Change Your Brain Every Day - Forgiveness & The Brain: The 5 Simple Steps You Need To Know

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

The act of forgiving can have a massive effect on how we feel, but how can we begin to forgive those who have done terrible things to us? In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen illustrate how the five simple steps of the REACH model of forgiveness can allow us to let go of the things that continue to hurt us the most.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We're talking about attachments and relationships, and we've gone through relating, responsibility, empathy, listening, assertiveness, time time inquiring to your negative thoughts notice what you like more than what you don't like and the g is grace and forgiveness nobody's been perfect in relationships and how can you show grace and forgiveness to really elevate the quality of your relationships?

Yep. There is actually a model developed by Everett Worthington, Virginia Commonwealth University. It's called the REACH model of forgiveness that he developed and he taught. And then one day he realized he had to use it for himself because his mother was murdered. And it involves five simple steps, spells, reach, recall the event. What happened

empathize with the other person who did the bad thing to you altruistically the A is altruistically so you choose to give the gift

of forgiveness C is you hold, is you commit to it. You tell somebody about it. And H is you hold on to it. So can you think of someone who hurt you

that we can do this with? Oh, yeah. Do you have an example? Oh, yeah. So, okay. This one's going to sound kind of heavy for a podcast, but my stepdad

who climbed in bed with me when I was 12. Okay, that is heavy. Yeah, no, I for many years wished he was dead. Can you recall the event? Oh, yeah. Can you empathize with him? No. You want me to be honest?

No. You want me to be honest? No. So take some time and think about what may have been going on with him. It's not all right. Empathizing with someone is not saying it's okay because it's not okay. Okay. I'm just going to be really honest here. The only reason I can forgive and let that go is for my benefit, not his. Right.

But do the process with us. Can you in any way understand and have empathy for him? I don't know enough about his past to do that. Okay, but that's a start is there may have been stuff in his past that was traumatic. And in almost all of the perpetrators, the reason I'm being so honest here, and I'm not willing to just go, Oh sure. I can do that and sugarcoat this because that's crap is because we've got people who are listening who have been through far worse what I went through. I mean, I had a mom who tried to kill him. Okay. So, um, she protected me. I'm not going to do that because this is real for them.

So I have a hard time empathizing with someone who's done that to a child. You know, this, this is an ongoing battle between us. So I... I only want the truth. Right. But I want also the truth for you to not suffer. So the truth is

I'm willing to do it because I'm commanded to. I'm willing to do it because I know it's not good for me. But I don't really empathize. I don't really relate to him. Do you remember the shack? I do. And do you remember... But it wasn't his story that made me let it go.

It's my daughter that made me let it go. Right, but you let it go. Only because of her. Out of years of people trying to get me to let go of that thought that all people who hurt children should die, my daughter in 30 seconds got me to let that thought go. So, you recall the event. Empathy is really hard.

Can you altruistically give him the gift of forgiveness? Yes. But because I know it's good for me and my family. And you've just committed to it on the podcast. And age is now that you've done that you can hold it yes rather than automatically going back to he hurt me he hurt me he hurt me oh yeah no i can let it go right but i just don't i can't understand and i can't like empathize with him now if i if I knew his story, maybe I could. And you know, the imaging work that I do has been so helpful for me because I realized behavior is complicated. It is. And I want to just

say something there. One thing that helped me with some of the things that have happened in my past is there's a reason that forgiveness is studied at many major universities, including Stanford. They actually have a whole, you know, they're actually researching forgiveness because of its effect on people's health, because of the effect of people who don't forgive, the effect it has on your health, on healing. There's one doctor, I believe it's Vanderbilt. He actually works with burn patients and they've studied, I actually wrote about this in Brain Warriors Way. They studied forgiveness and what he started, he started implementing it into his practice because patients who wouldn't forgive certain situations that happened in their lives wouldn't heal or they had

complications versus the patients who do forgive. And he does a practice with them on forgiveness. They heal better. They get healthy. They move on. And so that's why he actually asked this question of all of his patients, because many patients say, I can't, I won't. And he said, okay, so I'm going to ask you for just for right now, not forever for right now. If you can't forgive that person for what they did, can you forgive them for yourself? And that was just very powerful. When you see what it does to your own body, it's like, and I love the expression, it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It's that detrimental to your body.

I mean, I've had cancer. I've been sick most of my life, you know, when I was a little kid. And there's a reason those things happen to people. Now, can you connect it all to that? I don't know, but that's possible. Well, it's what we think of as stacked stresses and you just got done saying very much like we talked about the bright minds approach under brain it's the chronic stress from what happened

but then the repetitive thoughts and you just got done saying that thoughts have mass and they do we know that now they have mass so if you you carry them and if you carry that all your life and those just keep stacking those negative thoughts, that's a lot of baggage to carry around. So the ant infestation impartly can lead to an impaired immune system. Right. And I'm done carrying that baggage. So there are tiny habits to feel better fast and improve your relationships. Let me give you a couple from the book. After I have a fight with my loved one, I will take responsibility for my part and apologize.

Yeah. Powerful. When my partner or spouse is in pain, I will hold her hand and focus on feeling empathy for their discomfort. As we talked about in the show, that when you actually hold the hand of a partner in pain, it actually begins to decrease their pain. I talk about that research in the book. When I'm in a conversation with someone before responding with my input, I will reflect back to them what I heard them saying, active listening. When I'm challenged or bullied, I will state the case for what I believe calmly and clearly, firm and kind. When I set aside time to be with my child,

I'll spend 20 minutes doing whatever he or she wants to do with no agenda. When a friend does something annoying, I'll turn my attention to things I like about her rather than dwelling on the annoyance. And when someone does something mean or hurtful to me, I will try to create grace in my heart to forgive them. Go back up to number one really fast because I want to just comment on number one. So after you've had a fight with a loved one, take responsibility. There's something very freeing about that. So it sounds like, oh, I have to swallow my words. No, it's, that's just like the forgiveness thing. You actually feel free once you take responsibility for your part, it gives you power and you start

to feel free. So it's better if you both read it together so that you both develop the skills. Right. But if you get it, you alone are powerful. And you can make a positive difference in your relationships, and that will help you feel better faster. One thing I want to – just before we end this podcast, it's so powerful because it made such an impact on me. Because you just asked me about empathy for someone that I have a hard time doing that with because I don't know his story. And I've carried some of those things from my childhood into my adulthood thinking anyone who hurts a child should die. So we had someone on our podcast who has a prison ministry.

And there was a story that he said that he told us on this podcast that just like, like just hit me in the gut. Right. And it was about a woman. He was there actually witnessing to a minister, to a prisoner on death row and a woman, he kept seeing the same woman every week that was visiting. It was a very petite Caucasian woman. She was there every week visiting this very large African-American male. And so he kept, he was curious. He saw her there every week. And so one day their paths crossed and he, he talked to her. He's like, oh, are you ministering to, I'm with a prison ministry. Are you ministering to this, um, this man? And she said, well, my story is complicated. She said, that man is on death row for murdering my daughter. He violently raped and murdered my

daughter. And I just was like, what? Like, I could not believe this story. She was there witnessing to him and listening to him. And she developed this full-blown relationship with him. And I was mind blown, quite frankly, just mind blown that this woman could go there and do that. But by knowing his story, she was able to develop empathy. So that was powerful to me. I don't know this guy's story, quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to know it. My stepdad, I mean. But by doing that, that's how she was able to forgive and help him. So she's more evolved than I am. But I can admit that. And that's, you know, that's probably a goal for me. You know, that's why I love you so much.

You're so thoughtful. Yeah, no, that hit me right in the gut. That was beautiful. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain

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