 Hey guys, David here, and there's nothing that's less well understood or misperceived than the word forgiveness. To forgive something or someone in your life. And I'm going to talk in this video about four types of forgiveness that are not really forgiveness at all. They are nice sounding in theory. But when it gets down to it, it actually doesn't move anything. You know, real forgiveness in healing work is to look at a situation maybe from your past or a person from your past and to hold literally no ill will, to emotionally have moved on from that. So one of the ways you know that you haven't really forgiven something is that you're still disturbed by it on an emotional level. There's still something there, a little twinge of upset when you think about that thing. Now the problem with this, this whole thing of fake forgiveness is that we don't like to think of ourselves as people who are not forgiving, people who hold onto grievances. It's kind of like a persona we have to be forgiving, forgiving people. Which is why I'd way prefer people to just say, actually no I haven't forgiven that person, I'm very angry about that still. Being in that allowing ourselves to go through that phase of anger and not being in denial about that, a word will come back to you and repression is another one as well. Which is hugely, hugely important in this whole process of real forgiveness. So real forgiveness is when you've actually let go. So what are the four fake types? Well the first one here is forgive the sinners. Now all of these are, you could call them egoic forms of forgiveness. And the goal as with anything when the ego is involved is to maintain separation. Me and you, I'm a separate self and you're over there, you're those people. So to forgive the sinners is when you look on people and you say to yourself, they did something horrendous and very, very bad, but I am going to be the bigger person. Okay, and I'm going to forgive them. Now really what it's doing is it's creating, you know, I have this sense of righteousness and they are not righteous, but I'm going to be more evolved than them. So this is not true forgiveness by any stretch of the imagination. Now it's very, very common. We talk about forgiving the evil doers or the people who have done this wrong. But that's not really what forgiveness is because if that's the case, you're going to still be holding on to that resentment and that anger. The second one is me too. So that's when we allow ourselves to sound gracious. The ego likes to think above itself as being gracious. Me too is when you look at someone else who has done something, not good, and you say, well, I'm no better than that person. Now really, you know, that makes you sound like you're very humble and everything, but really you're just condemning yourself when you're doing that as well. Now that's a very common one. Especially people who have been doing some inner work on themselves and they start to reverse some of their projections. Now they do, they say, well, I do those things. But they leave it at that. The whole point of reversing a projection is to forgive yourself, to own it in yourself and realize, okay, I think I'm guilty of that as well. And just let yourself go. Let yourself off the hook. Start to drop a lot of that guilt story that we have inside of us. So it's not good, you know, throwing yourself under the bus either. That's not really what true forgiveness is. Now the third one is by far and away the most common one and the worst. It's the worst of them all. It's to be the martyr. Especially when people do work on themselves and they figure out, okay, I'm getting triggered by an awful lot of things in my life. I need to figure out what's going on and to do some work on themselves. And then all of a sudden what starts to happen is they stop getting triggered or they're able to shut down the process that happens when they get triggered. And if they do that often enough, they begin to realize I cannot react. I can stop myself from reacting. So it's called the martyr because somebody does something and you get upset but you hold it inside. Okay, you sit in silence while another person has done something that has triggered you. Now this is very, very unhealthy. Again, I'd much prefer if a person just came out and said what they felt in the moment. It's far healthier and it's more honest than this approach of, okay, this is my issue. I'm just going to sit here and pretend like everything's okay, but not deal with the actual feeling. It's actually repressing the feelings down. So you sit there in silence and nothing actually gets resolved. Now, this makes it again, it allows you to feel like you're revolved somehow. You're not reacting. You're great. Okay, those other people are unhinged, they're unstable, but here I am, I'm very, very stable and I don't react to things. When inside you're building up a lot of resentment and a lot of rage. So being the martyr is definitely not an approach we need to take. Okay, watch if you are holding on to, or if you're telling yourself, I can't, I'm not reacting to things anymore. That is definite denial and repression. We will react to things for a long, long time. The problem is not that we react, it's how we process the reactions. But we have to be honest about the fact, yeah, I don't like that. That annoys me. It really upsets me, that person let me down, that person betrayed me. Rather than pretending like, okay, this is my issue, I need to just be positive here. I shouldn't be the one reacting. Who said you shouldn't react? Now, I'm not saying to act from that anger or that resentment or that upset that comes along. But to be honest with yourself about the fact, yep, I am still very angry about this. Now, the last one, of course, is very common as well, especially in relationships. This is forgiveness, depending on sort of conditions. It's really another word for this, it's bargaining. So, okay, that person betrayed me, that person cheated on me. I will forgive if X, Y and Z happens. Okay, they need to earn my trust again. Now, if there are conditions in place for it, it's not really something you could call forgiveness. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this, okay. But to call it forgiveness is not true, because it isn't forgiveness. It's basically just, it's like an exchange, okay, to be honest. And there may be a time and a place for that in relationships. But to say that I've forgiven this person as long as they don't do this is not forgiveness at all. Because it means you haven't really let it go. You haven't processed the upset within yourself. Now, true forgiveness, I mean, it's a tough one to define, really, what true forgiveness is. But a way of helping is that to realize it's none of these things. And these are so common. My personal favorite is this one. This is the one I dislike the most, because in a country like Ireland, for instance, everyone is just so nice and so friendly all the time that we're in complete denial about the fact that, you know, that person really drives me up the wall. Getting real about this, you know, is the first step in actually true forgiveness. So when you have that triggering or that upset, it's to realize I am upset. I am totally upset about this. It's not to deny it or bury it. And then it's just to bring it back, remove the other person externally. I see I'm left with a feeling, okay. And this is something that isn't within myself. It's usually something I'm judging myself for that aspect you see in the other person. And to then just say, okay, is this true or not? Invariably it isn't true, but you have to go through that process of inquiry, not just automatically dismiss it, okay. There's work to be done. It is a process of forgiveness. So true forgiveness requires reversing projections, not being in denial, not bargaining or haggling or coming to some kind of an agreement, okay, not throwing yourself under the bus, and also not labelling others separate from yourself as worse than or better than, okay. So it's none of those things. So forgiveness, you know, it's obviously got a lot of biblical associations, but really forgiveness is just something that you can do for yourself. And you start to have this self-destructive, self-critical narrative, if you want to put it that way. And it's also a tendency, the more you forgive yourself, the less likely you will be as a mode of being or as a habit to really attack yourself and judge yourself. So forgiveness is a hugely important part of life and genuinely being able to move on from something that has been holding you back. I mean, sometimes people hold on to grievances for years and years, decades of their lives because they think they've done it properly, you know. But yet, if they're really honest, they're still having the emotional reactions. So finding out what true forgiveness is, I mean, brutally honest about how I feel, not being in denial is the key to real forgiveness. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you'd like to talk with me, you can visit my website, drdavemario.com. Please like the video and subscribe below if you enjoy this content, and it helps me reach other people. So thanks a million for watching guys, and I'll talk with you again soon. Bye.