How to Accept People You Don't Like - Allow People to Change

Show Notes:
Making the decision to accept & tolerate someone you don’t care for is really a grown-up decision to make. It’s real maturity to just put aside your feelings and any past experiences you’ve had with them and ALLOW the relationship to be better. Because it CAN get better. If we allow people to change and be different than they have in the past, then the relationship can get better and everyone can have a better experience.

I believe one of the biggest issues we have when dealing with people we don’t like is holding past offenses against them without any end in sight. We continuously remind ourselves of how they hurt us in the past and how those things have betrayed our trust and led to us feeling some type of way.

I think there are several possibilities for why we struggle with this.

• When you let something go, you might believe that there will be no justice for what happened, so you take it upon yourself to make sure there is by holding it against the person until you feel like it’s been enough (or everyone knows).
• You might not have taken to time to really unpack what happened. You haven’t evaluated why you felt the way you did, what the actual root cause was, and why you believe holding onto this is beneficial to you.
• Maybe you’re dealing with insecurity issues and don’t think you are being treated as fairly as this other person is and continue to hold a grudge and contempt for them until you feel how people view YOU has changed.

Regardless of what the reason is, we need to be making an effort to be more accepting of those people we don’t like or see as enemies and who have caused us pain.

The Bible tells us, in several different verses, to love your enemies & those that persecute you.

💖 Luke 6:27-28, “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those that curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.”

Here are the steps I take when I am working on accepting someone I don’t really like or that has caused me pain in the past:

1. Acknowledge Your Feelings
   1. Be honest about how you feel. It’s healthy & normal to have feelings. It’s what you do next that can cause the trouble.
2. Practice Empathy
   1. Try to see it from the other person’s point of view.
3. Truly Forgive Them
   1. Don’t keep this pain. Forgiveness is meant for you. It allows you to move on from what happened & no longer allow it to cause you pain.
   2. Colossians 3:13, “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
4. Stay in the Present With Them
   1. Don’t live life in the past with this person. Give them the chance to change.
5. Still Set & Enforce Boundaries Between You Both
   1. If you’re willing to continue having a relationship with this person or are forced to because of a common connection, like work or school or a community you’re involved in, you can still create boundaries to keep yourself safe.

Transcript

0:03

This is the Real Positive Girl podcast and I am your host Sabrina. And we are here chatting about your emotions, your mental health struggles, how to take those first few steps towards becoming more vulnerable, more honest, and more self-aware. And we do that two times a week here. So if you are new, welcome into the party where we talk about all kinds of crazy things. I do my best to keep myself on point and not go off into a tangent and we just have fun. If you are not new here, then welcome back. Thank you so much for coming back and listening to another episode. So today we are gonna chat about how to accept people that you don't like <laugh> or that you've had problems with in the past, or that people that have led to you feeling pain, uh, distrust, uh, maybe disappointment or whatever it is. We are gonna chat about it. Before we get into that, as always, I want to invite you to come say hi to me on social media. I am at Sabrina Joy Proso at both Instagram and TikTok. Please come say hi. Please send me a dm. I'd love to become friends with you. I am trying to get better about checking like the hidden dms or whatever on Instagram. So I apologize if you're waiting. I'm trying to like set myself a reminder every day to check in there and make sure there's nothing being lost. But again, I do wanna become fr friends with you online. So go ahead and check down the show notes. You can see how to spell my name and how to find me on those platforms if you're on Twitter. I also have a Twitter, which is real Sabrina Joy and I've not been tweeting a lot lately. I was like on a run for tweeting and now I am like pulled back a lot. I'm trying to get back into it cuz it's fun cuz it's a writing medium and I love to write. So I hope that you come say hi to me. Also, if you peek down the show notes below, you can see how you can send me an email with any questions, comments, concerns, progress, feedback topics, suggestions, or just to say Hey, hi and hello to me. You can also suggest a topic for the podcast that is totally anonymous. You also have an opportunity to vent if you do not have someone emotionally available in your life where you two vent to. So you can just get all of those things off your chest and allow yourself to have a little bit more freedom in your mind, in your heart, in your spirit. So let me know if you need any other resources down there, but take a look at everything else. Oh, one last thing, well two last things. The weekly newsletter that comes out on Monday evening times sign up for that. It's more of a blog style with lots of links and video embedded and all that stuff. And the link to the to the uh, to the what to the u2. You can tell that I'm like, you can tell the moments that I'm not looking at my notes when I'm like trying to give announcements because I don't remember what I'm talking about. Go to the link in the show notes that goes to the YouTube channel that has videos of the podcast. I'm about to add a few more today so that we can continue to work our way getting caught up. But if you do check socials, I am slicing and dicing up clips from recent episodes. So if you wanna see the video version of me moving my hands and making all kinds of crazy faces while I chat with you. About mental health, please do so. Um, but you know, on that note, let's go ahead and jump into today's topic, which again is how to accept people that we don't like. So I recently had to put someone on my prayer list, uh, someone that I don't like really to be honest with you, and someone that has caused our family a lot of grief and, you know, cost us a lot of money actually in the long run. And I had to put them on my prayer list. Like I just really honestly got so close to feeling like I wanted to hate them and I don't wanna hate anyone. And like that's like one of my cardinal rules is I don't wanna hate anyone and we shouldn't hate anyone. The bible tells us not to hate anyone and also to love our neighbors as ourselves and to forgive, forgive others and to be these good helpful people, uh, to one another. And so it was getting so darn close to me wanting to hate them and I just feel like, you know, I needed to do something and I felt it like stirring in my spirit and also like wanting to hate someone or getting really close that's just like not how we're supposed to be. That is not reflective of Christ because I am a Christian and a Christ follower and like really diligently working to act and behave more like Christ so I can be a light in this world. And so I was like, you know what? We need to figure something out cuz this is just not working out. So I started praying for this person and in, in a genuine way, not in, not like, cuz I think I told my therapist this and he was like, oh well did you just like, oh I wish you would just go away and blah blah blah and and if this person like would just like, you know, no longer bother you and it and I was like, no, I genuinely prayed for this person. I genuinely prayed for their life to get better. And I did genuinely pray. Like if there needed to be some way for this person not to be in our life anymore, that'd be great. But only under like the best circumstances for them help their mindset change. Help them just become a better person, right? And help me to have more patience and to be more accepting and kind as well because I wasn't gonna pin at all on that person. That's not fair. They probably don't think they're doing anything wrong. And regardless of whether that is true or not, that is still not my responsibility to judge that determine that, be in control of that, try to be in control of that cause there's no way that I ever could. And so I decided to just start praying with praying for them and it's probably like one of the best things that I could ever do. So I started praying for them and it has actually made my attitude towards them significantly better. Like I'm not even kidding, significantly better. And I think it's only been like a week or two that I've been praying for them and it's just like all of a sudden like, okay and I think it's gonna like take like, you know, there's gonna be times where I slip back and I regress probably, but I just need to continue to pray and continue to focus on what the goal is because I know that my prayers are somehow helping them and they're definitely helping me and maybe other people in the mix and that's really what matters. And so I'm able to better like manage my reactions, um, and and and have a better, like actually have a response instead of a reaction uh, when I'm around them. And it's just, it's just great. It is peachy, I am telling you. And so making the decision to accept and tolerate someone that you don't care for is actually a really grown up decision. It is an adult decision that anytime we decide to mentally make that decision and actually put action towards it, you know, like applause for you and me and all of us cuz it is such a good grown up decision that a lot of people just don't make. And I think it's sad that we have to pat ourselves on the back for that kind of thing because it doesn't happen often. But I do want you to feel good like okay, yeah, this is the decision that needs to be made. It's real maturity to like put aside your feelings and past experiences you've had with them and allow, allow, that is the key word here, the relationship to be better. You are actually opening the doorway, the gateway for it to be better by allowing yourself to not clinging to those past trans aggressions, those experiences, those pains, those hurts, those whatever that you went through. You are allowing the relationship to continue. You are allowing that person to grow within your in other ones because by you allowing it to do it in this one, if maybe they're not allowed to do it in other ones that will still benefit their growth. And yes, I know you're probably like, well I'm not here to facilitate their growth, but if we want to reflect the behavior and mindset of Christ, then we need to. And if that is not your jam, well I think that you probably should adopt it. Your life will be better. But if it is not your jam, then you should just do it outta the kindness of your heart because you could end up with a situation that's a lot easier to deal with with them if they're become a better person. If you allow that room for them to grow, then stifling them within continual reminders of the pain and the, and the bad things in every negative instance that you feel like was because of them, then they have no other place or way for them to act around you except for what you're continually throwing in their face. And they're like, okay, well I guess that's all they're expecting so I can just continue to act that way because they don't expect anything to change or get better despite what you may have said to them when you kind of like shared how you felt about the whole thing. Do you know what I mean? I know that was kind of like a quick rant, but it was really important that I share that with you. We have to allow, we have to allow it to happen. Uh, because it can get better if we allow the relationships in our life to get better. They can get better if we don't, they can't. It's very that simple. It's like one plus one is two, okay? It's not like five times four is 84. Like it's not crazy math where it doesn't make sense. It makes sense, I promise you. And if we allow people to change and be different than they have in the past, then the relationship can get better and everyone can have a better experience. I'm not promising you that this will happen, but if you allow it, it could. So let's just be into allowing that, okay? I believe one of the biggest issues when we are dealing with people that we don't like is holding past offenses against them without any end in sight. It's like they, you know, maybe said something really terrible to us and we'll never forget it and we'll continue to remind them of it every single time we see them. Or we'll find some sort of passive aggressive way to add it into every conversation, every experience, every everything. The Christmas card, the birthday card, you know, 4th of July, let me tell you, happy independence day. And also remember how you talked to me and called me this <laugh>, it's so unnecessary but we have this habit of wanting to clinging to it like it's one of our most prized possessions. We need to hold onto that pain and those hurts, you know? And we continuously remind ourselves of how they hurt us in the past and how those things have betrayed our trust and led us to fill whatever type of way that we felt. And it's interesting how all we want to talk about is how kind and important it is to allow people to have second chances. Yes, I'm sure that you've had this conversation with someone yes, second chances. Yeah. Or maybe you're like please give me a second chance for whatever it is. Small, big, medium size. It doesn't matter what it is. We talk about how important that is, how kind that is. How a lot of times people feel like they deserve a second chance but we often don't allow people to have those second chances because we get too caught up in our emotions. Again, we're back to allowing our emotions to drive the bus and kind of ruin everything. Take us down the wrong route, get us lost, backed up in traffic for hours. It's just not helping. It's really not. And we really need to understand that that's also being hypocritical. If we are saying like we believe in second chances, yet we are not willing to give anyone second chances and you have a list of excuses, not reasons, I promise you to not give them a second chance. Now let me just put like a little asterisks here. There are gonna be people in your life that will do unspeakable things and yes, you cannot give them a second chance. You will forgive them, which might sound a little too much for you right now. At some point you'll change your mind, I promise you. But you'll need to forgive them so that you can move past it. Forgiveness is for you, not for them. And let it go and then not continue that relationship. Yes, I know there's like, there's gonna be a small core of those things that need to sit there because of unspeakable things, but in the majority we're talking about the majority here. So if you do wanna fill out my emails with very specific uh, situations that you've gone through that you think that I'm wrong, that's fine. That is just your act of venting and I will welcome it. But I'm telling you that the majority of the time, the majority of the time we get too caught up in our emotions and we hold these things against people when we really shouldn't. We ultimately find it more important to hold onto our offenses than to let those things go and be open to change. Be open to seeing them different, being open to see things from their perspective and understand that maybe they do understand they made a mistake, they were naive to how they said that thing or did that thing and they really don't understand how you got in, uh, hurt by that thing and maybe someone else in their life didn't. And that's regardless of whether that person should have stood up for themselves, it doesn't matter, it really doesn't. We are just wanting to hold onto that offense because a lot of times we have not learned how to deal with our own personal pain trauma experiences that really cut us deep. We are just not emotionally mature. And I hope that really doesn't hurt your feelings truly, but it that is that that's a fact. That is a fact. So I think there are several possibilities for why we struggle with this. Why we just wanna cling to these pains and hurts that people, you know, lead us to feel. So I think the first one is when you let something go, and believe me, I have experienced all of these just so you know. So I'm not saying that like I'm over here trying to tell you how to live your life and I have not. No, no, no, no. I'm just as guilty, okay? So I am preaching to myself. I promise you the first one is like when you let go of something, you might believe that there will be no justice for what happened. This is like my number one, I think that's why that's like the first one that I'm mentioning. You might think that if you let that go there will be no justice for what happened. So you take it upon yourself to make sure that that is happening, that justice is being served by holding it against that person until you feel like it's been enough or everyone knows about it. And so it's like this public shame that you're trying to plot and plan. And you know, the reason that I struggle with this so much is because I thought it was very unfair that I would have to go through any sort of pain or um, a negative experience or really be treated harshly by others for something that I did that wasn't even as bad as something someone else did. Yet it feels like they get off SCO free, right? And it's also because we're not seeing the full perspective of maybe like what they're dealing with outside of our interactions with them. So they could be suffering. We don't know. We don't know what's going inside of anyone's minds. We can assume all day, every day until the cows come home. But we'll never know for sure because we're not in their mind. Okay? And I will die on that hill <laugh>. We will not know. There's no way to know, there's no way to know. Even if it's your spouse, there is no way to know you have the best marriage on the entire planet. There's no way to know. There's no way to know, okay? And so we, we just feel like we have to hold on tight and be the judge in the jury of what they did. And so we can't let it go again. This is like my number one failure and struggle when I'm dealing with this is that we need to hold them accountable. We need to be like there. There needs to be justice. People need to know that they hurt us so they can also too not like them. And then we can be justified in our feelings because then it's like are we allowing ourself to be bulldozed over? Will they feel like they can do it again because we decided to let it go? No, no. And I have to remind myself of that all the dang time. The second, the second possibility is like that we would struggle with this is you might not, you might not have taken the time like I already mentioned, to really unpack what happened. What was the experience, what was the problem? Disagreement, like conflict, what was it you haven't like evaluated why you felt the way you did, what the actual root cause of it was go below the surface and why you believe holding onto this is beneficial to you. The third one. The third question in there, oh it is pure gold. I'm telling you. Why do you believe holding on to this pain, this hurt, this offense is beneficial to you? How is it helping you? How is it helping you? And if you were to take 60 seconds to honestly ask yourself that question and come up with an honest answer, you're not gonna have one. You're gonna tell yourself, oh well I have to because I need people to reco. No, okay, well that's just like a beneficial to other people. You need other people to see you in pain. You need the attention you're living your life through your insecurities and need that attention from other people when you get hurt because you're not getting it through any other way. You're not getting attention from accolades or achieving goals or you know, doing good at work or school at home or whatever. So it's like of course you need the attention from someone hurting you and wronging you. That's, I mean, you know, that might feel kind of harsh, right? But it's true. Some of us are experiencing that and that's why it's so important for us to be honest with ourselves all the time. Cuz if we're not, we're out here parading around pretending like you know, we're never at fault for anything and that it's always someone else's fault. We're always projecting and that's just not how we're gonna grow. That's not how we're gonna become our best selves. You guys, I feel like I'm, it's getting a little intense here today, but I'm really just trying to share the, the honest honesty with you. I want us all to be honest with ourselves so that we can move past these like pretend things that we tell ourselves and we don't grow and we wonder why life isn't changing. It's because we're not changing. We're not changing because we are afraid of what's gonna happen. We're afraid of what people are gonna think of us. We're afraid of so many things. Okay, let's remind it back. Let me just like get back on the the actual journey trail that we're here. So you might not have taken the time to really unpack what happened, which again, he is like, you haven't actually figured out like why did you feel that way? And you might think this is a silly question and it's not. You really need to ask yourself like if they said something really derogatory towards you, why did you feel that way? Why were you offended? You were offended because you felt like they were out of place to say that you felt like they said that in a way to be mean on purpose. That's what you're thinking. You're saying that because it makes you feel uncomfortable when someone characterizes you like that because of a past experience. You see where I'm going? You're like actually like digging deep and figuring out like why. And if you don't know why, you need to take some time to really sit with your emotions. And this is why I'm always talking about becoming more self-aware. It is the key to so many things inside of you <laugh> and knowing yourself. So take some time to really figure that out. What was the actual root cause that goes together? Those are like best friends. Those questions there. And what was the root cause? You were, you reacted in the way that you did or you were offended in the way that you did because you have been that in the past and it wasn't resolved in the past. So it's still following you around like a little puppy today and it's gonna follow you around forever until you actually confronted and figure out why you feel this way. And then again, my favorite one of that of this example was why do you believe holding onto it is beneficial? Why? Like actually come up with an answer. I don't think you can come up with a good one but try to come up with an answer. Why is it beneficial to you? What kind of comfort is it bringing you to really understand the possibility of why you struggle with this? Okay, okay, so let's gimme the, let me give you the last possibility cuz we do need to start flowing through this episode so we can actually get to the tips and the steps. The last one is maybe you're dealing with insecurity issues and don't think you're being treated as fairly as this other person is, which I kind of mentioned at the top of the episode how I've been through that. And so you don't feel like you're being as treated as fairly as this other person and continue to hold a grudge and contempt for them until you feel how people view you has changed. So you feel like you are being seen as someone less than, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Less than desirable negatively, not in a good light, you know? Uh, um, so you feel like that is happening and sorry I'm laughing because I literally can hear my cat trying to break into the room as I am recording <laugh> and it just cracks me up with this little pause. It's like, uh, so you feel like you're not being treated fairly. You feel like you're not treating, being treated fairly anytime that you like make a mistake or the way that you feel about the situation. Yet that person you feel like they're being treated way better than you despite the fact that they did this awful thing. They're a awful experience, they don't care, maybe they don't have, maybe it feels like they don't have any remorse, whatever. So you're gonna continue to hold a grudge to them and a grudge against them and contempt because you just want people to change their minds, which again, you're gonna be waiting around for a long time because we have no control over how people think and act and see us. We just don't. We need to give it up. That needs to be like a goal that we never have again, I'm pro I'm telling you it's a waste of time. And so that could be a reason why we struggle with this so badly, so badly of allowing, again, coming back to we struggle with allowing the relationship to change to get better, to grow, to allow that person to grow because of all of these insecurities that I just listed. So regardless of what the reason is slash excuse, we need to be making an effort to be more accepting of these people that we don't like. And again, I'm talking to myself too that we don't like and see as enemies and who have caused us pain. We need to make that effort. Do you want the situation to get better and to be less awkward? We have to give it room to change and become better. If you don't, if you continue to squeeze it into this little teeny box where you hold the pain and them like a rat in a cage, it's not going to grow. There's not enough space to grow room opportunity. Nothing can happen in there. It's too small. Also, the Bible tells us as always, you know, well not as always as recently, always I am gonna share with you a scripture to help word of God and how what I'm saying is true, um, and and based biblically. So that is like my goal generally with this kind of, that is my goal with this kind of um, me adding scriptures into the podcast. So in the bible it, it tells us in several different verses to love your enemies and those that persecute you. So in the book of Luke chapter six verses 27 and 28 it says, but to you who are willing to listen, I say love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those that curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. So in this particular section Jesus spends 10 verses, I counted them 10 verses telling us to love our enemies because we need to show love and be forgiving as our father in heaven and has done all of those things and more for us all the time. Think about all the times that you mess up. You have to ask for forgiveness that you need to ask for a second chance. You know that you are doing mean things to other people and maybe it's because it's due to a reaction or something that you actually plotted and you still feel regretful later. Regardless, we need to be loving other people as we wanna be loved and as the father in heaven has loved us and forgiven us and you know, look the other way for other things and like you know, like not look the other way, like pretend like it didn't happen, it's more of like allowing us to try again, allowing us to ask for forgiveness and try again. So it's again a reminder to reflect the character of Christ in everything we do. It's like one of the best ways to live because like I feel like it's the best way to live. I'm sorry misspoke. It's the best way to live because it makes it really easy on who we should be, uh, re reflective of and have a role model as and then we know how we need to act and we're not gonna be perfect like Jesus, but we are going to reflect his character and his mindset and his behavior as much as we possibly can. That is our goal. Um, but accomplishing this can be really difficult, right? Allowing the relationship and things to change. This is why I wanted to share with you steps that I would take to work on accepting those that we don't like or that have hurt us in the past. But before we jump into that, as always I wanted to give you my quick disclaimer and then we will jump into the five tips that I have here is my quick disclaimer. The tips and advice I'm about to share with you is based on my own knowledge and research and my experience and the experiences of others that I am able to share. If you find that when I'm talking about now what I'm about to give you and those steps does not align with you figuring out how you can best um, accept people that you don't like and that have caused you paint in the past, I encourage you to seek out a counselor or a therapist to have a one-on-one session and figure out what would best align with you to figure out how to better accept people that you don't like or that have hurt you in the past. If you don't wanna do that, I do encourage you to go to our best friend Google and type in some keywords of like headaches that people you don't like how to deal with people that have hurt you in the past that have caused you trauma. Those kind of things. And you'll have so many videos, podcasts, blog posts, social posts, all the things to help you figure out a different way than what I'm about to share. Which is totally fine because not all the advice that you hear on the internet is going to be helpful for you just so you know. Okay, so here are the five steps I take when I am working on accepting someone I don't really like or that has caused me pain in the past five steps that I would take that I believe would be helpful to you. Okay, so the first one is acknowledge your feelings. A lot of times and a lot of steps and a lot of episodes that I've done so far, it always talks about acknowledging what is true, being honest. Cuz again it always comes back to being honest. You can't change anything, you legit can't do anything in life unless you're honest, like not the right way. You can't grow if you don't or you aren't honest about what needs to change, what needs to fix. I'm just being real. So we need to acknowledge our feelings, be honest about how you feel if you can't be honest with yourself, you're truly not being honest with everyone. Just so you know, be honest about how you feel about the emotions that you have about whatever has happened. Literally just be honest about all of it and what thoughts it is leading you to have. So if you're deciding to hate them or you're deciding to like plot against them or be angry at them or whatever it is, be honest about all of those things. It's healthy and normal to have feelings just so you know. So if you have feelings of anger or disappointment or contempt or whatever, you have the feelings you're like that's totally fine, that's totally normal, honest, it's fine. It's more of like how you decide to take action on that. Like what's the next step. Those are the things that can cause you trouble and those are the things that you need to be aware of. And so deciding how to act on your emotions is truly the fork and the road of how everything is going to go after that, right? So we need to be cognizant of that all the time and decide, okay, I have feelings of anger, I'm not really gonna take any action on those because that's not really gonna bring me into a conclusion that will be beneficial for anyone, right? So take a step back and evaluate if you know how you're feeling is really how you want to continue on in dealing with this situation. Uh, generally not Jen, you wanna have a cool off point so you can think very clearly, right? And maybe take time to pray. So acknowledge your feelings, be honest about everything you're feeling, your thoughts, your actions, all of those things. Number two is to practice empathy. Practice empathy. So try to see it from the other person's point of view. Shift your perspective, widen your perspective. It's actually one of the best skills that we could have literally with anything and everything in our entire lives. You're having problems or or or trouble at work. See it from another perspective. If you're having trouble problem solving something that doesn't have to do with anyone, just like a problem at work, shift your perspective, see it from a different angle, it will help you in literally anything and everything in your life I promise you. And so like if you don't understand something like you learned some sort of historical data, if you're studying the Bible and you're like, I don't understand why this would happen this way, shift your perspective. Try to take a step into that shoes, those shoes, that side of it that sounded so weird and see it from that perspective. And so try doing that with a person's point of view that you do not like or that may have caused you pain in the past. And so challenging your perspective just so you know, doesn't mean that you are justifying what they're doing or somehow making it okay? That is not what you're doing, you're literally just deciding to, okay, kind of like, let me see it from the the right side. Let me see it from the left side. Let me see it from the top down. You wanna see it from all the angles to understand how did they come to the conclusion to do this when I would've never done that but let me see how they came to it. Maybe they were following some sort of crazy yellow brick road and didn't know where they were going and then that's where they ended up. And for all you know, they're putting on a front for how they don't care but they really care, they're really broken inside. You never know. So you wanna see it from another perspective that will people and actually like, you know, allow yourself to see them for like how they may have experienced it and as more of like a human, a regular person and less like an evil villain. A lot of times we will villainize the people that have caused pain to us or trouble to us or just annoy us in general. We don't like, for whatever reasons, maybe you just don't like 'em because of their values and beliefs, but maybe you just need to take a step back and widen your perspective and see things from their side and then understand that they're just a regular human being like you and we don't need to villainize them, we just need to try to understand them a little bit more. So practice empathy. Number three, truly forgive them. Truly forgive them. I put an emphasis on truly forgive them because I don't want this to be any sort of like surface level fakeness. If you're gonna forgive someone, just forgive them. Don't keep this pain. I'm telling you it's not worth it. It's not worth your time, your energy, your mindset. No you don't need to like fill up storage up there with not forgiving someone. Just forgive them. Just let it just, just, just move on. I'm telling you forgiveness is meant for yourself. Again, I've mentioned that earlier. Forgiveness is meant for yourself mostly it, it allows you to move on from what has happened and no longer allow it to cause you pain. You are continuing to cause yourself pain from whatever the experience was with this person by holding onto this experience and not forgiving them and just like allowing it to like be released from you. Okay? So if the experience is over with that person, you are the one continuing to cause yourself pain because you are deciding not to let it go and just hold on tied to it as it's like your, your most cherished pillow or blankie at nighttime when you go to sleep. Yes, I am 37 years old and I still have a blankie that I go to sleep with. It's a barefoot dreams blankie, okay? It's so soft and comfortable, it's the best thing ever. But I'm telling you, you have to let it go. Just decide to forgive them truly honestly with everything in your heart and your mind, let it go. And with this, I know it's a traditional phrase for people to say forgive, but don't forget and I'm here to challenge it. <laugh>, I'm sure you're like, I don't wanna hear this because I immediately disagree. Please just take a moment to understand where I'm coming from. So I think it's fine to forget I I, I will be honest with you, I did not feel this way probably like a week ago or a few days ago. I did not. But I truly thought about it and I spent some time really thinking about it. And I think that it's fine to forget by forgetting I mean to not continually think about it, not bring it up, not remember it, not keep it in the vault, keep it in your emotional baggage that you carry around with you everywhere. You don't need to continually think about it and allow it to prevent you from giving that person another chance. If you have trouble, if you say that you've forgiven someone but you are having trouble giving them a second chance and it's not for that asterisk section that we talked about earlier, then you have not truly forgiven them. That's just the flat out it. If you're not willing to open your heart and your mind in the opportunity to allow the relationship to try again and have a second chance, you have not truly forgiven them, you are still holding on to that pain. And so you can still have boundaries and keep yourself safe in the future. Totally fine. That's actually one of the things on the steps that I'm giving you. You can't have boundaries but don't use it as a thing that you will forever judge this person by. Okay? Don't continually hold it as like an offense that you're person forever. Just for the sake of like having one up on them or feeling like you have the right to because they caused you this pain. Like no, just let it go. Just forgive them and forget it. Meaning like don't continually bring it up. Don't even try to remember it. Just let it go. It's not worth it. Here is a verse that I wanted to give you that would be really helpful in forgiving it is from the book of Colossians chapter three verse 13, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you must forgive. So you also must forgive. Sorry, we have to forgive, we have to forgive. And I think that we should just roll in the whole forget thing. We can still have boundaries in place but we just need to like not allow it to continually come up all the time in any sort of cadence. Like a zero. That's where it needs to be. And just allow us to like all like you the other person, everyone else that's involved, move on, carry on with their lives. Okay? The next one is stay in the present with them. Stay in the present with them. Don't live life in the past with this person, okay? Don't continually dance around with all the offenses and the experiences and this, that and the other cuz people can change. I know people go back and forth about that like people can't change, people can't I? People can they start to make the decision to do so, okay? And just because they don't do it on your schedule, your timetable doesn't mean that it won't happen. It just might not happen for your relationship with And that's fine and that might hurt you later. You know, it's like the classic story of someone like breaking up like a couple breaking up and then finding and like maybe they broke up because you know one of them didn't wanna have kids, right? So they, so they're like in a long relationship they find out one of them doesn't wanna have kids so they break up over it and then you find out six months later that they're with someone and or a year later or whatever and they have kid like they all of a sudden change their mind, right? And that might make you really angry. That might make you really sad and disappointed. You're like, oh my gosh, they told me that they didn't wanna have kids but yet they have a kid now they're signed up for that. They told me they never wanted to get married six months later they're getting married, they proposed and it's just because that outcome with them just wasn't meant for you. And I know that's really difficult. It's really difficult for me sometimes when I realize that wow, it, it wasn't me, I wasn't picked. But then we have to remember and have hope and faith that there are better things meant for us in the future. There are, you can't see it right now cuz you're so clouded and the disappointment and all the emotions that you have, you have to wipe your tears, clear your vision and realize okay, there's so many things I just need to continue to have hope and pray forward and continue to do good things and not give up hope. Okay? So don't live life in the past. Focus on your experiences that are now and in the future with this person. Don't live in the past with this person, okay? It's not worth it. I'm, I'm telling you and focus on the positive and how things could be getting better or at least aren't getting worse. I understand that everyone's gonna make the decision to change. Maybe it'll just stop bothering you or no longer this person will like have to have an experience with you or you them or whatever, you know what I mean? Like there is some sort of separation there, okay? Be grateful that it's not getting worse. Be grateful that it was taken care of in some sort of way or be grateful that it's getting better. Maybe they are getting better. If you're giving them the room to grow they can grow. But if you keep them in the tiniest little pot, their roots get all cramped up and they can't grow and they just die and they're still the same as they were. Okay? So focus on the positive and how things could be getting better or at least not getting worse. And give them the chance to change. That is the theme. Give them the chance to change ch change. Give them the chance to change. Give them the chance to change. If you don't give them the chance to change, they cannot change. People often don't make changes because they are always getting their past the throne at them. Think about if you had all of the bad things, all the offenses, all the pain that you have caused other people. Think about those things continually being hurled at you all the time. That's how these people feel when we do not allow them the room to grow and change and be forgiven and just like move on and you're just continually reminding them of the pain that they caused you. They can't change or can't grow and the only thing they know to do is to be the way that they are because that's all people are willing to see. Sometimes people are stronger than that and they'll be able to move on, but a lot of times people aren't. And so they're like, okay, well this is the only way I'm gonna be seen. This is the only way I'm gonna be. It's kinda like an actor that gets caught up in doing one certain type of role and they try to do other roles and they just like continue to be rejected in those other roles. It's like they only, they did comedy for years and now they wanna do drama and that just didn't work out. Then they're like, okay, well I guess I'm just, I have to be a comedic actor for the rest of my life. You know? They just feel like they get caught in that spot and forever, especially if we're continuing to tell them, yeah, that's where you belong, but we shouldn't be like that. We should be more kind and forgiving. Have grace for people. So give them a chance, give them a chance to grow. And number five, the last one is still set and enforce personal boundaries between you both. Still set and enforce. I always, anytime I'm talking about personal boundaries, I have to remind you to enforce them. You can set them all day long and they look pretty on a shelf, but if you don't enforce them then they're not doing anything for you. Cause people can still step over the fence, still set and enforce boundaries between you two. So if you're willing to continue having a relationship with this person or are forced to because of the common connection like work or school or the community group that you both are a part of, whatever that you're involved in, you can still create boundaries to keep yourself safe. You can still be like, okay, well I don't appreciate it when you talk to me that way. And if you do, I'm just gonna like step away and take a break. Or I don't appreciate you like putting your arm on my shoulder or on my arm or anywhere. I just don't like that. And if you do that, I'm gonna ask you to remove it. And if you continue to do that, I'm gonna have to tell someone, right? You can have whatever boundaries that you want, you can enforce those boundaries. You should, we should all be doing that all the time. So just remember that you can still accept uh, people that you don't like or that have caused your pain in the past and still have boundaries. Keep yourself safe, but still allow them an opportunity to grow. Just like right, not right next to you. Not, you're not besties, but you're like, I'm gonna let you grow. We get to do it over here so that I can kind of like keep myself safe and feel like and continue to recover from my own things. But I'm not gonna hinder you. Do you while I do me over here? Also, make sure you're clear with the other person, what you're comfortable with and what you're not. And say no when you need to. Like the examples I gave you, if you're like, no, I'm not comfortable with that. Oh no thank you. But be kind and be nice and do not bring up the past. Don't do it. It's unnecessary. We don't need to continually remind'em of things that they know, especially if we've been doing it for so long and we all of a sudden just stop. They'll be like, oh my gosh, what happened? What happened? Oh my gosh, what happened? And then you're just like, Hey, I'm gonna let it go. And they're like, we both need to grow. That's the last thing. It's not on my list, but I just thought of it here in the moment. Truly by allowing them the room to grow and change, become a better person. You are allowing yourself to become a better person by giving them the opportunity to do that in your life, in your presence, in your experience, whatever you wanna say because you're allowing yourself to be kind, to give them grace, to give them forgiveness, to like take a step back and realize that you holding onto that pain is not the most important thing. And it's not something that you should be doing. It's not gonna help you. It's not gonna benefit you at all. It's really not. I asked you to ask yourself that question of why. Why you think holding onto that pain is going to benefit you in any way? And I'm here to tell you that it's just not. It's just not. You're gonna try to come up with a reason that's masked as a reason. That's really an excuse. But again, it's not like there's no reason, there's no benefit to holding onto that pain. You're just continually causing yourself more pain. Wouldn't you rather just feel free and have joy and be happy? And I understand truly from my own experience, that if you are not used to being happy and experiencing joy could be really scary to actually have that. And you always think that the other shoe is gonna drop because you are expecting bad things to happen and hardship to always be there and struggle to be your number one. But it doesn't have to be. You can actually just be happy and have joy and it's, it's fun. You just have to embrace it. You have to like embrace it and be like, okay, this is what this feels like and you get used to it, the more that you have it. So if that's your problem, I get it. I've been there. I have. But that's it. That's all of the steps that I have for you that I use for me actively working on accepting people that I pain in the past along with those steps. I encourage you to pray for those people. Truly pray for them, honestly, genuinely for good things in their life, for you to grow in accepting them. And that'll really help too. So thank you so much for listening to The Real Positive Girl podcast again with me, Sabrina. Um, check the show notes below. Come say hi to me on social, sign it for the newsletter, check the YouTube channel out, subscribe to it so you can get all the videos. And that's it. I appreciate everyone downloading, listening and sharing the show. You guys are absolutely fantastic. And until next time, have a good one and I'll see y'all next time. Bye.