Nicole: Pay attention to Toto when you take her outside because sometimes after you get up, I lay there and I'm like, "What if Toto gets picked up by a bird because John's not watching her outside?" There are those ravens that were pecking at that bunny's head.

John: They can't pick up Toto.

Nicole: They could pick up Toto.

John: No, they can't. It would have to be like an eagle. I've seen some hawks around, though.

Nicole: Yeah, some. Even a hawk would have to be like, even if a hawk tried to pick up Toto, it would gut her like those bunny rabbits.

John: That's true, but I watch out. There's no hawks that early in the morning.

Nicole: Should you forgive and forget? It's a big question that a lot of people ask about. They say, "I'm never going to forget it. I'll forgive, but I won't forget." Is that right, or is that wrong? That's what we're going to be talking about in this episode. Beyond the perfect, we discover through our flaws we complete each other better than perfect. We stay through every fault we find no way.

John: Welcome back to the Bedroom Perfect Podcast, where every week we share with you how two imperfect people helping each other grow equals one better than perfect relationship.

Nicole: That's right. So yeah, so I know before we get into the meat, anything on your mind? Anything brewing besides leaving the dog outside?

John: No, that's still on.

Nicole: Okay, like which tab is that one?

John: It's still there. I'm like, "I need to get one of those pokey little suits." We didn't mention it in the last episode, but our dog is 5 lbs, looks like a bunny rabbit, probably smaller than a bunny rabbit, and so she is a type of dog that would potentially be a target for birds of prey.

Nicole: And John's like, "It's fine."

John: I'm like, "Look, you can go outside if I put a pokey suit on them." They make a pokey suit, but I think it's like 50 bucks.

Nicole: Yeah, but what if it kills some endangered bird, and then we're like...

John: If an endangered bird's trying to kill our dog, yeah, we'll still get fined. It's like it's booby-trapped.

Nicole: It's nature. Look, there are booby trap laws.

John: I mean, that'd be a weird... I would like to go to court for that, though. It's like, "You killed a bald eagle."

Nicole: Like, no, no, no. I didn't kill a bald eagle. You put a spiky suit on a dog.

John: Yeah, the bald eagle chose to kill itself.

Nicole: Right, like, but booby-trapped it.

John: No, no, no, no. The spiky suit is just... Do you feel like this is not legitimate? Because I would totally be there representing myself, saying all those things.

Nicole: I think so. Now, I'm actually... Yeah, I think we would win that case. And I don't think that there are any coyotes around anymore, but they also scare me. You know, we had a few run-ins with our dog, like walking up to our fence, and then a coyote came up right at the fence where she was, and we were like, "What is that? A dog?"

John: It was just the coyotes.

Nicole: Yeah, thank God the coyote didn't try to jump the fence. Now that we don't have coyotes. But now, I am still thinking about the pokey suit. So, stay tuned next week to see if I bought one or not. What other drama was going on? Do we have anything else that was drama with the... We haven't had a lot of drama on the episodes or on TikTok. We went on a few podcasts.

John: Oh yeah, we did.

Nicole: Yep, that was cool. We went on one called Witness Podcast.

John: Yeah, so check that out. Look that up. And then we were on Book 101.

Nicole: I was going to say, you can't forget Book 101.

John: If you couldn't remember the name of the podcast.

Nicole: No, I could not forget Book 101. But he talked us into writing a book, so we'll let you guys know when that... Guess what the name of the book will be if we follow Daniel's book or Better Than Perfect Podcast Volume One.

John: That's right, Volume One.

Nicole: Volume One. So that just means there could be a lot of volumes.

John: Exactly. Yeah. But question, because you got us some merch one time.

Nicole: Mhm, mhm. If you guys watching this are interested in merch, because Daniel also mentioned merch.

John: Merch, yeah, for sure. Let us know in the comments, or, and what kind of merch.

Nicole: Yeah, what you guys want. Like, do you want socks that say "Better Than Perfect"? Sock, sock. It's those socks that have like the hands that like hold hands.

John: Those... Oh, do you want to have Better Than Perfect socks? See what I did there?

Nicole: No, Better Than Perfect socks. Like, socks. Like, it's almost like sex.

John: Explain the...

Nicole: I didn't know if you were going to say sex or stocks. I'm like, "I have no idea what's going on."

John: Yeah, I thought you were going to explain a little bit more. That's why I paused for dramatic effect. Or beanie.

Nicole: Are you want Better Than Perfect nipple rings?

John: What do you want? What is wrong with you?

Nicole: Place your order. You know, we got to come up with some better merchandise for ourselves, though, because we ordered this stuff, and we're not going to wear it because it just doesn't look so good.

John: But you know, I mean, the tank top was cute. It's just casual.

Nicole: Yeah, I think like a good Polo would be... Polo with it still has to look classy. And for me, it's kind of hard to wear something like this and have the logo kind of weird. We have stickers and things like that. I think our stickers need to be a little bit bigger, though, and car decals. We did that.

John: That's cool. We have it on our car. So, I'm curious to see how many people come from the car.

Nicole: I think none. If you came here today because you saw our car driving around and you're like, "Better Than Perfect," then just, you absolutely have to email us and let us know because we'll just invite you on the podcast. You can be here. We won't even embarrass you.

John: We won't even make you... What do you mean we won't even embarrass you? You act like we embarrass people.

Nicole: We won't do like coaching couples. Co like make you dive into your relationship, talk about then just about driving something like that. I don't know. Driving in San Diego. John's lost it. We need to get into the topic.

John: So, the topic today, it's one I've been wanting to do for a while, which is forgiveness. And I want to talk about one, why it's so important to forgive, what it actually means to forgive, right? And then, the forgiveness, the forgetting, defining what that is, right? Because, you know, just to spoil it already, to just give it right at once, which is that true forgiveness...

John: Forgetting is part of it because if you have a debt, for example, you owe the bank some money, and the bank says, "We forgive your debt," it's as if it never happened. You wouldn't want the bank to later say, "Remember that car payment we forgave? If you want to give us some money..." They're not going to come after you for the debt anymore because it's forgiven. That's the whole concept of forgiveness; it's as if it never happened in the first place. This is a hard concept for people to understand, especially in relationships when they've been hurt. But it's critical to act as if it's never happened. People get confused thinking they have to remember it, but you don't have to. Like touching a hot stove, you don't have to remind yourself every day not to touch it; you just know. Sometimes we think we've forgiven someone, but we're still holding on to the harms. I've had this conversation with many men in coaching and with our daughter too. When you forgive someone, it means you no longer have the right to be harmed. You have to give up that harm 100%. It's super important in relationships because not truly forgiving and letting go can destroy relationships.

Nicole: A lot of people don't truly forgive because they don't want to give up the hurt. They feel like it validates their feelings. If something bad happens again, they want to use that as evidence, like "See, I told you this was going to happen again." This constant thinking about it causes more emotional pain and turmoil, making them relive it. They hold onto it to validate why they act the way they do, their pain, their anger, their negative emotions. It's important to understand why so many people have a hard time really forgiving and forgetting. They feel like if they forget, they don't have that evidence to support why they feel the way they do. I was this person too. Early in our relationship, my dad told me I had to let things go because he knew I would hold onto stuff and hold a grudge. You can forgive and forget and still not be around that person. I've wanted to hold onto things because it justifies why I feel the way I feel. Even if you forgive and forget, it's not like that thing goes away. It's almost better to say forgive and let go. You can't force your brain not to think about it. When you say forget, people might feel bad if they do think about it. It's more about letting it go and not allowing it to cause negative emotions again or be used against somebody. People hold onto it so they can use it against somebody or to validate their actions. If you're still holding on to the right to be hurt, and someone asks if you've been harmed and you still say yes, then you haven't truly forgiven and let go. But I use the word forget because people say, "I'll forgive but I won't forget." When you've truly forgiven, you no longer say you've been harmed. It hurts to say those words when you've been hurt because you have forgiven.

John: Truly, if you do forgive, then those words don't hurt anymore because there's no need to count the harm or to measure it. You don't even see it as harm anymore, right? And that's the thing that is tough for people to do because we've all been there. It's not just you. To be frankly honest, it came to a point in our relationship where, at some point, because I did do wrong things, right, that were, you know, but where it came to a point where I had to even be like, look, if you can't forget this, if you can't let go of this, I love you, I want to be with you, but we can't move past this. We can't move past the relationship. It was a fork in the road for the relationship. I'm thankful that you made that choice that day, but I got to a point where I was like, I really want this life, and I really want to, you know, I love her more than anything in the whole world, but I also know that if this cannot be let go of, we cannot succeed, we cannot grow. So, at that moment, I was like, I have to put it to the choice of this or that, you know, if we're going to have this future or not.

Nicole: And the only reason that in that moment I agreed and did let it go is because you finally did it the right way. Because in the beginning, you didn't do it the right way. You did not validate the things you've done. You told me to just get over it, which that's not a way to get somebody to do that. But by the time that you had that conversation with me and you said what you said, I realized within myself that I can't keep holding this against you. And even though it still hurt, like it still bothered me, I could also realize though that some of that as well was me holding on to it and hurting myself by holding on to it. But I do think it's important because I don't think I could have gotten over it if you had never gotten to a point where you actually owned up to what you did and validated that within me because there was a time where you didn't do that, and I felt very dismissed, and you need to just get over it. No one is going to forgive and let go when the person who harmed them does not acknowledge that and really acknowledge that.

John: Well, and I think that I would make this distinction because you're absolutely right. In order to maintain a relationship, especially an intimate relationship with a person, those things have to be addressed. But I would also say that a person can forgive and forget without having anything that the other person does at all, and that's on us to do. However, I think they can if they're not still with that person.

Nicole: Right, exactly. That's what I said, like in your relationship, right, like you would have to choose to not be with that person at that point because, you know, it depends on the degree of the harm. Because, you know, as I'm saying this, I'm immediately thinking in my head, like, okay, well, you know, she was mean to me, she said this to me, and I can't continue this relationship until she acknowledges it and validates my feelings. No, you can still forgive and forget there. It's good if you have a talk, but you can't make that a condition and be like, I can't be with this person. But if it's a severe breach of trust and harm, then yeah, then that is the case. But it is on us.

John: And that kind of brings up one of the topics I wanted to talk about, which is that I encounter many times, and you've seen it because I was at a talk at a conference when you were in the audience. I said, "How many of you hold up your hand if you have something that you're not forgiving someone for?" And how many people raised their hand? Almost a lot. And I was like, "Why? What good is it doing to you?" And a lot of people are like, "Well, as soon as they apologize, as soon as they acknowledge, then I can forgive." And some people are like, "It doesn't matter what they do. I'm never going to forgive them." The thing about that is that unforgiveness only harms you as a person. It does not harm the other person. It is like drinking poison to kill someone else. You're drinking that poison every day, and you're living with that. So, the biggest thing about forgiveness is it's not for them; it's for you because you have trapped yourself in a prison when you're holding resentment, anger, holding on to the hurt. You're allowing that hurt to hurt you more and over every single day instead of the one time that it happened.

Nicole: Yeah, you know, it just eats away at you inside of you because, like you mentioned, every time you think of that thing, you're feeling those emotions all over again, and they haven't even happened. And you think, because I've been there, you think that the more you bring it up and you feel that pain again, it's preparing you to never feel that again. It's preparing to protect you so that it won't ever happen again, but that's not the reality. Like you said, the reality is it's actually hurting you every time you bring it up. And we're not saying that when something happens, you can't have the emotions, you can't talk it out, and you can't feel the pain or whatever that you're feeling. But the more you hold on to that and continue to relive that over and over again, the more that it's poisoning you.

John: Yeah, it's a second arrow, right? Is what it is. If you're not familiar with the story, you're going to make me tell it.

Nicole: Yeah, because you're more, you had read it more recently. It's been, you know, how my brain has got that out of there, but go ahead.

John: See if you got it. I am going to butcher this because my brain, you know, has got that out of there, but...

John: Basically, what I'm saying is you get hit with the first arrow. There are two arrows. You get hit with the first arrow, and you feel the pain, and you realize, "Hey, I just got hit with an arrow." But then, every time you think about getting hit with the arrow, you've gotten shot with another arrow. You've caused another pain, and that pain is the thinking about it.

Nicole: You're harming yourself. Instead of being shot once, now you've shot yourself again. The first arrow you couldn't avoid, right? It was going to happen. But the second arrow was a choice. You stood there and got shot again. You shot yourself the second time. Even there's a good Marcus Aurelius quote. It's somewhat related, but he says, "How more grievous are the actions of our anger rather than the causes of them?" So, it's like how much worse is it how we respond to things than the actual thing itself. And how many times have we been in a relationship, not excluded, but anyone, and the little thing that started the fight is so minor compared to what you've done because you got upset.

John: Got at each other's throats, and now you've caused real harm. The little thing was not even harmful at all. It was a minor inconvenience, a little bit of hurt or pain, but now you've caused massive pain and hurt because of your reaction to it. But, I do think that, like I said, it is a hard thing for people to forgive, but it is necessary. Like you said, there does come a point where you're still stewing on something, and the person you're upset with has moved on. They're not affected, and you can tell that it's not living in their head, what they did, or they're careless, and they didn't even care in the first place, and they don't care now, and they're never going to care. The more you think about it isn't going to cause them to care, isn't going to make them sorry, isn't going to give you the thing that you want, like an apology or whatever it is.

Nicole: So, the sooner that you let it go, and really with any sort of thing, it's feel the emotion, feel the thing, then let it go. We're not saying you process, you get hurt, and you're like, "It's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. I forgive you." Like, you're allowed to feel the way you feel about it. You're allowed to have that conversation. But after you're done with the conversation, you need to let it go, and you need to not bring it up in your mind constantly because it will upset you. Even if you really have talked it all the way out and you feel better about the situation, you're still choosing to be with that person, if it's something that the person you're with did. You can't keep allowing that to come back because even if you feel like, "Okay, I'm good. I'm in a good place. We're in a good place," you will get yourself back in a bad place.

John: Exactly. You have to truly let that go. It's not saying forget, but I also don't want people to beat themselves up if they can't just totally erase it out of their mind because then they might feel bad if they do think about it once or twice, and that's normal. But the thing is, let go. You have the choice, though, that even if it pops up in your head, to let it go again. And to not start thinking about it. Like we said in the other episode, thinking is a root cause of suffering. Even if you have it pop up in your head, don't think about it. Let it go, let it go again.

Nicole: And we don't even want what we think we want because a lot of times, hopefully, it's not in your intimate relationship, but for people that we have unforgiveness for, we want revenge. We want them to pay. I used to ask this question a lot. I don't ask this question that much anymore, but I used to always say, "Do you want justice or mercy? Which do you want?" And a lot of times, people are like, "I want justice." Okay, when it's turned around because it goes both ways. So, if you want justice now, then you can have justice, but then when it's turned around, you're going to get justice. Do you want that? And then, with that comes along, now if you're going to make other people pay for their sins, all the sins you've done in your life, you now have to pay the price. So, I'll ask you again, do you want justice or mercy?

John: Most people want mercy. They want mercy for themselves. So, if you want mercy for yourself, it's the same standard that you judge others by will be judged by. So, if you want mercy for yourself, then you have to show mercy to other people. It's like we don't really want it. And then, even if you say you want justice, okay, then my next statement is always, "Okay, well, here's your knife. Go ahead and take your pound of flesh. Go ahead and cut it. Where do you want to cut it from? You're going to take that knife, you're going to cut someone's flesh?" I don't think so. You don't want that. You think you want that. You don't want to cause harm to someone else. It doesn't fix your harm. You would just be in a bloody mess, or you're going to fight fire with fire, but everyone's on fire.

Nicole: But the point is, like, if you had the knife, you know, and I like to use that as a visual image, you would not want to cut the pound of flesh from someone. But we think that we do, but you know that you wouldn't want to be in that position. You wouldn't want to actually harm someone, no matter how much they harmed you. I would hope that you still would not want to take a knife to their flesh and take what is owed to you because it doesn't solve anything. And so, that's like when you really understand this at a deep level, the only answer is forgiveness. Then you realize that this is what you're holding on to, this sense of justice. And like I said, it's like you don't want justice dealt to you, so don't deal it to other people. So, if you see that, that helps you to let go of it because then you're like, "Okay, yeah, mercy is the thing that I want, so mercy is the thing that I'll give." And so, I have done wrong in my life, and so I don't want to be held, be judged. And the other thing to think about too is, especially in a relationship.

John: Is that we've all made mistakes in life, right? How many of us want to be beat up by our mistakes over and over again? We don't. What we want is for someone to forgive us and to let it go, and to not remember it, and to not hold it against us, not to remind us. We want to be able to become the new person that we want to become, right? We don't want to be con... So then why do we do it to other people? You know what I'm saying? It's like it goes both ways. And so, but it is, it's important to, you know, because you'll never... The thing that will trap you here on this Earth more than anything else is unforgiveness.

Nicole: That's true. Well, and that's why you said what you said to me. I was like, I do have to work through this, whether it's with you or with someone else. And I'd rather it be with you. Yeah, and you do feel different, and it does feel better. Like, I feel like a lot of people have these things that live in their head. They haven't forgiven and they haven't forgotten, and they don't even realize what it's doing to them. They don't even realize the turmoil it's creating inside of them. They don't realize the negative feelings and emotions that it is bringing up in them. 'Cause even if they're not constantly thinking about it, but it still lives in there, right? It's still spewing out negativity.

John: Yeah, and so it is a valuable lesson to learn. And if you don't learn it, you will just be miserable. Yeah, and because people, like I said, people will have moved on. Like you said, the people who have hurt you, they don't care. They're not thinking about it. They're not allowing it to affect them. It's only affecting you. Yeah, you're walking around every day with this backpack full of bricks, right? And you're like, why is it so heavy? Why is it so... You know, why are other people don't have this load? And it's because, what's in that backpack? Oh, it's a brick. This brick says uh Joe on it, and this one says Jim on it, and this is like, this is when this person did this to me. You're holding on to all those things.

Nicole: Yeah, and all you got to do is let them go, and your burden will be lighter, right? But you're... It's not hurting anyone else by you carrying all those bricks around. It's not doing you any good. Like, you're carrying the stuff around in life that's not doing you any good. It's only harming you. It's only making your life heavier. And as soon as you let that go... I mean, forgiveness is the most freeing thing that you'll ever do for someone else, but more importantly, the most freeing thing you'll ever do for yourself. Because once you choose to forgive, and you start to say, nobody has harmed me ever in my entire life. That's the thing, nobody has ever harmed me in my entire life. And you let it all go, it'll be the freest day of your entire life. Because you will experience that freedom. You'll see what that unforgiveness is doing to hold you down, right? That person still has power over you. You don't think that they do. You think it's your choice, yeah, but they still have power over you. Like, only you should have the power over yourself. And like you said, if you have been through things, but you're like, no one has harmed me, you're a clean slate. No one has power over you. No one has their claws still sunk in you. But the more that you hold on to those things, the more power you give to those people that you don't even want in your life most of the time anyway. Or you do want them in your life, but you want to get rid of these things that are causing you to feel all this negativity towards the person that you don't want to.

John: Like, if you genuinely believe that the person who harmed you would not do that again and is sorry, right? Why are you still holding on to it? And even if you don't... Well, no, I just mean, in an instance where, if you're... I already talked about, but think it's important to talk about when you are with... Because people don't realize too that they're actually sweeping that under their rug, and it will never come out because it's on your side of the rug.

Nicole: Exactly, yeah. No, they're not even aware of it. A lot of times, your partner can try to sweep under the rug, but he can't get to your side. Yeah, and it's still there, and you're going to pile it up the more that you think about it. And only you can get rid of that underneath of the rug on your side. It's not something that your partner can do. They can't. They're not even aware they don't have any reach into it. And that's what, like when we talked about, we did that episode on doing the work. That's doing the work, is like bringing the things to the surface so that you don't hold on to them. And you've got the choice. You can either address it, or you can just let it go, right? But you can't... You have to choose one of those. If you feel like you can't let it go, then you need to address it.

John: Yeah, right. And if you address it, then that has to be enough. That has to be it, you know. And it's like, but I think there's a part of it, of also, you know, helping your partner to be able to let go of the thing. Right, the forgiveness is something they have to do on their own. I'm 100%, regardless of whether the other person is sorry or not, they have to choose forgiveness. That has to be chosen. But if you harm someone, then, and this was a lesson that I had to learn, is that, and this is something I teach guys all the time, especially in relation to women, because it's mostly like that. 'Cause again, our one-track mind, we're ready to move on and move on to the next thing, is that you have to hold space. What that means is to allow to say, "Okay, I want to hear your experience. I want you to tell me what you went through, and I want to hear it in detail. And I want to just listen and empathize with it and ask questions, and so that I can understand it. I want to understand what pain I put you through. I want to feel it." And to sit there and do that, and not justify, not defend, because there's reasons. What everyone does things for a reason, and we know, and that's where I got trapped, is I was like, you would try to tell me how I hurt you, and I was like, well, yeah, but this is why. Like, I didn't mean to hurt you. I was... And but as soon as I'm starting to go down that path, you're feeling more hurt.

Nicole: Mhm, because even though I'm like, well, I'm trying to make you feel less hurt 'cause I'm trying to tell you that like my state of mind was this, and this is why I was doing this, and this is what I was going through. And so, it's not has anything to do with you. I'm not intentionally trying to hurt you, but every time I'm saying those words, it's hurting you more. And that's where I got stuck.

John: It's not realizing that what I need to do is like, it doesn't matter. I just need to hear and just listen and just be there and just hear the story and empathize with it and really experience and feel it and not need to explain why, you know.

Nicole: I think anyone, yeah, who is the one that hurts someone else, right, will want to quickly move on from it, men or women, sure, yeah, because they don't want to feel the guilt and the shame or whatever other feelings are going to come up by confronting the things that they did, yeah. And so, yes, I agree that men, you know, I'm sure you talk to most about doing that, but women also should do that as well too. They should give men the space, you know, if they have hurt them and not try to be like, "Oh, get over it," or "You're being such a baby," or "You're still talking about that." Like, what everyone should realize is that if you truly give the person that you've hurt the space to talk about it and you just listen, like you said, and you don't try to justify what you did, that is how they will be more likely to forgive and let go, right? And like you said, you don't always get that, but if you are with somebody and you're in a relationship and you want that relationship to work, you have to do that.

John: Absolutely, yeah, you have to. And you have to be willing. Like, it is on the other person to forgive and to forget, and they should do that. But, you know, I can tell you as a man that even though that's true, it's still better to be the leader and the guide and to say, "As many times as you need to bring this up and talk about this, you can." Because that also helps to let it go, right? It doesn't mean that it shouldn't be forgiven or that, but what I'm saying is it helps; it makes it easier. You're making it easier for your partner. You want your partner to have an easier time of letting go of things. You don't want to be like, "Oh no, no, you should forgive and forget." Like, that's how you, and yeah, that might be true, it might be true, but still, like, helping them process through it by saying, "Hey, anytime you want to talk about it." Because also, at the same time, and this is something I had to realize, is like, it's not personal. It's not a judgment of yourself again. It's you're not being condemned over and over again unless they're actually doing that, right? But if they're telling their story and telling about their pain, that's not the same thing as them accusing you or recriminating you, right? They're just, that's their experience, and they want to share their experience, and that's the thing. It's like, and as soon as you're open to that and you're like, "Okay, as many times as you need to talk about this, I'm here to listen," and then you don't take it personally anymore, it doesn't hurt you anymore either.

Nicole: Well, you have to forgive yourself for doing the thing because I don't want people to get confused with what you're saying versus the reality. And the reality is, is you have to take accountability for what you did. Like, if you're trying to skirt it, even if you have an excuse, you're not taking accountability. Like, I don't care what the excuse is, right? You know if you hurt that person or not. You know if that root hurt was something that you actually did, and it doesn't matter if you have a good excuse or what it is. If you try to skirt that responsibility, exactly, of what you did, yeah, that person will never forgive you, right? Well, and because you're not even owning up, they now don't trust you more because you're not even owning up to what you did. And there is a difference between like perceived things that are maybe a little bit more blurry, where someone might be like, "Oh, I genuinely, intentionally didn't mean to hurt you," right? And it's like a smaller degree thing versus like a big thing that you know hurt somebody. Like when we had our things that were going on, like you left, and that, I'm not trying to bring it up, but I'm just saying that like, that is something that, even though I know that you had an excuse and why you did it, it still hurt. Like, it still was a thing that was going to hurt no matter what the excuse was, exactly. So like, you have to own up to that, right? And the sooner you own up to it and forgive yourself, is when you will not allow what that person is saying to you to be taken personally. And that's the better way to do it. The better way is to own up to what you did and to forgive yourself, right? And that person is more likely to forgive you. I'm not saying do something really fucked up and then be like, "Well, I forgave myself for it, so you should too." You know, like, there is a huge difference. There's a difference between someone genuinely owning up to something and genuinely being sorry and apologizing, forgiving themselves for doing that, versus someone doing something shitty and be like, "Well, I forgave myself, so you should." And I think it's worth saying the components of an apology in this episode as well because we just talked about this with our daughter, right? And you heard me tell her this after some of the outburst, and because most people don't know how to apologize. I think also most people have never seen an apology, like a true apology. So a true apology has three parts, okay? And I think this is my original, yeah, it is. So I'll just take, I'll take just full of original ideas over here, but it has first, an acknowledgment of what you did wrong, right? Like, without excuse or blame or justification. "I did this. This is what I did to you." The second is an acknowledgment of how that made the person feel because, look, you know, and the reason why I've come up with these three is because these are the things that you need as that make the apology feel good to you as a person, right? So first of all, the first one, if someone doesn't acknowledge what they did, then if they just say, "I'm sorry," but sorry for what, right? And it has to be without qualification, so it means like, "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings," is not, no, no, you feel, yeah, that's the worst apology. No one ever in the history of mankind has had someone say, "I'm sorry that you feel that way," and have felt validated, right? Or, "I'm sorry you misinterpreted what I said, and it hurt you." No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, do not do that. That just hurts more, right? It's, you've added insult to injury, you know? Like, it has to be, now you're trying to manipulate the apology. Not, "I'm sorry." I'm not sorry. "I'm sorry I said things I shouldn't have." What did you say, right? You have to spell it out. "I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry I spit in your face. I'm sorry I called you a big fucker," or whatever it is, like, whatever you did, you have to spell it out without qualification, no but, no because, again, you have to picture yourself on the other side of it because you've.

John: Apologies where people have just said, "I'm sorry," or they've said whatever kind of thing, or they said, "I'm sorry I did this, but this is why I did it," none of that works. It has to be just 100% clearcut, acknowledging what was done.

Nicole: Right, number two, you need to, as someone receiving an apology, want to know that they understand how they made you feel. If they're just like, "I'm sorry I did this, that must have sucked, whatever," it's not good. You want them to really understand because that's what it's about. It's not about trying to make the person feel bad; it's about making sure they know what harm they caused.

John: Exactly. So, the second component of the apology is you tell them, "When I said this, when I did this, I know that it probably made you feel like this." It's about expressing understanding of the impact of your actions.

Nicole: And if you don't know, then you can ask them, "Tell me how it made you feel," because you can't even form the proper apology until you know enough about what you've done. And how does it feel when someone apologizes to you and they don't have that component?

John: It feels empty. And when they're done apologizing, you still want to talk more because you're like, "But I didn't really get to say how what you did affected me." And they're like, "I already apologized," and it just makes you feel worse because now you haven't been heard.

Nicole: Right. So, when you give an apology, you should understand that's how the other person would feel. And then the third component is, what are you going to do about it? How are you rectifying the situation?

John: Some things can't be rectified, like you can't bring someone's pet back to life, but what can you do? How are you paying the price? How are you trying to make things right? You should offer up the suggestion, "This is what I'm going to do to make it right," which also means how is it not going to happen again.

Nicole: Right, like saying, "I'm going to pay you back the $500 I stole from you." That's how you rectify the situation. There has to be restitution that you offer up in order to make things right.

John: Exactly. And sometimes, you can't bring a dead pet back, but what can you do? What is the price that you're going to pay? And you should come up with what you're going to do but then at the end, you have to ask them if it's sufficient.

Nicole: And that's a true apology: 1) I'm sorry, specifically what I did without justifications, 2) This is how it made you feel, which you have to understand and know what that is, and 3) This is how I'm correcting it and making it right.

John: And the reason why I brought this into the conversation on forgiveness is because if you can apologize like that, it makes it a lot easier to forgive. Now, it's still on the other person to forgive even if there's no apology, but that sure makes it a whole lot easier.

Nicole: Right, because every single person, you know, hopefully, that's watching this is like, "Oh yeah, I would feel super validated if someone ever apologized like that." But a lot of people have not even seen an apology like that. And like you said, you have to also be okay with not getting an apology like that.

John: The more that people learn how to apologize like that and it's out in the world, the more people will learn, and it'll pass on to other people. It's just better to learn how to do something like that if you're on your personal development journey. That includes all aspects, including how you apologize.

Nicole: Yeah, I don't know anybody that can apologize with their ego and their pride screaming at them because that's the thing that makes it like, "Well, why do I have to do that?" or "Why do I have to grovel?" Can't I just say I'm sorry and that should be enough?

John: Right, you want to feel like you got away with it, like you said, you want to do the bare minimum not to face the things that you're part in it as well, too, and then feel like you got off scot-free. And I've been guilty of this. That's why, like, we had issues initially too, was because I was trying to just be like, "Okay, get over it. I'm sorry." Again, it wasn't that dismissive, but it probably felt that dismissive.

John: I've felt that "get over it" was dismissive, but after thinking about it, I realized there are three components to this. These are the things that are necessary, and I wasn't doing it. You also taught me how to properly apologize because I was one of the people who did not know how to apologize properly. I was never apologized to as a child, and many children, or adults, have never seen that either.

Nicole: I think it is easier, and it's good that we're teaching our daughter because it's easier to adapt when you're a child. It's important as a parent to apologize to your children properly and teach them to apologize properly because that will help them in their life. It's spreading compassion and empathy that the world needs. But a lot of adults have never had an adult apologize to them, so they didn't learn how to apologize properly.

John: Until they're in a situation where someone they really care about teaches them how to do that. You've had issues where you've talked to me, and you feel like I'm not giving you a genuine apology. It's not because I don't want to apologize to you; it's because I genuinely didn't know the components of what you just said and how to properly do them and show that to you.

Nicole: It is hard, especially if you are an avoidant person trying to unlearn those things. You want to just shut down when a lot of this stuff happens, and it doesn't make you very empathetic to people. But that is the proper way to be. You might have to unlearn things, and it's going to be hard, but it's worth it. It's not a bad thing that it's hard. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It does make a difference. It gives you peace in your life, and you have more love and compassion towards people you have hurt. It's easier for you to start taking accountability for the things you've done to other people and learn to genuinely apologize and make them feel better. And you will get that in return as well. But even if you don't, you know how to forgive and let go, so nothing can harm you again. No one can control you.

John: Only you have that power. So even if it's really hard and you're in a place where you feel like all odds are against you, or like your parents even know that you hold grudges, you do have to eventually get to a point where you're like, "Okay, I am going to learn to do this. I need to learn to do this." And in every relationship, the reason why relationships fail is because of bitterness, resentment, bitterness, whatever you call it. John Gottberg calls it contempt. I think it's the same thing. It's bitterness. And where does bitterness root from? It is unforgiveness. That's what it is. Even when it's small things, there are a lot of small little seeds. How do you go from loving someone to hating them? It's from a little seed that gets planted in the ground, a weed that doesn't get pulled out, and it grows until it's so big.

Nicole: So you have to kill resentment in your relationship, and the way that you kill resentment is through forgiveness but also through the correct way to apologize to resolve issues. If you want to have a relationship, I can guarantee you the way that the relationship will die is because of resentment. If you have resentment now, you better get rid of it. The way that you get rid of your own resentment is through forgiveness. The way that you help other people get rid of resentment towards you is through apology, empathy, acknowledgment, validation of their emotions. If you've got the resentment, you already have the seeds of destruction. It's only a matter of time before the relationship will end. You cannot hold resentment and love at the same time; one will win out, and it's going to be resentment.

John: Forgiveness is super important. Even if you're not in a relationship, if you decide to hold on to bitterness and resentment, it will fester inside you. It will take over your entire life. Some people's lives have been taken over completely by resentment and bitterness because they choose not to forgive. They hold on to that hurt from a long time ago. When you're clutching something so hard, you can't hold on to something else. That's why your life is in the place where it is. You're holding so hard onto this hurt from the past that you won't let go of, that you can't open your hands to grab something better. You have to let go of it if you want to survive. If you want to have love in your life, you can't choose. You can't have the pain and all those things inside of you and give love. If you're holding things against people, you can't give the love out that you want to give to everybody because it's covered up by all that resentment, all that unforgiveness, all that pain that you're choosing to hold onto is burying the love and the happiness that you could be giving everyone.

Nicole: And that's why the apology part is important because it shows somebody that you love and care about them enough to properly apologize. It doesn't matter how grievous the harm is. I know when I've made several YouTube videos on forgiveness, inevitably someone comments and says, "Well, what if someone murdered your whole family gruesomely, would you forgive me?"

John: Like, yeah, what good would it do? It's not going to bring them back, and it's not going to harm that person in any way. It's only going to cause me more pain. Losing your family, someone murdering your family, that's painful. Why shoot the second arrow into yourself after you've already suffered such a great first arrow? Because why live it every day? It's not going to help. You might say you'd act differently, but I would forgive because I'm not going to harm myself further. I know it as a core principle in my life because I've seen it. I can say without a doubt, no matter what someone does to me, I will forgive them because I know that it only harms me. When you really know that, it becomes super easy to forgive. But if you're having trouble forgiving, it's because you don't truly understand the harm it does to yourself. If you did, you would find it easy. So, if there's anything you can gather from this, it's to understand that it harms you. And if you get that, then it won't be a problem. Also, understand, don't come to murder me. I will put up a fight. We already told you in the last episode we could go up the crazy scare. But yeah, you're right, and it's important. If you don't have someone in your life that can help you get to that place, like John helped me, watch this video multiple times. I mean, if you want to pretend that we love you, we're your parents, and we're teaching you this, then do that. Whatever it takes for you to really realize how important this is. I wish I'd learned it sooner because I would have felt so much more peace in my life even before you came along and helped me learn this. It is important, and it's something you will not regret learning. If anything, you will want to help and teach people how to do exactly what we're sitting here talking about.

Nicole: Well, good. I think we felt like this was a very important topic because, like I said, I hear all the time people saying, "I forgive but I won't forget." And I think it was important for us to talk about where we were at with that too. And I mean, mostly me, but you know, with all the things with the not forgetting and letting go and the apologizing, but you have to be transparent about it. It is important because I was on the other side until you came along. I don't want people to give up hope and be like, "I can't do that." It is a better way. You can look at it and say objectively, this is a much better way to live your life. It is honestly freeing. Like John said in the last episode, we were put through the ringer last week, and the old me would have been like, "I am not ever letting this go." Granted, I don't want to see the craziness again, but at the same time, I'm like, and kind of like you talked about with the stove, I just want to add the last thing in there is that you have to trust yourself. You have to trust yourself to know that you experienced something. That is not just going to disappear from your head. You're not going to lose the wisdom or the knowledge that you learned from going through a hard experience. You will still have that. So, like I said, when we had a hard week last week, parenting-wise, you know, or what we experienced, the old me would have been like, "I'm always going to think about this because I don't want to deal with that ever again." But that is not a way to live. That's just going to cause me to be upset, that's going to cause me to be in a negative place, and that's not going to benefit anybody. The thing is, I went through that. I don't need to keep reliving that. I don't want to keep reliving that. Hopefully, we don't have to relive that, but even if we do, there is at least some little nugget that I learned in that, that I don't have to keep replaying it to make sure that I remember that nugget of wisdom that I learned in those moments.

John: Exactly. So, you have to trust yourself. You have to trust your mind, your body, your soul, that the things you've experienced, you don't have to keep replaying in your life to have the knowledge from those things. Because even as someone that had been cheated on in the past, I also felt like I had to keep that kind of alive in me so that I didn't get cheated on again. But that didn't do anything.

Nicole: Exactly. That didn't do anything. And I had to forgive them and like really forgive them, you know, and let that go. And so, again, as someone that has been there, not that long ago, and again, yes, everyone has been there, but it really hasn't been super long since I learned a lot of these things. I just want people to know that the change that you feel will make it worth it, and you will not want to go back to how it was before.

John: 100%. And, you know, actually, I lost what I was going to say, but then I remembered it, which was that, you know how you always say, "I don't know how," because I, you know, there's some stuff in my past I've been through, and you always tell me, "John, I don't know how it didn't change you and make you into a nasty person."

Nicole: Mhm.

John: The answer is forgiveness. That's how it didn't change me. Because if you don't forgive them, you will become them. You will certainly become them. Mic drop. But it's true. And if you want to not become them, like if you really don't like what someone did to you, and you really don't like what happened, do not become them. We see it every child that has an abusive parent, and then they grow up and they abuse their child. The cycle is because they haven't forgiven. They're replaying that over and over in their head to a point where that's all they know. They become them. Forgiveness breaks the cycle. Forgiveness breaks every cycle. That's what it is. And you will become the thing that you despise. You will become it if you don't let it go.

Nicole: That's true. It's the cure. So, that's why it's a good motivator. You don't want to become the thing because you, you, you.

John: Will become that exact thing, yeah. So this one was deep, yeah. We don't have anything, yeah. We don't have any at the end, but I think we spilled enough, uh, yeah, yeah. We went into our realness, our stuff, but that's good, yeah. I feel like this one was powerful, needed to be, yeah. Be set. So, so thankful that I have you, and I love you with all my heart. I love you.

Nicole: I love you.

John: All right, that's it for this week. Uh, follow us and, uh, leave us a review, and, and subscribe, yeah, and share this episode. Seriously, if you, you know, found some benefit from this, I mean, you know someone in your life who needs this, right? Everyone does, yeah. So send it to them, share it with them, you know, watch it over again if you need to, put on your bookmark because this is an important message that everyone can use, you know. I'm not just trying to toot our own horns here, but it really is. So that's true. All right, we'll see you next week. Bye. We find our way.