How To Forgive & Let Go of Your Past with Sage Robbins & Mary B

hi Mar hello Sage Robbins hi Mary well welcome once again to the Tony Robbins podcast for those of you listening thank you for continuing to tune in not only to this episode but thank you for tuning in to yourself I trust that that's what's guided you here now well Sage it's just you and I today it is indeed as you may notice Tony's not here but we're going to talk a whole lot about him yes and the Beautiful miracle and power of for foress we're so happy to be back with our audience and this episode

will be a special one this will be a big one this will Encompass a lot of the kind of Pulp of life um our concept was forgiveness which then breaks into um how to say I'm sorry into apologies atonement making amends um and then the sort of upshot emotions of those like guilt mhm shame anger resentment all of those are part of the conversation and then layer that on top of that some of the um modernday phrases phenomena that we all just use so casually now that really are only recent things like cancel culture I

think that has a huge piece that's that you when you talk about forgiveness that's some of the implications that we're dealing with um and then of course baby reindeer I want to talk about baby reindeer in this conversation so Sage Robins what do when I say some of those words forgiveness at its heart what what state does that put you in where where do you what does that conjure up for you gosh uh well uh I love that we're having this conversation uh because I believe it's it's uh from my own experience you know when

I look at the world stage right now and what's transpiring and even uh the mental health phenomena I don't know if that's the right word but there's certainly a lot of attention um on mental health and mental well-being uh it's my experience uh that through forgiveness uh is a path to coming home and so you can look at forgiveness uh at least I do uh is one of the pathways uh from uh bound to Unbound within and that from that place uh life is all possible uh because we're in a natural we're in alignment you

know with our true nature love mhm forgiving is I I you know forgiveness is it's born out of love it's it's uh aligned with our nature which is love that's true well that's beautiful and again just as we kind of get into the flow of the conversation I would invite our audience to take a moment and just think about whether it's something personal that you are asking for forgiveness from a situation an event of the past um someone that you might need to forgive and also so it's you know we were walking out here to

the studio just moments ago and from the house and something like this morning we had a we had a little bit of a wild mour and so even something like I often think of forgiveness as I you know this person I need to forgive this person or I need to ask for forgiveness from this person but it's also like just letting go I think like forgiving what happened this morning to walk in here to the studio and be like hey I have this to do now so whatever just happened I almost need to like forgive

and and I I just think that that word has so much meaning um personally human to human and just about the letting go of past of regrets of things you wish you went went differently than they actually did the reality itself and you the notion of letting go is really the path of forgiveness it is a it's a letting go it's a surrender of what we believed or the story or the narrative that we keep telling oursel because it's usually the story that keeps us locked or Bound in that energy and so uh for those

of you listening maybe you can just connect to uh where are you feeling resistant with somebody or feeling A Space in Time that um you know it's it could be time to let go I'm not here we're not here to tell you right from wrong or this is just one path this is just a conversation and uh we're sharing our experience so thank you for your willingness and openness CU it's in that space that it's all possible and from my own experiences I let go you I mean in forgiveness and and letting go are interchangeable

uh I feel um at home inside myself and when I don't I feel anxiety I feel stress I feel that bound energy and that feels just for me personally it feels insincere uh and so uh and by the way it's a day-to-day process we all miss and can go blind and uh you know in a moment uh we can you know uh not communicate in our in our you know truest self in a moment if we're rushed or stressed or stacked or uh we were talking last night and saying you know hurt people hurt people

and we've all done that you know there's nobody I don't even know that it's about who's guilty or who's right or who's wrong it's actually really more about inner freedom it's more about inner uh coherence within uh and it's it's less about what somebody did and more about um the letting go right because it is the past as you mentioned and and I feel like we have to say just right right out of the gates that if you're listening to this and it's like well if if um you know there's there's certainly different grades um

of of what would you even call it transgression or trauma uh you know we all I think if you're human I think if you're you're a human being and you're listening to this we've all had hurt we've all been hurt we've all hurt if you're human and you're listening to this we've all experienced what one would call or label to be trauma you know painful experiences there's certainly more or lesser degrees but I always say like if you know we were everybody in this room right now if you were to put my life story your

life story your life story on the table we probably wouldn't trade uh and pain is pain loss is loss grief is grief sadness is sadness I think that's actually the unifying space in this Human Experience that's where we all meet and it looks different and yes there's uh tragedies you know there's extreme circumstances uh and uh there's people that rise up out of those circumstances and for their own uh Evolution for their own freedom I don't know I can't I'm projecting right now why one is choosing to let go of those extreme circumstances uh but

people do right and we do to I I think there's a a higher calling within um this is a conversation if you if you have clicked on this it's because you might be willing to say there's something I have to let go of I think it's important to make the distinction between um varying levels of trespasses or um you know in a culture that is very much like there's a victim uh and there's a villain um I'm sensitive to to that and also let's zoom out because we're so lucky to be sitting in this place

where we can sit comfortably and know that with 99% certainty no one's going to bomb our roof right now there's people in this world right now that cannot say that and so there's levels of transgression is everything forgivable and what does that look like and how does that sit with you so you're better at this than me I'm asking the questions here but I would love to know how you even how you even frame that up for people gosh I I you know here's what I recognize is that there are those uh that choose to

let go of even in the most extreme circumstances and I think uh you know a commonality is recognizing once again that you know we're all in this Human Experience we've all been victim and the villain we've all been hurt we've all hurt we've all been conscious we've been unconscious we've all been kind and cruel in a moment not even meaning to be but when we're in survival mind or we're angry or we're disconnected from our nature uh we can all do lousy things uh as human beings uh and uh that has an impact you know

we were just having a conversation just when we came in here about the notion of cancel culture and uh how there's I don't know just a a a it's it's I can't think of the word it's not acceptability but there's an allowance I suppose for it's like we look at children and say hey don't bu bully that's not nice and yet there's an allowance in you know on on on in the space or the atmosphere social media to uh be at times unkind or to say cruel things uh and um that's interesting you know that's

a reflection of mind that's a reflection you could call it lower mind you can call it fear you can call ego uh and so we all have both um not even both but all perspectives I suppose within us I love how you took it human and I think that that's almost to me like the first pillar or the first like Roman numeral one for me on forgiveness is like our humanness yes everyone is human everyone's going to mess up and so in the moments where um we're either asking for forgiveness and need to forgive ourselves

if when we know when we feel that overwhelming sense of guilt or shame or like man I did this again okay I'm a human and also if you're feeling so enraged at someone even then it's like this person's a human and I have been so dizzied up in my mind that I've done some pretty terrible things in a moment yes um so to me it's like humanness and we've talked about this on a previous episode too it's like making it someone's identity and and separating behavior and someone's actions from that's who they areh and because

once it's like that person is yes those then it's hard to pull apart and offer forgiveness but what what do you think how do you do it well uh you actually said something really profound it's identity and so you know it's it's a larger identity of recognizing yes the humanness our innocence below the behavior not knowing what an individual what their life experience was or what that they you know what I mean the context because I think context gives uh invokes compassion you're so compassionate that you use the word innocence I think for someone who's

like innocence below the action I offer the context below the the the action the origin the person's personal history the references we have no idea what has happened no in that person's life and why then you mentioned before I think it's such a beautiful phrase in the conversation is hurt people hurt people yes and so boom on the surface there's this Behavior there's this action that seems atrocious and then like you said if you were to read their life story would you trade would you trade your card for their card yes often often not or

or if you were to read their life or if you were to live their life story possibly you would have the same actions and I find that really fascinating and I think that that sometimes that's missed and culturally or innocently I don't know culturally but I guess as human beings we have this notion of you know we want this perfect spouse or this perfect politician or this perfect minister or the perfect whatever and it's like I don't know that human that exists interesting right and yet we put people we expect uh human beings innocently not

to be human and I think that there's there's there's something there and so um that's that's where I if if I think of when you ask me how it's recognizing if if somebody's treating me you know whatever they're having a poor day or they're saying whatever if if you have acceptance acceptance that we're all human um you know it's it's their condition states of of life and uh that looks different for all of us and I think life is offering us an opportunity of this um fatuousness I don't even know that that's the right word

but um you know an offer an opportunity to complete because when we push away or we resist or we externally judge and demonize by the way I've done that we all have and continue to we catch ourselves this isn't about being once again perfect it's about recognizing gosh where do I constrict where do I open and uh and and the awareness of what the two feel like if you go back to what you just said there resist or open I love how you put like when I think of forgiveness in my head it feels a

little black and white on The Upfront like do I someone needs an is it an apology or it feels it gets black and white but I love even just as we talk about this when you're saying resistance or openness it's more Nuance than that forgiveness forget like as soon as I feel myself closing or resisting someone something yes a past a past event then I realize I'm out of forgiveness or I'm out of the you know I'm in a different realm than compassionate mhm and and me too me too moments right we all go to

that place but you said something I think true forgiveness uh you know I saw forgiving I saw somebody like break up the word and so it's like if you're for giving uh you know we have all these e ego by the way someone by the way was your husband Tony Robin says that all the time okay well that's just forgiving he'll often Tony Tony Ton's not here today because he has to record he's a guest on some podcast today so he was unable to join us in studio uh I've had the privilege to watch Tony

uh not only on stage uh or you know for example uh when he's interacting with an audience or in an intervention with an individual uh what I recognize by knowing him offstage and on stage is those moments are possible because he continues to do his inner work you know he continues to uh his vulnerability to uh in that place of humbleness to uh apologize uh or to open his heart and be like Frick honey I'm I'm so sorry so missed here in this moment uh the generosity of that State uh just for the gentlemen that

are you know tuning in and listening right now uh it's just beautiful to notice um cu the generation before a lot of times uh you know they just didn't they weren't shown how you know and so there was misperceptions or projections that a masculine man possibly doesn't uh humble himself or open himself uh to really share his deepest heart uh with tears and vulnerability uh and um that's not been my experience and I love that part of Tony and uh I really recognize that uh you know who he is and what he offers on stage

is because he he shares his misses he shares his humanness he shares his life experience he shares his learned experience uh and we are all a container of it all um and so anyways uh Tony wasn't able to be with us here now but uh just sharing uh because both men and women and you know it's once again it's human it's not it's beyond uh a role it's beyond a gender it's beyond anything it's human uh and he's just a really wonderful representation of that if you've ever been to an event you may have heard

Tony Robbins offer someone are you when someone often says I can't forgive this person a brother a sister a father a mother a friend a partner he'll often say are you forgiving are you are you PR giving M that's what it is you're giving someone Grace you're giving someone the benefit of the doubt that they were having a laps in judgment they were having a human moment and I and and that's merciful it's compassionate it's kind and I for myself I forgive because I've been forgiven and I know what that feels like to be to

experience somebody's Grace uh to experience somebody's allowance or acceptance cuz if you think about it if we accept people forgiveness comes or the expectation that and and by the way this isn't for forgiveness of what we're speaking about it's our own inner work this isn't you have to say sorry to me because then there's a hook there's an expectation in that now gets really weird you know so we once again we've all been unconscious and once again we take it right back to that universality of the humanness and no matter where we come from we

have all missed yep and so and we will all miss again of course every day I will not live the rest of my life without needing someone else's Grace and forgiveness I'm certain of this one thing but that what you just said is really beautiful you know without needing anothers like we're all connected we're all connected and it hurts to separate ourselves from life it hurts to separate ourselves from another and you know this isn't just this happens in our families this happens with our brothers and sisters this happens with our parents this happens in

our our our workspace you know we get mad at somebody or we think that somebody said something that a certain way or a certain tone or Voice or they were mean or they were this and you know once again they're being human right and so when you accept people the way they are the same way I think we probably all actually long to be accepted is just for all of the totality of Who We Are are the goodness the love the mess of it the unkind Parts as part of as as much as the kind

cuz we can all be both and so as we recognize that with inside of ourselves I think that that's where forgiveness comes from at least for myself I'm it's like flip you know maybe I haven't done that in this moment but yeah I've I've and so from that space it creates um an understanding I suppose MH mhm um um I didn't think we'd go here this early is that so but because he said like the humanity of it and the mess of it and the story of it I am compelled to ask our audience if

anybody has seen the show baby reindeer it's been number one on Netflix for a while so I know some of you have seen it Tony and sage and I recently binged on this series and before we talk about the show CU not everyone has seen it although an enormous I mean this is like a this is a pop culture phenomena right here baby reindeer um I usually have my phone beside me and I'll Google it but we can put it on after basically it's it is a series on Netflix this um Scottish I believe comedian

who wrote and created and then stars in this Netflix series his name is Richard Gad yes he plays a uh struggling want to be standup comedian um artist looking to be discovered so of course like all actors and comedians often do have a s day job and so for him it's working in a bar and without giving away any of the show um the first scene if it were taking place in a playhouse would be uh a woman comes into the bar and he offers her a drink on the house looks like she needs it

looks like she's been having a day and that sets the scene for um quite an interaction between these human beings their lives get very much entangled and meshed in one anothers in ways that the uh their own innocence and and everything's else present themselves at times and we see we see flip-flops of like aggression and affection and real life things as as it happens yes what do you think absolutely an obsession and uh and um you know forgiveness and uh uh inquiring about oneself and am I this am I that all these labels and identities

and you know life has its way with all of us and uh they were too beautiful and poignant because they were extreme examples the acting is extraordinary yes it's it's it's it's really special and it why it's relevant to me I think it's beautifully written I think it's it's we all we we had like family chat time after the series completed because it is one of those that will make you think about life in The Human Experience and it's one of those things where like you think you have the character pegged and then you learn

something about them and then that just opens opens up this whole Loop how lucky we are to see that play out in a well-written series but that's that's life like that's inspired by true life events yes Google it there's a little bit of a debate about that right now but this is our life it is and I you know is since we're speaking about baby reindeer uh I really enjoyed every moment of it and what I enjoyed was the human portrayal and uh you know I was watching and I'm like okay stalker have I been

stalked have I stalked absolutely I'm a total stalker I can if somebody doesn't answer the phone I'll call back a hundred times to to get the outcome um you know uh walking I don't know I don't remember the main the fellow his main the main character what's his Rich Richard Gad is who created was just so brilliant and so masterful he was portraying his own life his own experience but the you know you see we look at these circumstances as this thing happened to me and what I recognized and what his life portrayed was yes

this happened to me and it happened for me because it evolved me yes and then there's this moment where just in his rawness he was just so stripped and so life ripping him so open and breaking his hard into a million pieces I can identify looks different in my life it would look different in your life our narratives but not so different it can get messy at times painful at times and sometimes it's missed that the pain is for us and this beautiful man sat on stage and he just like freaking a like just opened

himself and Beed who he is and was scene where he he goes on a monologue yes because he's a comedian and rather than delivering jokes he actually goes on a soul-bearing honest monologue about his life but what but it also is almost representative like I think stage one of how to say you're sorry is first getting brutally honest with yourself or if you're going to make amends like if you're in any kind of a step program or something making an amends is first like owning your actions and he just gets honest about not only his

actions but his motives often from ego devastatingly relevant as I listened of just like haven't we all done that something different actions but from a place of like I wanted I wanted to be seen I was desperate for attention I wanted to be loved I wanted somebody to notice anything yes and you're just like I mean thinking about this and and his performance in it but that so again why we're talking about this is the scope of human life and then what we're all just feeling what remorse at times over Begg for acceptance for Humanity

humanness fallibility we are not perfect beings well that's well said and what I really struck me is he undressed himself emotionally he revealed himself in a way that had it wasn't about pleasing somebody it wasn't about wanting acceptance it was just it was so just raw and uh I thought it was stunning um I loved every moment of it um and and I and I I think there's a it there's been a phenomena about it because that's really it's it's it's it's our natural state of being and um it's less rewarded people are fearful to

say something that might be offensive or to uh gosh you know make it appear like I'm somebody's on this side or that side when really there are no sides you know we might have preferences we might like something different than another we might have a different political party a different religion a different conditioning but you know we end up kind of in the same place all of us having this human and when I say the human Journey it's an it's an it's an inner we all have mind the the the landmines of mind to navigate

and that's not always an easy feat right and so we thought it was actually after that show that um really birthed this conversation yes and it encompasses the the big um topics that we talk about even like at a date with Destiny or something if you're going to go through it doesn't have to be date with Destiny but any kind of program where you're doing doing deep work on yourself yes Excavating past traumas looking at Behavior expression repression polarity attraction um and it's just it's bold and again it exists and of course there would be

controversy over what's true and what's not true or whose side or like you said there are no sides at the end of this there are a bunch of human beings on a planet yes and and what was so remarkable and I felt to be so poignant is it wasn't about uh you know the a common roles of you know you said villain or or the victim or the perpetrator it you just saw the innocent you saw the innocence of all characters and almost and of course and how could they not and you in a moment

when you believe possibly that you wouldn't connect or have compassion for a particular individual on the show your heart's just so wide open in love with all these beautiful humans cuz they're portraying our experience uh and that's a beautiful thing to me it's gorgeous Bravo hats off to all [Music] I