The School of Greatness - 223 Forgiveness Is Freedom with Chris Lee

Episode Date: September 4, 2015

"Forgiveness is about no longer giving someone else the energy they don't deserve." - Chris Lee If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/223

Hi, this is Chris Lee and this is 5-Minute Friday, Episode 223. I feel honored that I've been invited to be part of 5-Minute Friday and today I want to talk about when I forgive, I'm free. A lot of people think that to forgive is to validate people's actions and to validate what happens to us and to make okay what you went through. And I have a different perspective on forgiveness. For me, forgiveness is really not about the other person. It's about myself. It's about making a choice to no longer give somebody energy that they don't deserve. It doesn't matter what has happened.

If somebody has let you down or somebody betrayed you, if somebody abused you, ripped you off, cheated on you, whatever the situation is. It doesn't matter how intense or how small. If I don't forgive that person or forgive the event or forgive the situation, then my energy is wasted and drained. Being angry at, upset with that situation or that person. And then basically that person has my power. And we're talking about things that happened recently or things that happened from the beginning of our memory. Some people hang on to things that happened when they were two years old and they're now well into their adult life and they're still pissed and still angry and still harboring resentment. Resentment is a killer because it takes a lot of energy.

It takes away our joy. It takes away of energy. It takes away our joy. It takes away our passion. It takes away our productivity. And by acknowledging that I'm upset or that I have not forgiven somebody or being willing to forgive the unforgivable, then that gives me the opportunity to say goodbye to something and to get my power back. I'll never forget reading a story about a woman that forgave the drunk driver that ran over her son, her only son that was home from college, visiting his girlfriend.

He was walking from their house to the girlfriend's house and a drunk driver climbed up on the sidewalk and killed her son. She was so upset and so angry that she developed cancer. And one day it dawned on her, if I don't forgive this man, he's going to kill me too. So not only did she forgive him, she went to his jail because he was in jail, hugged him, forgave him, and adopted the family he left behind as her own. Needless to say, cancer went into remission and she's still alive to tell the story. So I believe that we could forgive even smaller things than that because imagine that happening to you. So forgiveness is a way of living life. So my point of view in my coaching to you all is forgive everybody and everything for

everything, whether they deserve it or not is not your problem. You deserve to forgive other people because if you don't, they keep harming you. So forgiveness does not mean be a doormat and let people keep walking all over you. It can mean I forgive you and there's the door. Or forgiveness can also mean a second opportunity. Also, don't forget, you get to forgive yourself every single day.

So once again, forgiveness is the key to freedom. You want to be free, you get to forgive. Have a great weekend.