so i just wanted to do a really short video about a question that came to me was actually a question that came in the shift society in my membership community if you want to know more information about that you can excuse me get that information in the description below but in the shift society we did a whole series on forgiveness and about learning how to forgive ourselves learning how to forgive other people and what this is all about and how to do this because i think for a lot of us it can be a really
hard thing and then we in this training we went through why it can be really hard um but someone asked a question afterwards and for those of you who have been feeling like that you need to forgive someone someone that's hurt you or someone that has wronged you that you're like i know that it would be healthy and healing for me to forgive them but i'm scared so i want to talk about this today i'm just going to give you sort of a brief briefer briefer teaching about this for any of you who are in
that place if you're new here welcome to our incredible corner on the internet internet take a second introduce yourself in the comments section below if you're back say hello love connecting with you either way my name is julia christina i'm a registered clinical therapist a researcher a coach and the creator of my incredible membership community with incredible men and women in there doing this work the shift society you can get more information in the description below i help heart center go-getter men and women break through the crap that is holding them back so they can
like themselves and their lives more every day and this concept of being scared to forgive let me know in the comments section if there has been some fear that has ever come up with you when you've thought about forgiving someone for something that they've done and i want to address this fear head on so just let me know in the comments section for many of us we think that if we forgive we need to forget there is a saying that's been drilled into so many of our brains that says forgive and forget and there is
fear around that because we think if i forget it two things it's gonna be like it never happened and i didn't go through that i didn't experience that and i didn't feel that it's gonna be like it wasn't valid if i just forgive it and forget it it will be like it wasn't important the other reason is because we fear that if we forgive and forget then we will have to have a close relationship with that person and we're scared of getting hurt again we're scared that if we let bygones be bygones and push it
all aside and leave it in the past then our future is uncertain our future could be painful again and so that's the one i want to address here now this second one around this fear or this idea or this belief that things have to go back to normal if i forgive this person and that my friend is just not true things do not have to go back to normal especially if the person has proven themselves to be unsafe physically unsafe obviously yes things are not going back to normal but also mentally and emotionally unsafe if
that person has proved that being close to them does not permit emotional safety then you don't have to be close to them it's like a wounded bear right if you see a wounded bear so again i mean back to what we've talked about before i'm just going to take a little bit of a side note here that we know that when people do things when people treat other people badly you know the saying hurt people hurt people it's coming from their own pain their own shame their own stuff that they have going on and then
their own idea of what's an okay way to offset that emotion and a way to treat other people right it's from what they have going on it is not personal it actually how someone else treats us has nothing to do with us it's all about what they have going on within them and even if we understand why someone has done what they've done or why they do what they do that doesn't excuse it and it doesn't mean that just because we understand that the bear is wounded that it's okay that they swipe at us when
we get close and so for a lot of us when we have been really hurt or mistreated in some way by someone we're scared that if we forgive them we're going to have to get close again but know that you do not have to get close especially if they have a propensity to swipe it doesn't mean you have to completely block them out of your life there's a lot of people who struggle with that a lot they're like do i have to completely um get this person out of my life and i'm not going to
tell you who you should keep in your life and who you shouldn't keep in your life but for those of you who are like i don't want to have to cut this person out of my life but every time i get close i get hurt so to that i say keep yourself out of swiping distance forgiveness doesn't mean that you just waltz back in there and pretend that everything is fine you don't forget not because you're hanging on to bitterness and resentment but you don't forget in order to keep yourself safe when you know that
this person can swipe without notice or without warning then keep yourself out of swiping distance you can't forgive and forget you need to remember to keep yourself safe so to those of you who have been struggling with this with this idea that if you forgive you need to have the same relationship that you had before you do not be honest with yourself about what that person is offering i think so often we are surprised when someone does what they usually do they were surprised when someone says something to us in a certain way or they
treat us in a certain way or they do something in a certain way we're surprised that they did it but it's just what they've always done and how they've always shown up in our relationship with them and so instead of being surprised going in knowing full well what this person is offering to the relationship and adapt and adjust your expectations accordingly and then also adapt and adjust the space the space to which you get close to them accordingly it's okay to keep yourself out of swiping distance it's okay to forgive someone and not be close
to them i hope this was helpful let me know in the comments section below for those of you who have been struggling with this part of it if you want more support around this if you want to be taking this work deeper if you want to be doing this emotional processing and learning how to deal with our own thoughts and our own emotions and the things that are going on in our lives so that we can be feeling how we want to feel and showing up how we want to show up then i want to
invite you to get on the waitlist for the shift society get in there and do this work with us it's an incredible space powerful tools amazingly supportive community like the video share it out if you haven't already and let me know in the comment section below always so good to be here with all of you until next time take good care you
