. And so riding some of these rides, taking all of those steps, spending the time with family and friends while my body was like, what are you doing? My mind and soul was like, this is amazing.

Liz Moorehead: 03:05

We're gonna be getting to our topic here in just a second, but I kind of love how we're having echoes of our own conversations come back to us because what I wanted to reinforce to our listeners, because we didn't plan this part of the conversation, is to understand that we're walking this journey along with you. We are having these conversations. We are constantly pushing ourselves every single day to extend where we believe our lines and our limitations are. And it's so funny. I do you ever have those moments?

Liz Moorehead: 03:37

Because I I have them all the time when we're having this podcast where either you will say something or I will say something. It's like, well, that is the advice I'm gonna tell other people to take, and I never take it myself.

George B. Thomas: 03:47

What's funny is I feel like doing this podcast has removed those days for me because, by the way, Liz, my son wasn't the only person who did this. We have a listener who emailed me that knew that I was gonna be at Disney and asked this one line, did you get past your fear and ride Tron? And then I forget the 2nd ride that they put on there, but they literally emailed me that. And I'm like, oh, oh, I can't hide anymore. Like, if I'm gonna dish out advice that I've used maybe even maybe even more.

George B. Thomas: 04:27

It's been very eye opening, but vacation was great. Family was fun. If you're gonna do 4 parks, it's probably do a park, rest a day. Do a park, rest a day, do a park. If we ever do it again, we'll do it in that fashion, not just 4 back to back.

Liz Moorehead: 04:42

Thank you for pioneering though and doing the work for us in that live experimentation. Now let's dig into what we're gonna be talking about today. And I have been excited for weeks about what we're about to do. Because over the past few episodes, we've covered a number of very deep topics. We've talked about maintaining a healthy relationship with our own ego and what to do if we let our ego get the best of us, I e, we get a

George B. Thomas: 05:07

little too big for our own britches.

Liz Moorehead: 05:08

How important it is to be mindful of the language we use to talk to ourselves in particular about ourselves, how to reshape the role fear plays in our lives. We were just talking about that once more. The importance of the relationship we cultivate with ourselves as well as the relationships we cultivate with others and on and on. And what's been interesting about these topics is that although they are very distinct, each very much deserving of their own dedicated and focused conversation, you and I noticed something at the end of the recording of the last episode. At some point, the personal journey that each of us takes, that you take George, that I take, all of our listeners take, these opportunities and challenges will always involve some element of forgiveness.

Liz Moorehead: 05:55

In order to get to beyond your default state in life, forgiveness is going to play some sort of role, whether that's needing to forgive someone else or if we need to forgive ourselves. So over the course of the next two episodes, we're actually going to be exploring the topic of forgiveness in-depth, both sides of that forgiveness coin. And today, we are going to begin our adventure into the land of forgiveness with a conversation about what it truly means to forgive others and why forgiveness of others matters and what it looks like in practice.

George B. Thomas: 06:31

I too am excited about this. I think that it's probably one of the most difficult conversations to have with other humans, yet I also feel like it's one of the most important unlocks that they need to have in their life.

Liz Moorehead: 06:45

Well, at a high level, before we dig into forgiveness of others specifically, George, I'd love to just hear from you. Why do you think forgiveness is such an important conversation or a concept for those looking to live beyond their default?

George B. Thomas: 06:59

Listen. The first thing that I'm gonna mention is I think people fundamentally look at forgiveness in the wrong way. I have talked to people historically that feel like forgiveness is about the other person. I've talked to people historically that when you mention the word forgiveness, they feel like it's a weakness, that you're letting someone off the hook. Why would I let them off the hook?

George B. Thomas: 07:24

They did me wrong. The other thing is I've talked to a lot of people, and they just refuse to even think about forgiveness. Like, it's just not even a brain pattern that they're spinning around. I always love and hate, especially when I'm talking to, like, close friends, and I find that they are just refusing to even open up their mind to truly what forgiveness is, who forgiveness is for, why forgiveness is so important. And it's funny because when I try to visualize this, Liz, in my brain, there's a couple of visualizations that happen.

George B. Thomas: 08:01

1, I always think of a heart inside of, like, a a metal box locked up away that you can't get to. The box is, like, bulletproof. It's like you can't penetrate it. It's it's impossible. And here, this heart, this soul, this, like, core piece of the human being is trapped away.

George B. Thomas: 08:19

The other way that I look at this is when we refuse to have this conversation, when we refuse to think about forgiveness, when we don't understand really what it's about, I start to envision people trying to carry 4 or 5 suitcases, 2 or 3 briefcases. They're they're hunched over. They can barely take a step, but they refuse to let go of the ish that they've been carrying along the way because, you know, dang on it. Why would I let those people off the hook?

Liz Moorehead: 08:47

How has your relationship with the idea of forgiveness of others specifically changed over the years?

George B. Thomas: 08:53

I spent a lot of time hating particular individuals in my life. I've told the story about my math teacher in the understanding of, like, starting lines and words that people say to you. And, listen, there was a good 10 year period that if somebody asked me if I could go back and talk to my math teacher, what would I say to him?

Liz Moorehead: 09:15

And this is the math teacher who said

George B. Thomas: 09:17

Yeah. This is the math teacher who told me I would never amount to anything in front of the class. And, literally, I mean, I became a high school dropout because of those words. I let those words go into places in my mind, spirit, heart that they shouldn't have gone to, made really bad decisions for a large portion of my life based on those, and just hated the fact that a man would ever say that to me. And there wouldn't have been many words, by the way.

George B. Thomas: 09:42

My answer would have been like, oh, I wouldn't say a word to him. I just punch him in his face. The unfortunate thing is I clinged to that for so long, hung on to that hate for so long, refused to forgive him because my perspective was that I was done wrong. My perspective was that, how dare he? My perspective was that he was a crappy teacher.

George B. Thomas: 10:07

What's interesting is one of the times where I actually started to let go of that was tied to another story that I told in another episode where Arden, the, ranch hand at Faith Ranch, asked me if I was looking for the perfect church, and I said yes. And he said, well, when you find it, don't go there because you'll ruin it because you're a human. That story, for some reason, was like the pickaxe to the hatred that I had had in my life because the way that he shared that story with me, I was like, like, oh, we're all human. We all do wrong things. We all probably say things out of haste, choose to do things without doing the proper thinking or research of said things.

George B. Thomas: 10:50

And so so when that happened, I started to think about, like, well, wait a minute. If I want other people to forgive me, if I want other humans to realize I'm just a human, then I should probably treat these other humans like they're humans too. This was the beginning of me saying, you know what? I don't hate my math teacher. And what what was interesting over a couple year period, I went from, I hate my math teacher.

George B. Thomas: 11:15

I'd love to punch him in the face, to, man, I really wish I could see him again because I would thank him. There's a dramatic chasm, a very wide canyon between you wanna punch somebody in the face and you would thank them, And what's funny is the only thing that changed was my heart. The only thing that changed was my perspective. The only thing that changed is the way that I looked at how my hatred, my unforgiveness was affecting me. It was literally like somebody in a time of my life said, here's a bottle of poison.

George B. Thomas: 11:54

You can choose to drink this poison, and it will affect your body, or you can choose to put this poison to the side. Because here's the thing. When you're angry at people, when you say, man, I really hate them, or you even use the words of, like, why would I forgive them? I wouldn't wanna let them off the hook. The only person you're not letting off the hook is yourself.

George B. Thomas: 12:15

You're literally capturing yourself. You are becoming your own jailer. You are putting your heart in a metal box, and you're locking it away. And so, Liz, I don't think people think about this type of thing of that it's possible to go from punching in the face to wanting to thank them. I don't think people understand that the power of not having a hard heart, which we'll get into that later, versus a soft and tender heart.

George B. Thomas: 12:44

People wanna talk about the word empathy. People wanna talk about the word love. It is very difficult to be empathetic and loving if you aren't forgiving, yet we don't spend the time talking about or thinking about how to unlock that superpower in our life.

Liz Moorehead: 13:02

How has your life changed as your relationship with forgiving others has evolved?

George B. Thomas: 13:07

So it doesn't take me 10 years anymore. That's the biggest thing. If there's a thing that I'm happy about, it's like I can have people say things, do things that I can feel my blood pressure getting ready to boil. It might be minutes. It might be hours.

George B. Thomas: 13:25

Pretty much at the longest, it's maybe days at this point, but I kind of make sure that I'm, like, unpacking. Oh, I make sure that I'm setting down the luggage. I'm setting down the briefcases. I'm unpacking why it made me feel that way. I'm diagnosing if there was some truth in it.

George B. Thomas: 13:44

Right? Our brain tries to keep us safe. One of the ways that it tries to keep us safe is that you obviously knee jerk reaction to think that we're perfect, which knee jerk reaction to think that we're perfect, which none of us are, and actually go, well, was I being a certain way? Did I say a certain thing? Have I not done some things over the last week that this person had expected me to do?

George B. Thomas: 14:13

Well, maybe that oh, yes. What I'm talking about here is a little bit of ownership. If you're able to own your own ish, if you're able to look back at your yourself and not only have blinders on looking at the injustice that was served to you by the other human, then all of a sudden it becomes a different journey. The other thing too is I know at this point, which is why we're having this conversation, I wanna lead with empathy in my life. I wanna lead with love in my life and love no matter what.

George B. Thomas: 14:48

Like, no matter what. I don't think there's any greater superpower than just being able to love other humans and give of yourself unconditionally to help them have better days, better lives. That's impossible for me to achieve if I don't have a very healthy relationship with forgiving others, but maybe even more importantly in AKA part 2 next week, even forgiving myself of the part that I play in many of these scenarios that play out in life.

Liz Moorehead: 15:19

Well, I think that's what makes this conversation so fascinating is that when we dig our heels in and refuse to even consider the idea of forgiving someone else, that usually is an indicator about something having to do with us and nothing to do with them whatsoever. And, you know, when I think back to times in my life where I have felt the slings and arrows of other people and dug my heels in in a way where I was refusing to forgive. At the time, I felt under attack. Right? And we've all been through periods of life like that, maybe some more than others, where the world is happening to us.

Liz Moorehead: 15:57

It is us against the world. And the thing is is that there's an addiction that can form around this idea of being angry at the world, feeling slighted at the world. Because often what will happen is if you notice that a lack of forgiveness of others is a pattern in your life, the problem actually has nothing to do with other people, and maybe forgiveness isn't the issue whatsoever. And it has everything to do with your idea of your position in the world. Do you have control over your environment, or are you someone who feels more comfortable in the narrative that the life you are living is happening to you?

Liz Moorehead: 16:38

And sometimes it's easier to stay in that lane because that means you don't have to be accountable. You don't have to own what is happening to you. It can just continue to happen.

George B. Thomas: 16:49

And I would even go a level deeper. Right? I think that's where not to get weird. I think that's where the world where the universe wants to keep you. I don't think that anybody is out there trying to get you to live a life beyond your default.

George B. Thomas: 17:07

I think there are patterns and powers that would love for you just to get real comfortable with feeling like it's you against the world, would be happy if you were comfortable with being pissed off every day at yourself and at everybody else. That would be joyous if you did zero good for those around you. Let's just be completely honest. And so when we're talking about living a life beyond your default and we're talking about not living in those states and we're talking about living a life that is positive intent. When we're talking about a life of gratitude, when we're talking about being a catalyst for change, being an anomaly inside of the world of drone or zombie humans that are walking amongst us.

George B. Thomas: 17:58

I'm trying to shine the light and bring people to life. You can't live in that state. You can't believe those beliefs. You have to have other beliefs, and one of the beliefs that you have to have is that you can forgive others, that you can forgive yourself. Because, again, forgiveness is the key that unlocks that heart, that softens that heart, that allows you to live a life without malice.

George B. Thomas: 18:26

I get so frustrated because I know that I lived there for so long, and I understand the mental difference when you can finally make that change. Even in the past, like, week, dang on it, I knew this podcast was coming up, but in the past week, I had a conversation with a close friend of ours, and she was talking about these things that happened in her life. And I brought up the word forgiveness, and it was like the damn castle gates came crashing down. Like, I was an intruder and, like, hey. Hey.

George B. Thomas: 18:59

Hey. Let me stay in my sticky, stinky, safe place here. I I had to back up and just let it go because I knew it wasn't the right time to have the conversation, but it's just it's so frustrating.

Liz Moorehead: 19:12

One of the things that I found the most fascinating about doing the research for this topic is that we've talked quite a bit already about, you know, the softening, the unlocking of the heart, kind of these larger, very important, but still somewhat vague nebulous concepts. Right? But I wanted to understand the science behind forgiveness and whether there's any correlation or measurable benefit to forgiving others. And the American Psychological Association published this incredible article, which will link in the show notes, which talks about what happens to us psychologically if we embrace more forgiveness of others in our lives. For instance, there was a research study that measured lifetime stress and worse mental health outcomes between those who embraced or had high scoring of aptitude with forgiveness of others versus those who don't.

Liz Moorehead: 20:06

And here's what they found. As expected, people who had greater levels of accumulated stress exhibited worse mental health outcomes. But among the subset of volunteers who scored high on measures of forgiveness, high lifetime stress didn't predict poor mental health. The power of forgiveness to erase that link was surprising according to one of the scientists who oversaw the research. He said, we thought forgiveness would knock something off the relationship between stress and psychological distress, but we didn't expect it to zero it out, he says.

Liz Moorehead: 20:39

I'd love to get your thoughts on that because that to me was mind blowing. You know, obviously, the stress still remains, but just the presence of forgiveness and its ability to zero out some of those mental health outcomes, wow.

George B. Thomas: 20:53

Yeah. The fact that it zeroed it out was amazing. And what's funny is there's actually so much, and we'll link this article in the show notes. There's so much in this study that it's interesting. I feel like when I was reading it, I kept doing this.

George B. Thomas: 21:12

That makes sense. That makes sense. There's a couple things in here. So I wanna hit a couple things. Right?

George B. Thomas: 21:20

Because one of the things that we've talked about so far was anger and being kind of this thing. And so here's the one thing where and there may be very good reason to make the effort. The effort, by the way, is having forgiveness. Research has shown that forgiveness is linked to mental health outcomes such as reduced anxiety, depression, and major psychiatric disorders, as well as with fewer physical health symptoms and lower mortality rates lower mortality rates. Wait a minute.

George B. Thomas: 21:51

This is where I was like, I wanna lengthen my life. Life is getting pretty good. I'd like to live a little bit longer, so does that mean I need to forgive a little bit more? Which, by the way, is a whole another thing. Like, I feel like I'm doing good at being forgiving, but could I get better?

George B. Thomas: 22:09

They go on, and they're like, we know chronic stress is bad for our health. Forgiveness allows you to let go of the chronic interpersonal stressors that cause undue burden. I got to that point, listen. I was like, how many listeners are living a life, which, by the way, could be a it could be another book idea. Living a life of undue burden.

George B. Thomas: 22:31

Right? I'm joking, people. That would never be a book that I would write. But here's where I was like, oh my gosh. It's these layers of this research that I'm pulling out that for me were like, oh my gosh.

George B. Thomas: 22:43

So Enright believes there are other important mechanisms by which forgiveness works its magic. One of those, he suggests, is toxic anger. There's nothing wrong with healthy anger, future episode probably, by the way, but when anger is very deep and long lasting, can do a number on us systematically. When you get rid of anger, your muscles relax, you're less anxious, you have more energy, your immune system can strengthen. Now, Liz, I'm gonna get real real for a second.

George B. Thomas: 23:16

I got to this part, and I thought back about those 10 years that I hated my math teacher, and the time that I was unable to allow forgiveness to flow. I thought about my ex wife and the years that I held anger in and didn't allow it to flow. I tied it to the fact that about 5 years ago, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune deficiency. I have rheumatoid arthritis, and I started to play this game. Did I do this to myself?

George B. Thomas: 23:49

Did the 10, 12, 15, 20 years of combined unforgiveness, frustration actually caused things inside of me that I would have never connected together unless I read this research. I don't know, but this is where my brain went. And when I said at the beginning of this episode, I don't think people give it enough thought, they don't realize the psychological and physical benefits of forgiving others and forgiving themselves, what it will actually do to the life that they can live and how long they can live it, and the things that they will have or not have along the way. I've been trying to stay away from getting too religious on many of these podcast episodes because I want this to be a podcast that everybody can listen to, and they don't bring historical baggage around faith, belief, religion, spirituality, but I have to, at this point, point out the fact that the New Testament alone mentions the word forgiveness 49 times in 27 books, and when I think about these layers that I just talked through, I think about Ephesians 4:31 and 32. And even if it was in the Bible, I think it would be words of advice that I'll probably start to give people moving forward and just maybe not even tell them that that it's a scripture.

George B. Thomas: 25:20

Just be like, hey. Because it says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Listen. Here's my point, and I'm gonna tie it together. If I want God to forgive me, but I'm not willing to forgive others, if I want others to forgive me, but I'm not willing to forgive others, if I wanna live a life tenderhearted and forgiving and all the things that we've mentioned, but I'm the dam, the stopgap, the like, whatever you wanna call it.

Liz Moorehead: 26:02

The anticatalyst.

George B. Thomas: 26:03

The ant oh, I don't even like that term, but, yes, this is where a lot of people sit. A lot of people just sit in this idea of, that's not that big a deal. I'll tell you who it's not a big deal for. It's not a big deal for the person that you're not forgiving, because let me tell you how much they actually think about the thing that you think about. 0.

George B. Thomas: 26:28

They don't they don't harbor the feelings you have. They don't have the thoughts that you have. They haven't drank the poison that you've drank. You are not doing anything bad to them by not forgiving them. You're only doing bad to yourself.

Liz Moorehead: 26:45

I love all of that, and then I wanna speak to my tactical people in the audience, the people who like to see their measurable benefits immediately, because I agree with everything you just said. And I started thinking about the people who I have had to forgive in my life, and I'm very glad I did. But I had a similar thing of, like, wow. It took me so long to get here. Let's set aside medical outcomes.

Liz Moorehead: 27:09

Let's set aside stress and cortisol levels and all of these different things. Think about how many hours you have spent talking about people who have done you wrong and how much time you can literally just get back in your life if you just forgive them and move on. That's one of the things I've become very mindful of as I've gotten older is how much oxygen, how much energy am I giving to situations? Do I want to spend an hour at brunch with a friend talking about a slight that really isn't that consequential What would I do with the time given back What would I do with the time given back to me? Because that is the thing that we always talk about most in our life, right?

Liz Moorehead: 27:58

Man, I just wish I had more time. Well, cupcake, you could have more time if you forgive people and moved on.

George B. Thomas: 28:05

It's so interesting what my brain did while you were doing that. Unforgiveness is selfish. I envisioned you sitting there talking to a friend at brunch, and I imagined you having this conversation of somebody that slighted you, and my brain then went to, this person could be sitting there listening to this, and their grandma just died. And what they really needed out of this brunch was to hear a positive word and to actually be heard, but we were so caught up in our unforgiveness and the fact that we were slighted, we were selfish, and we made the conversation all about us instead of actually being that ear to hear. What's funny is as I'm thinking about this, I can feel my I'm literally getting sad.

George B. Thomas: 28:50

Like, I'm getting sad thinking about all the times that it has been selfish moments, that it has been about us, that it hasn't been about or for others.

Liz Moorehead: 29:03

Well, also perpetuates itself too. Right? Because that person sitting across from me may not have had a loved one who just passed away. You're right. There's that.

Liz Moorehead: 29:11

But then I've also let me be honest. 20 something Liz, club hopping, Petty Betty Liz from back in the day. Right? She's sitting at brunch being petty and her girlfriend sitting across from her. She sees her opening and she does the same thing.

Liz Moorehead: 29:28

And what I found fascinating when I was doing the research for this is that I found this great quote from Pope John Paul the second that I really loved. Forgiveness is above all, a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against our natural instinct to pay back evil with evil. I love that quote because it really talks about what I was saying earlier. There's this unexpected brush fire that you can spark when you're around other people. Right?

Liz Moorehead: 29:55

Like, think about when we hang out with other people, we may adopt their mood. You know, we very much exchange energy with each other, And like, we can leave a situation feeling unhappy when we started happy, and it has everything to do with the substance of the conversation or how the other person showed up. But also that lack of forgiveness, that pettiness, that grudge holding that gossip equality. That's something that we engage in quite a bit. And one of the things I noticed as I got older is that I started taking a look at some of my friendships and saying, oh my gosh.

Liz Moorehead: 30:29

The substance of our conversations are only gossip.

George B. Thomas: 30:33

Yeah. We've had that conversation about the people that you need to hang around. Right? Liz, it's interesting because I love old sayings, and I love when I can find times that old sayings really relate to what we're talking about. And the saying one bad Apple ruins the bunch.

George B. Thomas: 30:48

It's literally what we're talking about right now. One bad Apple that hasn't unlocked the power of forgiveness put in a situation can ruin the bunch. And here's the thing. Like, I would beg the listeners. Like, your mantra is I refuse to be the bad apple.

George B. Thomas: 31:06

Just move forward from today and be like, from this day forward, I refuse to be the bad apple. What does that mean? That means now you're thinking of all the ways that you cannot allow yourself to become rotten inside because that's what I'm talking about right now. Nothing else. And when I think about that and us not being that bad Apple, where I wanna go is this idea that we're kind of tiptoeing around a little bit with the people, and I use the word empathy.

George B. Thomas: 31:35

Some people will break that down to empath, and I'm not going into any, like, superhero or supervillain conversation right now, but most of us are really bad at feeling energy in the room and being able to diagnose exactly what it is and then be able to actually navigate around it in a way that isn't a black hole just sucking us into the abyss of what's happening. That's a skill, by the way, Being able to understand, oh, this is negative, and I refuse to be pulled into the tractor beam of negativity that is happening in my life, Or this is positive, but it's fake positive. So I'm gonna, like, entertain it for a minute, but not get too close to it. Like, that's another layer of understanding a room, understanding the energy of humans. And I don't mean to get off track here, but I want us to realize that when we think about this layers of not being a bad apple, when we think about the energy that is coming towards us, we also have to think about the energy that we're putting out.

George B. Thomas: 32:41

And we think about this things of negativity and positivity and being able to diagnose the energy in the room. You know, there's, like, AC and DC, Right? Direct current and alternating current. Like, we have to understand, like, this stuff has gone both ways.

Liz Moorehead: 32:57

It's interesting that you called it a skill set, which I agree with. I agree with. And I'm glad we went down this road because it ties back to something we were talking about earlier. It is a skill set. It is the muscle you need to learn to flex and strengthen and get better at, but you have to want to first.

Liz Moorehead: 33:12

That's where this whole conversation can potentially get derailed for some people. You either have to have a strong or pull or desire to genuinely shift how you think about the world, how you look at other people. And quite frankly, you have to start wanting to let go. You have to want to have other things to talk about. You would be surprised how much or how little you may have to say in the absence of being angry at other people.

George B. Thomas: 33:42

It'd be a quiet planet. What's interesting, Liz, I know you're about to go into the next section, but I have to unpack something real quick because and I think it ties directly to this conversation and the fact that the podcast is beyond your default. You have to aggressively want and chase change, and that is not the default state for most of us humans. We don't like change. There's literally a book, Who Moved My Cheese, that tries to help organizations and humans deal with the fact of change, but if you're gonna live a life beyond your default, you have to aggressively chase change and realize it's through those hard challenging journeys mentally and physically for the change that you're chasing that you're gonna actually have the most growth.

Liz Moorehead: 34:34

I'm not sure I could ever forgive someone who moves my cheese, but I also have Vylla

George B. Thomas: 34:38

I love cheese. Cheese.

Liz Moorehead: 34:40

Regardless, irrespective of cheese

George B. Thomas: 34:42

Parmesan cheese, sharp cheddar cheese. Yeah. I love cheese.

Liz Moorehead: 34:46

We are an equal opportunity cheese employer here at Beyond Your Default.

George B. Thomas: 34:50

But All cheeses are welcome. So Maybe not brie. I don't know.

Liz Moorehead: 34:55

I'll take care of the brie. You take care of the other stuff. I love brie. I'm never turning it away. So, George, what does forgiveness of others tactically look like in practice as well as what doesn't it look like?

George B. Thomas: 35:09

It's funny. When I think about this tactically, it is a mental tennis match because everything in you is gonna tell you that you shouldn't, you don't have to, you're not the person that did something wrong, it's not your responsibility, You gotta play tennis against that because

Liz Moorehead: 35:28

I need something to talk about at brunch.

George B. Thomas: 35:31

Yeah. You just have to have a mental tennis match about that. I also think one of the things that helps me with a lot of this is giving it the space and time that it deserves. So, like, there's a couple things. 1, I'll bring up meditation.

George B. Thomas: 35:46

Right? So if you need a app like Headspace or something like that to do, like, guided meditation, sweet. During that meditation, when you're focused on your breathing, and it literally says allow your mind to wander, maybe that wandering is in this layer of who do I need to forgive? Like, what do I need to forgive? One of the things that I'll tie in here is kind of like meditation is prayer.

George B. Thomas: 36:15

What's funny is when you start to pray for those people who have done you wrong, it's very hard to actually hate in prayer. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Your psyche, your brain almost won't accept it. And so, like, if you're meditating, if you're praying, if you're giving it the time and space, then all of a sudden it becomes a little bit easier. Listen.

George B. Thomas: 36:36

We're all so busy. You mentioned it here where I was like, the the thing that we give back time, the thing we need more of time. We give time for what is important, and if we look at the research and we think about this conversation, we quickly realize or should realize, wow, forgiveness is pretty freaking important to some things that it affects downstream, so giving it that space to actually unpack, to work on, to research, to watch videos, to read articles, to meditate, to pray, like, all of these things are things that we should try to put into our life to help in those situations. The one thing that I will mention kind of tactically that I had to realize, because it's a saying that people will say, well, I I can forgive, but I don't have to forget. Yeah.

George B. Thomas: 37:27

I listen. I gotta call bullshit. Like, I just that's the only way I know how to put it. And I usually don't curse, but I just gotta call it bullshit. Like, no.

George B. Thomas: 37:37

No. That's the whole point of forgiving is kind of wiping the slate clean, forgetting about historical injustice, loving them for the human that they are, being able to show up as your best self for them. And you're not gonna be able to do that if you put out 99.9% of the flame in your brain and let that 0.1% kindle because here's the thing that I know about even the smallest of flames. It can fuel up in seconds. So the next time you've let that little point 1 percent sit in your brain and they do the smallest of things that shouldn't make you feel or do any certain sort of way, all of a sudden, there's a damn forest fire in your brain again, and it's because that spark took fire because you didn't extinguish it completely out of the brain.

George B. Thomas: 38:31

Now where I will go is that this doesn't mean that you are allowed to put yourself in the same circumstances that caused the initial interaction or grievance that happened. So, you do learn a lesson, but the lesson doesn't have anything to do with the forgetting or forgiveness of the thing that taught you the lesson.

Liz Moorehead: 38:53

I love that. And one caveat I wanna add in here as well, and this is something where I've shared on previous episodes. I had to work through a lot of trauma. I grew up in an abusive household, and that was something I really struggled with for years. And, you know, it's something I still go to therapy for and things like that.

Liz Moorehead: 39:10

And so one of the things that I I think is important to notice a distinction here, and this is true whether we're talking about those of you who unfortunately may be able to had not along of, wow, that rhymes with my upbringing. I think sometimes we forget that forgiveness does not require us to provide absolution. It is not the same as there's this great quote from the research we were talking about earlier, and I'll just read it here. One common but mistaken belief is that forgiveness means letting the person who hurt you off the hook, yet forgiveness is not the same as justice nor does it require reconciliation. A former victim of abuse shouldn't reconcile with an abuser who remains potentially dangerous, for example, but the victim can still come to a place of empathy and understanding.

Liz Moorehead: 39:58

Whether I forgive or don't forgive isn't going to affect whether justice is done. Forgiveness happens inside my skin. And so when I think about those who I have had to work to a place of forgiveness, it's this weird both and mentality. I have empathy. I have understanding.

Liz Moorehead: 40:16

Let's face it. Abuse is a cycle. Abusers are typically abused themselves, but that does not mean I need to let down my boundaries. That does not mean I need to let that person back into my life. That doesn't mean I need to reconcile with them and suddenly be a happy go lucky with them and let them do whatever they want.

Liz Moorehead: 40:32

You can forgive as a solitude act. You can do that on your own. You do not have to make a big show of it. It can just be something that you do for you so that you can move on. George, I'd like to end today's conversation with a question.

Liz Moorehead: 40:49

For those who struggle with forgiving others, either in a broad sense or in specific instances, what questions would you encourage them to ask themselves that may help them move them along more in this journey?

George B. Thomas: 41:04

I've had to ask myself these questions, by the way. So know that these are tested. Yeah. We are works in progress. Trust me.

George B. Thomas: 41:15

The first question I usually try to ask myself is, is it really all that I thought it was? What I mean by that is I wanna replay what happened in my brain. I wanna try to look at it from an outside perspective instead of just the initial, like, me internally processing. Like, oh, that person's a real a hole. No.

George B. Thomas: 41:37

Let me let me replay that and think about what was happening. The other question that I asked myself is, what had happened earlier in the day before that had happened? What set me up to have the mental reaction to the situation that I'm now trying to unpack. Okay. You know what?

George B. Thomas: 41:56

Forgot to take my heart medicine. Didn't have my coffee this morning. Whatever it is. Right? As I sit here with my blessed cup and drink my coffee.

George B. Thomas: 42:06

So what happened before? Was it really all that it was? The next one and the hardest one for me is what part did I play? Like, I asked myself, well, what part did I play in it? Then the next thing I start to ask myself is how could have I reacted?

George B. Thomas: 42:20

This is the interesting part is because I think this is where we start to reach the goal is when we look at situations that we have gone through, and we start to ask ourselves, how could we have responded? Now we play out scenarios that we understand how we want to respond in the future. That's where this gets good because if we start to learn the lessons that happen with being forgiving, and we truly are taking time to forgive people, but we're also using it as life lessons and reprogramming the knee jerk reactions that happen from us in those moments. Now we're getting somewhere. Now we're creating a game plan for the future, injustices or situations that we will arrive in because it's not if, ladies and gentlemen, it's when.

George B. Thomas: 43:07

That's just how life works. Your reaction to somebody's action can completely demolish your day or can set both of you up for future success. That's the power of a moment, and, again, we've had these historical things happen. Many of us are walking around with the luggage with our heart in a box. We have not unpacked it.

George B. Thomas: 43:32

We have not thought about it. We have the mental issues, the physical issues to prove it. We haven't taken the time to use this idea of a tender heart, of forgiveness, of empathy, of love, of all the downstream effects to being forgiving versus unforgiving. We haven't been able to use all that historical, juicy, amazing internal data to reprogram ourselves in a way that we can actually live a life beyond our default. Therefore, we get loaded down, heavy, stressed, and stuck.

Liz Moorehead: 44:11

But, George, I have a follow-up question for you. All of those different questions there, it reminds me of a question I often ask myself when I get to these moments. I like to sum it up in one neat and tidy package and just ask myself, okay. How did we get here?

George B. Thomas: 44:25

Yep.

Liz Moorehead: 44:26

What's possible if we actually answer ourselves honestly with those questions? Because it's uncomfortable in the moment, but is the discomfort worth it?

George B. Thomas: 44:35

I think it's only uncomfortable at first. It's funny. You say that it's uncomfortable to ask those questions, but only the first one to 5 times we ask it. If we've run that narrative through our head multiple times, it's no longer uncomfortable. It's just a program that runs, and I don't mean to make that sound robotic, but it's just a thing we do.

George B. Thomas: 44:56

It's no different to me. I wake up in the morning. I make my bed. I brush my teeth. I get dressed.

George B. Thomas: 45:03

It is the morning program that I run. I open up headspace. I meditate. It's a pattern. The only reason that it's difficult to ask the question, how did we get here, or the way that I asked the questions previously is because we probably haven't asked ourselves the question.

George B. Thomas: 45:22

The second thing, and this probably would go really deep into another episode as my brain is unpacking it. The other reason that it would be difficult is because we're gonna be scared of what we find. We're gonna be fearful of the answer. As soon as we answer in a certain way, we might realize how flawed we are. We might realize how little of work we've done on ourselves.

George B. Thomas: 45:48

We might realize how far away from the life that we truly wanna live this has been keeping us. If you're on this journey and you ask yourself these questions multiple times, if you aren't afraid of yourself and the answers that you're gonna get, if you have self belief and you trust yourself, this becomes a lot easier.