Forgiveness: Why It Feels Impossible (And How to Actually Do It)

🎙️ Episode 29 – Forgiveness: Why It Feels Impossible (And How to Actually Do It)

Forgiveness sounds good in theory—until you’re the one who’s been hurt.

In this powerful episode of the Lion Counseling Podcast, Mark Odland (EMDR Therapist) and Zack Carter (Counselor and Coach) unpack the emotional, relational, and spiritual dynamics that make forgiveness so difficult—and show you how to actually walk it out without pretending the pain didn’t matter. Whether you’ve been betrayed by a friend, deeply hurt by a family member, or struggling to forgive yourself, this episode offers both clarity and hope.

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🔍 In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• Why forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation
• The biblical and psychological purpose of forgiveness
• Why we hold grudges even when we want to let go
• How trauma (like infidelity or abuse) makes forgiveness harder
• What it means to “forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it”
• EMDR and genogram tools for healing deep wounds
• A powerful reflection on Jesus’ words: “They know not what they do”
• How to free yourself without minimizing the pain
• How to model forgiveness as a strong Christian man

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➡️ What’s helped you forgive someone who hurt you?
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About the Show:

The Lion Counseling Podcast helps men break free, heal deep, and become the lions they were created to be. Hosted by Mark Odland (Certified EMDR Therapist) and Zack Carter (Counselor & Coach), we explore trauma, relationships, masculinity, faith, and personal transformation.

Creators and Guests

Host

Mark Odland

Founder of Lion Counseling, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified EMDR Therapist

Host

Zack Carter

Zack Carter is a Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling LLC.

What is Lion Counseling Podcast?

The Lion Counseling Podcast helps men escape the cages that hold them back and become the Lions they were created to be. It exists to help men obtain success, purpose, happiness, and peace in their career and personal lives. The podcast is hosted by the founder of Lion Counseling, Mark Odland (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified EMDR Therapist), and Zack Carter (Counselor and Coach with Lion Counseling). In their podcasts, they address a variety of topics relevant to men, including: mental health, relationships, masculinity, faith, success, business, and self-improvement.

Mark Odland: 00:00

Welcome everyone to the Lion Counseling Podcast. I'm Mark Oddland, founder of Lion Counseling and certified EMDR therapist.

Zack Carter: 00:07

And I'm Zach Carter, counselor and coach.

Mark Odland: 00:10

And our mission is to help men to break free, heal deep, and become the lions they were created to be. Today's episode is on forgiveness. Forgiveness sounds like a good thing in theory, right? Until you're the one who's actually been hurt. And so in this episode, we'll tackle why forgiveness sometimes feels so impossible, what keeps us stuck in anger and how to move forward in freedom without pretending that the pain didn't matter.

Mark Odland: 00:38

Make sure to hang on till the end. We've got some practical ideas for how you can actually do this, not just not just theory, but also how to put it into practice. So, with that being said

Zack Carter: 00:47

Yeah.

Mark Odland: 00:48

Let's do it.

Zack Carter: 01:14

Alright, Mark. So tell us, what is forgiveness? How do you define it?

Mark Odland: 01:19

Oh, man. That's loaded. Right? It's it's used all the time, this word, but often we don't define it. And I think, you know, people come from different reference points.

Mark Odland: 01:28

Right? From a biblical perspective, right, forgiveness is basically releasing releasing the anger and the bitterness and and wishing well for the other person. Basically, not holding that thing that they did against us. Right? From a psychological perspective, which has kinda become more trendy in recent years, they've talked about forgiveness not quite being a gift for the other person but more as this thing that you do to kind of free yourself from from these toxic negative emotions that you carry around.

Mark Odland: 02:04

And I think that there's obviously merit to both sides, you know, to both angles on that definition. And I think as we get into our conversation, we're gonna kind of flesh flesh out what actually makes sense and what actually fits with that.

Zack Carter: 02:17

Well, do you do you have do you hear definitions of forgiveness that you would disagree on?

Mark Odland: 02:23

Well, I guess I'll just I'll just get it out there right away. I would say, I think the psychological component has it as a kernel of truth, but I think it's incomplete in the sense of when we make it only about ourself, then it kind of loses that relational component that actually changes something. And I will I will say too that within Christian circles, sometimes there's a confusion that forgiving someone inherently means we have to, like, restore the relationship to its previous form. And when it comes to things like abuse and really toxic relationships, really unhealthy relationships, forgiveness might be a gift to the other person. It might be something that unburdens them to know that they've actually been forgiven.

Mark Odland: 03:09

And that actually is a cool thing. It can be unburdening for us by doing the forgiving, But it doesn't mean we necessarily become best friends with them again. Right? I mean, you hear these dramatic stories, right, of someone who like killed a family member. And what could be more devastating than that?

Mark Odland: 03:26

And then, you know, the the parent or or the fam the surviving family faces their accuser when they're on the stand in court. And they say because of their Christian faith that they actually forgive that person. That person might still have to face the earthly consequences in this kind of cause and effect reaping and sowing world that we have, that we live in, where they might still have to serve time in jail. But there was still something powerful about that interaction that happened for both parties involved. Right?

Mark Odland: 03:54

And then you could even go deeper with our relationship with God. But so, yeah, I think to answer your question, I would say it definitely I think the psychologists and the therapists are onto something when they say there is a a freedom that comes for the forgiver, the person forgiving in many cases. But if you completely disconnect it from how it impacts the other person, sometimes it it it's not a full a complete picture.

Zack Carter: 04:18

Okay. And so it sounds like kind of reading between the lines that you're you're you're basically saying we're not condoning the behavior, and it's actually not the same as reconciliation because you're gonna choose whether or not to reconcile with the other person.

Mark Odland: 04:33

That's right. That's right. Because that that can be a tricky thing in therapy. Right? Especially people coming to quote unquote Christian counselors.

Mark Odland: 04:39

That's a lot of the work that sometimes we do with people who hold their faith important, and there's a fear that if I forgive this person, what does that mean? Does that mean I have to go to Thanksgiving with my abuser? Does that mean that I have to become best friends with this person who hurt me? And it's like, no. The answer, boundaries and protection are so important, right?

Mark Odland: 04:58

And so yes, I think that puts it well. It's not the same as reconciliation, and it's also not the same, this kind of gets into further down kind of our conversation, but it's not also not the same as saying that what happened was okay. And I think that's one of the things that keeps us from forgiving others, right? Sometimes we are hurt so deeply that there is that side of us, that ugly side of us that wants revenge, that we want them to feel pain. We want them to feel punishment.

Mark Odland: 05:31

The more generous interpretation is we're so desperate for someone to understand our pain, and they're so unable to really empathize with us and validate our pain that we want a way to hold something over them so they could we're forcing them to feel it. We're forcing them to get it. I mean, you could see this in the the couples we work with sometimes that when old hurts come up that were a decade old, and now they're resurfacing in session like they happened yesterday. Right? Mhmm.

Mark Odland: 05:59

And that can keep us from forgiving. Right? The belief that they don't deserve it. Right? That could be a big, big one, a barrier to forgiveness.

Mark Odland: 06:08

They don't deserve my forgiveness. We'll return to that one because there there's a that's a tricky one. And then again, self protection. I see this in the trauma work that I do a lot is there's something about we we talk about what forgiveness is, but what what is what is not forgiveness? Or what is what holds that space emotionally in a state of unforgiveness?

Mark Odland: 06:30

It can look like bitterness. It can look like anger. It can also look like power. It can look like self righteousness. It can look like adrenaline.

Mark Odland: 06:40

It can look like I'm protecting myself. And to forgive is it feels like this act of weakness sometimes, especially for us as guys. Like, it feels like I'm really gonna just, like like, let them win. Like, is that what I'm doing? I'm letting them win by forgiving?

Mark Odland: 06:57

And so it can feel like you're laying down your weapons, which ironically is kinda what Jesus did when he went to the cross. Right? And and what Peter didn't wanna do when he picked up his sword and cut off the guy's ear. But and and good old Peter. Right?

Mark Odland: 07:14

He's like, how many times should I forgive, Lord? As many as seven times? And depending on the translation, it's, like, either infinite or seven times 70 or 77 times. Right? This idea that, no.

Mark Odland: 07:27

Like, we have to forgive as a way of life. And and interestingly enough, for those in our audience who are Christians, that is one of the hallmarks, one of the defining things that makes Christianity different is because it's all based on the idea that we know that we need forgiveness from God because we're not perfect. And so therefore kind of who are we to think that we should withhold that from others because they and that comes back to that question of, well, don't deserve it. Well and here's a tough pill to swallow. We don't either.

Mark Odland: 08:00

Mhmm. Right? So that's that's that's kinda that's kinda the bitter pill, and and that's why, you know, sometimes the the evangelist will say, man, just accept Jesus and everything. Your life's gonna be awesome. It's like, well, it's actually can be kind of a hard path.

Mark Odland: 08:16

It can actually be a path of sacrifice and suffering. And, again, metaphorically and literally sometimes laying down those weapons and putting yourself at risk emotionally or physically within reason. There's there's still room for boundaries and self protection as well. Right? As Jordan Peterson says so well, meekness does not mean being a wimp and incapable of of protecting your your family or yourself.

Mark Odland: 08:41

It's it's more like you got that sword Mhmm. But you have such self control and and and like the martial artists, no. You try not to fight whenever possible, but the sword is there if you need it. Right? That kind of thing.

Zack Carter: 08:54

Yeah. That's really good. Well, Mark, you know, I have, you know, I I I find that I have a lot of guys that that have maybe made mistakes in their relationship that was really hard on their partner. And their partner is constantly bringing up the past constantly. And so you can kind of see, you know, a difficulty in forgiving.

Zack Carter: 09:17

And so if someone has experienced some kind of trauma, whether it's like cheating in a relationship or some kind of abuse or whatever, and then one party is like, hey, I wanna kinda move forward. I wanna, like, heal. I wanna get better. You know, can traumas impact our ability to forgive in some way?

Mark Odland: 09:38

For sure. I mean and I think that's one of the things that even the gurus of couples counseling, the Gottmans. Right? Mhmm. The Gottman know, I I recently was going through some of their work, and and they had a really lengthy article on infidelity.

Mark Odland: 09:52

And they basically said the most helpful way to conceptualize infidelity in a relationship is a trauma. And and when when you're the one who if you're the if you're the spouse who actually did the cheating, you know, it's it's not about casting blame or, like, know, takes two to tango, and there's this this whole context of why these things happen in a relationship or in a marriage. But for the one who, you know, engaged in infidelity, that first stage for the Gottmans was atonement. It's basically sitting there and being like, alright. This is gonna take a while, and this is gonna be me in a state of empathy and and, humility.

Mark Odland: 10:33

And and just when I think they should be over it or they should have forgiven me by now, no. They're gonna want more they're gonna wanna know something else. They're gonna be hurt by this other reminder, and then and they're triggered all the time. And you're like, why are they being so irrational? Well, actually, it's perfectly rational when you know how the brain holds trauma and what PTSD looks like.

Mark Odland: 10:53

And so if you start to think about someone who's been wounded by an affair as having some kind of mini version of PTSD, all of a sudden, the behavior makes a lot more sense. Right? And so so I guess what I would say about trauma, and and I think maybe I would kind of conclude our talk on forgiveness today with with naming the impact of trauma more specifically on how it impacts forgiveness, and then maybe ending with some practical ideas to kind of take those steps forward in what it actually looks like to forgive someone. I'll throw out some ideas. If you have any other ideas, Zach, or any curiosities, we can go there too.

Mark Odland: 11:32

But one thing I see a lot as an EMDR therapist. And again, for those of you who haven't heard about EMDR by now, I mean, research proven method for healing trauma and most powerful, you know, I do it every day, ninety percent of my clients, and it really gets the truth from the head to the heart and helps people to heal deeply by specifically healing wounded memories in a way where, you know, visceral, vivid, painful images start to fade, negative lies and beliefs about ourself, get reshaped from a truthful perspective, and intense emotions actually get desensitized and calmed down. And so here's a classic example. I'm working with, say a 55 year old, executive, right? Doing well in life, a lot of good things, and yet he's been haunted for years by, being, being bullied by say, you know, an older classmate when he was in elementary school, right?

Mark Odland: 12:29

And it's always left with this feeling of not being good enough, right? Of being weak. And so we're reprocessing these old memories that they supposedly should have been over, right? But the brain the trauma brain doesn't know it's over. Right?

Mark Odland: 12:40

It's stored it differently. And so what I see is sometimes therapists and and pastors will rush people to forgiveness too quickly. They'll kind of say, hey, you're obligated to forgive because Jesus did command it. It is a command. But but sometimes what happens is we we rush past the trauma.

Mark Odland: 12:58

We rush past the pain. We rush past the anger, and then we say the words, I forgive, but then it doesn't stick. It's it ends up being just words because we even if and it's not that I'm discounting that someone wants to forgive because sometimes there's genuinely that desire to forgive, and then they're just so flustered when their spouse who they forgave, right, says or does something that stirs up that trauma, and then all the feelings of forgiveness just disappear. They're they they just they're they're out the window, they're gone, and they're left with all these feelings of what it felt like before they forgave them. Right?

Mark Odland: 13:35

So how do you get the forgiveness to stick? Okay. So in a moment, we'll get to some practical ideas for how to do that. If there's trauma, sometimes the practical ideas aren't enough. And so if there's trauma, here's what that looks like.

Mark Odland: 13:48

I've got the executive in my office. He's working through the memory of being bullied. We're doing the EMDR. And over the course of EMDR, typically, I see this this emotional arc that people go through. So this guy in my office, he would first re experience the feelings of helplessness and weakness.

Mark Odland: 14:05

Right. And if he feels very small, but then as we keep progressing now, he starts to remember like, oh, wait a second. I'm a lot stronger than I used to be. I'm not that little kid anymore. Oh man.

Mark Odland: 14:17

Like, like, yeah, you know, I'm, I feel guilty about this, but I just imagine going in and beating the beating this kid up in that now he can't bully me anymore. Right. And so what happens is it starts out with reliving the, the, the trauma, and then the brain says, I wanna feel the opposite of that. And so then it moves toward power and competency. And so they have this experience sometimes with images and imagination that where they see themselves as stronger.

Mark Odland: 14:42

They remember their their current strength. They maybe even have some kind of imaginary confrontation with their bully or their abuser where they come out on top and guess what? Now their nervous system's starting to kind of feel strength. And that feeling of weakness is kind of disappearing. And then they get through that feeling of anger and we do some more MDR and now they're starting to feel sadness.

Mark Odland: 15:06

They're they're finally over the trauma and now they they're starting to see like, man, that was really sad that, that, that kid went through that. And now that I'm a dad, I think about my own kids and what if they went through that? Oh my gosh, that would be heartbreaking. Right. And then they start to, and then sometimes they start to feel as they progress, they start to think about their, their abuser, their bully.

Mark Odland: 15:26

And without me forcing it as a therapist, they start to connect the dots. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I I kinda know why they were a bully. Like, the all the kids were talking about it.

Mark Odland: 15:36

They you know, that kid lived in the trailer and he he didn't have a dad and his mom was on, you know, whatever, not excuses, but understanding that things shape us. Right. And now all of a sudden that man in my office is starting to feel empathy and feel sadness for the person who hurt him. And guess what? When they get to that point without me ever saying, have you thought about forgiveness?

Mark Odland: 16:00

Those emotions are precisely what forgiveness feels like. And and sometimes they'll come to that on their own. They say, you know what? This sounds crazy, but I feel like I'm actually forgiving them right now. And when they're able to process it at such a deep level like that, the forgiveness tends to really stick.

Mark Odland: 16:16

And so that's a beautiful thing to watch. And again, it's not about that person who hurt us deserving it. Forgiveness is not about them deserving it. It's about being who we're called to be and releasing the psychological perspective, releasing the pain and being unburdened by this, and then also from our clients who are men of faith to be able to say, I'm trying to live into that calling to forgive as I've been forgiven too. Right?

Mark Odland: 16:47

So to wrap things up now, Zach, we're coming to that practical side of things. Mhmm. I've got a couple ideas, but I was curious to check-in with you. Any thoughts on that or any ideas that you've seen with clients who are struggling to forgive, things that could be helpful?

Zack Carter: 17:02

Yeah, really difficult. And I love really how you've laid out why it happens here, complicating factors. And so I do something similar in my approach through the cognitive behavioral perspective and that's through something called a genogram. And so especially if it's family members. So if your parents or your grandparents or aunt and uncle or brothers, whatever.

Zack Carter: 17:26

So if there are people in your family that have hurt you, typically, I go through a genogram, which basically, if you do have never heard of a genogram, you can look it up online. But it's very similar to a family tree with more information essentially. So a family tree is gonna let you know, here's the connections to all the people in my family all the way coming down to me. And if you have kids, you know, going down into your kids as well. But what a Genogram does is that you you basically sketch out your family.

Zack Carter: 17:54

So you start with yourself in the middle and then you work, okay, here are my parents, here's my brother and sister, and then like here are their parents, here are their brothers and sisters, and you can go to their, you know, your great grandparents and their brothers and sisters. And so as much information as you have, you can go back. And then you you can create symbols or colors based on different things that happen in those different families lives. And so if someone was physically abused, sexually abused, if there was a divorce, if, there were addictions in the family. And so for instance, if you struggle with addiction, you're like, where did this come from?

Zack Carter: 18:28

Why do I struggle with this? It's like, okay. Well, did either or both of your parents struggle with addictions? Like, well, yeah, they had these addictions. Okay.

Zack Carter: 18:35

And then what about their parents? Like, oh, yeah. Well, their parents actually had addictions as well. And then suddenly you see the line going all the way down to you. And so when you have the urge to just blame your parents or blame your grandparents, you're like, oh, like their parents were abusive to them or their parents were addicts as well.

Zack Carter: 18:54

This is what they grew up around. What do you expect if someone grows up in a household where people are smoking or drinking or doing cocaine or whatever? Once again, I like what you said that it's not about excusing the behavior, but it's about understanding. And then when you understand it, one, that gives yourself a little bit of empathy of like if you are struggling with something yourself, you're like, Oh my gosh. Yeah, look at all the hurt that's gone through all the generations, but at the same time you get more empathy for the family.

Zack Carter: 19:20

Once again doesn't mean going back to reconciliation versus forgiveness, it doesn't mean you have to reconcile but it helps to allow you to forgive so that you're not holding on to it yourself. So that's the main thing I do with clients. Yeah. Or is there anything that you've found particularly helpful with clients?

Mark Odland: 19:37

Yeah. That's powerful, Zach. I mean, yeah. And I think that's looking for patterns and being honest about them as, like you said, through the the genogram. Like, that that's a powerful way to do it.

Mark Odland: 19:47

For whatever reason, I think intuitively, regardless of, like, your theology about, like, age of reason or original sin, things like that for our Christian guys, I think intuitively we just know that at some degree, the younger a child is, the less culpable they kind of are for their actions. We we we get that that, you know, we're not maybe we're not blank slates, but but there is a sense that if it it feels all the more tragic if someone messes with a kid. Right? And so so that being said, I've done an exercise before when say someone's trying to forgive their spouse, when a spouse goes into a certain behavior or, you know, way of reactivity. And and I say, do you have any photos of your spouse when they were, like, five?

Mark Odland: 20:34

Oh, yeah. Somewhere. It's like, what would it what would it mean if the next time your your wife got triggered or your, you know, husband got triggered, you could think of that photo in your mind and be like, I'm not even arguing with the 30 year old in front of me, the 40 year old in front of me. I'm arguing with a wounded kid. And and if you imagine yourself arguing with a wounded kid, then then you can if you're if you're a parent, then you can tap into you like your dad, dad brain and be like, what is it?

Mark Odland: 21:01

What does a wounded kid need? Who's re experiencing a trauma? They might need a hug, they might need some compassion, they might need some understanding, they might need someone to help kind of regulate them. And so that could be a powerful exercise in empathy. Another exercise in empathy I'd leave you guys with, again, for for our Christian guys is, you know, Jesus on the cross, man.

Mark Odland: 21:24

I mean, he's he I always thought it's so mysterious that he not only said forgive them, father, as they were killing him, but he added that extra part. They know not what they do. Why did he throw that in there? Maybe there's something about just realizing that most people are operating out of woundedness and ignorance, not as an excuse for their behavior, but again, a way to understand there are reasons why this is happening. It actually shouldn't surprise us.

Mark Odland: 21:52

Right? And that just like Jesus could have called that legion of angels to protect himself and he didn't no one no one took his life. He gave it up freely and he could take it back again. We can step boldly into that idea of forgiving as men and say this isn't an act of weakness or or cowardice. This is an act of strength, and the world doesn't understand forgiveness and doesn't know how to do it very well.

Mark Odland: 22:15

But we can be those men who kinda model it for others, model it for our families, our friends, our communities, and our kids. And as it happens, we see some relationships can some relationships don't heal, some relationships do. And whatever happens with the relationship, we can be freed from the toxicity and the pain and the bitterness inside and the hurt inside and feel like we're stepping more in line with the way, you know, as we talk about in our on our website all the time, right, the lions that God created us to be. So with that, that's that's all I got, Zach.

Zack Carter: 22:50

Me too, man. That was great. Yeah. Thanks for laying that out for us.

Mark Odland: 22:54

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening, guys. Escapethecagenow.com. Please check us out.

Mark Odland: 23:00

Zach and I are always here to help. Happy to do a free consult if you wanna test the waters and see if it's a it's a good fit to work with us. So, until next time. Take care. Alright.

Mark Odland: 23:09

Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye.