Forgiveness Is For YOU - Overcome Trauma Through Forgiveness

We all have a certain way of being, what psychologists call a personality type. There are hundreds of personality tests designed to determine what makes you tick. In this episode, I discuss one approach to understanding personality: The Temperaments. I will be discussing their origin, and what they are. In the next four episodes, I will go into depth about how each temperament might show up in the...

Welcome to Episode 20 of the Forgiveness is for YOU Podcast. Today I talk about LOVE. What is love? What is self-love and what does it all have to do with forgiveness? What does it mean to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves? I explore the answers to these questions through the lens of the Theology of the Body and invite you to contemplate t...

"No matter how ugly things get, there is always a way to find beauty in the broken." That is what my guest on this episode, Heather Gaffney, believes and so beautifully exemplifies through her story as a survivor of domestic violence. Heather shares her forgiveness process of herself and her ex-husband in a kind, loving, and open way that feels genuine and inspiring.  Heather Gaffney is an author,...

Welcome to Episode 18! In this last episode on emotions in the forgiveness process, my best friend and husband of almost 32 years, Steve Silva, shares his thoughts about the emotion of bitterness and how it can be redeemed. We talk about the difference between bitterness and sorrow and his process of forgiving me for emotional injuries in our marriage.  If this podcast resonates with you, subscrib...

Welcome to Episode 18 of the Forgiveness is for You Podcast. Today, I make a distinction between two concepts people around the world contemplate as we enter into Holy Week : Making amends and atonement. These concepts, if I may, are central to the act of forgiveness. One is utterly dependent on our own strength, and the other is only possible by the grace of God. I refer to the Alcoholics Anonymo...

In today's episode, I define pride in the context of forgiveness. Pride is like two sides of a coin, heads or tails, virtue or vice.  If pride stops at the pleasure or satisfaction we experience for an accomplishment that required great sacrifice, or a level of intimacy we achieved in a relationship, or recognition for a job well done, but doesn’t become the measure by which we measure others, the...

In today’s episode, I discuss the power of resentment in the forgiveness process and offer 10 steps for overcoming it. The definition of resentment comes from an article, From Ressentiment to Resentment as a Tertiary Emotion by Warren D. TenHouten published in 2018 in the Review of European Studies Volume 10, No 4. TenHouten claims that resentment is not a primary or secondary emotion, but a terti...

In today’s episode, I welcome my first Guest, Monica Herber. We talk about Monica and her husband’s adoption of a child with profound disabilities and their journey through forgiveness to joyful living. Click on this LINK for a picture of Monica's family.  Monica is the founder of The Joyful Unknown LLC, Speaker, and Certified Catholic Mindset and Marriage Coach. Her passion is to help individuals...

In this episode, I discuss how we can make ourselves receptive to joy amid our suffering and how we can use our suffering for the good of others. I discuss the four levels of Happiness in Fr. Robert Spitzer’s book, Finding True Happiness and give three tips for how to cultivate receptivity to joy: 1. Stop, 2. Drop and 3. Rock & Roll. I mention the song Jerusalema as one of my favorites to danc...

In this episode, I discuss the emotion of shame, the third core emotion we might experience in the forgiveness process. In recent history, shame researcher Brene Brown has made headlines around the world as she exposed this gnarly emotion and its effects on the human psyche and relationships. I focus not so much on the research but speak directly to shame concerning the forgiveness of self. I expl...

Disgust is an oft-overlooked emotion in the healing of trauma and deciding to forgive. Moral disgust is the reaction to a physical reaction towards a person who violated the moral code, such as sexual, verbal, or physical abuse and betrayal in a relationship. If we are to forgive ourselves, we will need to take a good, hard look at how disgust is showing up in our thoughts and is manifested in our...

It’s important to understand how our emotions can help us heal or keep us stuck in unforgiveness. In this episode, I talk about the role of anger in the forgiveness process. I make the distinction between the state of anger and the emotion of anger. We can allow ourselves to be in a state of anger, but not for too long. When we allow the emotion of anger to morph into a state of being, we become a...

In this episode, I examine how our thoughts, words, and actions in unforgiveness can result in sin that we may not even be aware of committing. I also caution against advice I was given in the early stages of my recovery from sexual abuse. The advice I got was to retell my story in all the minute detail to anyone who would listen, with the understanding that validation cures trauma. However, with...

In this episode, I am tackling the belief that “good” Christians have to forgive because God tells us to love our enemies. But is loving the same as forgiving?  So many Christians who are still in the process of working through forgiveness get trapped in unhealthy relationships because they feel guilty about not loving their enemies as Jesus exhorts us to do in Matthew 5: 43-45. Victims are often...

Today’s episode is about how we learn to forgive, what we can do to unlearn some bad forgiveness habits, and how to make a sincere apology. We are social beings and human brains develop in community. From a very young age, we observe how adults in our homes behave toward one another. We copy their behavior, but we are also directly impacted when we are instructed to do as they say. How we learn to...

In today’s episode, I discuss how Internal Family Systems Therapy is one way to uncover the parts of ourselves that carry blame and shame in our unforgiveness of self. Forgiving ourselves is in line with the second commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving ourselves as God loves us requires fully accepting who He created us to be. We cannot extend to others what we cannot do for ourse...

Today’s episode, What Forgiveness Is Not, is the fourth in a four-part series called Understanding Forgiveness. In today’s episode, I discuss what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not a one-time event we have to do it over and over and over sometimes for years before we can actually say that we have forgiven the person. Forgiveness not for the offender, it is for you, to set your heart free from...

Today’s episode is the third in a four-part series called Understanding Forgiveness. In today’s episode, I discuss seven more distinct characteristics of forgiveness. Forgiveness requires supernatural love – what we call agape love. This is the type of love with which God loves us and is made available to us through participation in the Sacraments. Forgiveness frees us to love more abundantly. For...

Today’s episode is the second in a four-part series called Understanding Forgiveness. In today’s episode, I discuss four more characteristics of forgiveness. Forgiveness is our own responsibility. If we wait for the offender to ask for forgiveness first, we may never have an opportunity to forgive. Waiting for the offender to show remorse is surrendering our power and agency to the offender.  Forg...

Today’s episode What Forgiveness Is, Part 1 is the first in a four-part series called Understanding Forgiveness. In today’s episode, I discuss four distinct characteristics of forgiveness. Forgiveness is an act of the will. We decide if, when, and how we will forgive. Jesus never forces us to forgive. He equips us with the ability to forgive through the free gift of grace to fill our hearts with f...

Hello Forgiver, In this very first episode of the Forgiveness is For You Podcast, I explain why I believe that forgiveness is the ultimate path to healing from any kind of trauma. I include a brief history of my background as a South African immigrant and my own healing through forgiveness from various traumas. I hope that my story will inspire you to explore the role that forgiveness can play on...