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Hello and welcome to the Personal Development School podcast. I'm your host Thais Gibson, and I create regular podcast episodes to teach you about your relationships, attachment style and the subconscious mind. My goal of this podcast is to give you tools and awareness you need to thrive in your relationships, feel deeply connected, and find harmony and fulfillment in your relationships and personal life.

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So I hope you tune in here with me each and every week.

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There's an old quote that's often attributed to Nelson Mandela and it's holding on to resentment, is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

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when we carry around that pain that comes from a time where we perceive somebody hurt us, we are the ones continuously experiencing that pain over and over again throughout life whenever we're triggered. What's worse, the story we tell about what happened also helps to solidify further limiting beliefs that we may already be carrying about ourselves.

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If your ex cheated on you, for example, you may nourish the belief that you'll always be betrayed. And if you believe that, how are you ever going to actually build trust and a healthy, loving, thriving relationship with somebody new? Of course, it's always going to be a barrier. If you were bullied in high school, you may have this belief that I will always be rejected.

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And if you believe that, how are you going to ever have the opportunity to deepen your friendships and feel an actual sense of belonging in your life? And if you picked a career that your parents wanted to, you might even be a holding and a resentment towards them for not fighting for what you really wanted or think that you may not be able to properly show up for yourself.

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And if you believe that, how can you go after the things that matter most to you? You see, holding on to resentment just keeps sabotaging your own happiness and her own lives over and over again. And the people who wronged you are then just living rent free in your mind on an ongoing basis until you learn how to properly forget.

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Now, people often ask me things like, What if the person didn't deserve to be forgiven? Or What if that pain is too difficult to let go of? Aren't we letting that other person off the hook? And absolutely not as my answer. Having boundaries is completely healthy and necessary, and we're allowed to maintain those boundaries even after we've forgiven someone.

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So you need to stop seeing the person in order to move on with your life. You're entitled to that. Forgiveness doesn't take away from that. You may need to work on your own ability to set boundaries. And if you're afraid in this case, it may be a sign that you actually need to work on your own ability to believe in yourself to set boundaries, because you may not at a deeper level, trust yourself to uphold them.

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Once you've forgiven someone and you may be using anger or resentment as the boundary, as opposed to becoming good at articulating and communicating your boundaries and then of themselves. But letting go of resentment is what's going to actually allow you to move forward in your life and to forgive. We need to not do so. Just set an intellectual level and say, Oh, I've forgiven, but we actually need to reach that deep emotional level of forgiveness as well.

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Now, to do that, there's a certain recipe that you can use. You need to start by balancing out the negative associations you have with the people and situations that cause pain. Take inventory in your life first. Who have you not yet forgiven? And what's the painful story you keep telling yourself around what happened? Then you can scour your memory for proof that counteracts some of these painful narratives.

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For example, if you were cheated on in a past relationship, where in your life have you found and experienced loyalty and trust from perhaps other family members, friends, people that you've known for four years, or people who are showing up, even perhaps in the relationship to yourself or even in your spiritual beliefs if you were bullied and felt like an outcast?

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Where is there a sense of belonging, or why is this possible for you to be able to create? If we can release this should haves and the cut offs and stop fighting with the past, we can instead ask ourselves things like How did I then grow from this experience? How much stronger did I become because of the experience?

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And we can learn to find the golden nugget that we can extract from those challenging situations. It doesn't mean that those situations weren't challenging or difficult. It means that we can do something with them if we show up and we choose to see that painful relationship. Teach you to set boundaries and speak up for what you do want in a partner or realize what you're looking for in a future relationship to being believed give you a sense of empathy and inclusivity and care for other people around you.

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We're not saying those things weren't really difficult and hard, but what we are saying is that we can take something away from it and continue to grow instead of always be plagued by it and then tied to that past experience our entire lives. How have these things that you learned from those people or challenging experiences actually given you some sort of advantage in your life?

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The world is full of examples that people who do take their challenges and turn them into something and grow and become better because of them. So why can't that be you as well? We've seen people who felt socially isolated become compassionate motivational speakers. We've seen addicts who found meaning and thrive, helping other people overcome addictions or painful challenges that they may have experienced.

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What's a superpower you've developed thanks to some of the challenges that you may have faced in your past? Do you dare finding what those golden nuggets might have been and extracting them for yourself and allowing yourself to build strength and character by being able to see that our challenges can in fact have silver linings if we choose to find them and do something with them.

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As you ask yourself these questions and work on releasing that resentment, do not forget to give forgiveness to the person that matters the most, which is yourself. What have you not forgiven yourself about? And being self-compassion and understanding that you did the best that you can with what you had at the time. This can help you release resentment that you may have been carrying around for years.

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Being compassionate will also help you further understand other people and release resentment towards them faster. It's an important tool for healing as individuals and in our relationships to others. And if you want to take a much deeper dive into this topic and learn step by step exercises and breakthroughs to help you forgive at a deep emotional level, not just intellectually.

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You can check out our course, release resentment and learn to truly forgive.

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is one of my favorite courses. It's super deep, super powerful and helps us close chapters so that we can truly move on and move forward with our lives and that we can truly feel equilibrated in the relationship to ourselves and recognize our own strength after overcoming challenges and different events that we've been through.

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I just want to pop in here and let you know We are doing a seven day free trial to the answers. Membership pass a PDS, which means you get access to literally everything inside of the school. And this includes the four live webinars I do with our students every single week. And on top of that, you get access to all of our different courses.

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We have over 55 different courses on relationships, communication boundaries, emotional mastery, guilt and shame, learning your needs. So many different facets that are really important to master our lives and feel really good about our lives going forward. And last but not least, there's a daily community event. We have trained facilitators and coaches who are in there doing that work, showing up to support you on your journey every single day.

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Please join me on the other side. Come check it out. See if it's a book for you. I'd love to see you there. Go ahead and sign up by clicking the link in the description box below.