This is an all ears English podcast, episode 301 why forgiving puts you on top.
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With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
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Most people think that forgiveness is weakness, but today we'll challenge your perspective with an awesome quote and two English sayings.
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Hey, Michelle, how's it going?
Hey, Lindsay.
Pretty good.
Pretty good.
How are you?
Good.
I have a question for you.
Oh, what is it?
Do you have any enemies?
Enemies enemy, that's a pretty strong word.
Um, I'll say that you know I've had some troubles with people at times, but some challenges yeah, of course we all do right.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
It's really hard to go through life without having any problems with anyone.
And it's kind of normal.
I mean, you know, if you're living your life true to yourself, you're inevitably going to run into people who are not going to like that.
Right, right.
I mean, I challenge anybody to go through life without an enemy.
I mean, of course, you don't want it to like get like really, really serious and give you problems in your life.
But I think there are people who, you know, have conflicts.
And I yeah, I'm sure that everybody has somebody that is a little bit difficult for them, or something like that.
Right.
Absolutely.
Everybody has somebody who causes them trouble or who has caused them trouble.
But the question is, Michelle, today, how do we deal with our enemies?
I mean, how do we deal with that?
So we have a quote today, right?
Yes.
I really like this.
Deep Thoughts Thursday.
So let's do it.
What's our quote today, Michelle?
Okay.
The quote is, drumroll.
Okay, always forgive your enemies.
Nothing annoys them so much and this is from Oscar Wilde ooh, forgive your enemies.
It's not an easy thing to do.
Yeah Yeah, definitely not.
Yeah.
So always forgive your enemies.
Nothing annoys them so much.
So, I mean, what does that mean to you, Lindsay, when you hear that?
Yeah, I mean, this sounds a little bit, as you said when we were talking before, a little bit cheeky, right.
Yeah.
And it just kind of would be a way of kind of, as we say, like killing them with kindness.
It's another phrase that we have in the English language, a saying.
So you can actually win in the end by forgiving them, by showing them that they haven't actually conquered you.
Right, right.
Exactly.
Because sometimes when you have an enemy or like a bad relationship, like, you know...
The other person holds the power if they know that you're bothered.
Exactly.
And it's not just for like to kind of win the situation.
More importantly, I think it's about the benefits of actually forgiving someone, right?
On a psychological level, on a physiological level.
I mean, they're just enormous, aren't they, Michelle?
Right.
Right, definitely.
I mean.
So there are two.
You know you can look at this quote in two ways, you know.
So one is like the cheeky side, where it's kind of like, oh well, if you want to annoy them even more, then you can forgive them.
But then there's the other side, which is you know the truth, that forgiveness, you know, holds a lot of power, I think.
What do you think, Lindsay?
Totally.
I mean, and also I think there are some misconceptions in our world about forgiveness.
I mean, when you forgive someone, it doesn't mean that you're saying it's okay what they did to you, right?
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Right.
It just kind of means like you're saying, OK, this happens.
I forgive you.
And, you know, we say like forgive, but not forget necessarily.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
And don't we're not condoning what happened.
We're not saying it's OK, but we are you know, we're trying to deal with how we react to it.
It's kind of a sense of letting go in our heart.
If someone has hurt us, we're going to let go of that a little bit so that it doesn't continue to harm us.
Right.
So it's almost for the benefit of you know yourself, just to feel better and to, because when you have an enemy, when you have a problem with somebody, you carry all this negative energy around and it bothers you.
You think about it a lot.
And, you know, what should you do or who was wrong or blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And it's just taking up. space in your body and in your brain, and it's not healthy.
Yeah, totally.
I mean, I was looking on themailclinic.org about forgiveness.
And according to this site, I mean there are all kinds of benefits of actually letting go of this anger and forgiving someone like Stronger immune systems, having a stronger immune system.
That makes sense, right?
We can fight, our body can fight disease more effectively if we don't have this anger inside of us.
Fewer symptoms of depression, lower blood pressure, less anxiety.
So really the benefit goes to us when we forgive, not to the other person necessarily as much.
Right, right.
So you know, even if it hurts, and you feel like well, they should be the one, you know they should be the one, they're the one who did something wrong.
Think of it as a benefit for yourself, right?
And just letting go of all that negativity.
Yeah, it's like reframing what happened and finding a way to let it go.
So we have a couple of interesting vocabulary words that we want to talk about.
Michelle, you had a really good one.
And it's a good slang word in American culture.
What is it?
Yeah, well, a student brought this up to me last night.
So thank you.
The word is frenemy.
What is that?
What are we combining here?
We're combining two words.
We have friend and enemy.
What is that?
Do you have any frenemies?
I mean, nothing serious, but I think there are certain people in your life.
I think everybody has a person who maybe...
You know, they're there for them and, you know, whatever they need.
But really you don't.
Maybe you don't get along day to day that well, but you would still do anything for that person.
Maybe, I mean, almost like a sibling relationship, I think you said, Lindsay, right?
Like where you're so close and but...
But you just kind of don't get along day to day.
I don't know.
I mean, it can also just mean somebody who you like, but you hate a little.
Yeah, totally.
And I think this can also sometimes come up when it comes to soulmates, right?
Because sometimes in the dating world or even in the friend world, the way I define soulmate is that someone makes me change the way I am.
They make me question who I am and the way I live.
And sometimes that connection is so intense between two people that they actually can't live together.
They're not meant to spend a life together, right?
Instead they're together for a short time and then something happens and they realize it's just so intense that they can't actually continue being friends or lovers ongoing.
Yeah.
So they kind of become a bit of a frenemy, but you still love the person very much, right?
Yeah.
I don't know if you've ever had that situation, but I have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I think that it's a pretty common situation.
And, you know, so I think frenemy, it's a slang word and it's kind of a lot of fun to use.
You kind of use it to talk about being like catty or something like that or like you know, just having one of those people that oh, you smile at them when you see them, but behind your smile you're kind of like oh, they're so annoying.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Okay, so that's frenemy.
And then we talked about to hold a grudge.
To hold a grudge.
I mean, what are we doing if we're holding a grudge, Michelle?
I mean, you're not just like saying, okay, everything's fine.
I mean, you keep on thinking about something and you keep on remembering what went wrong.
And even if it was a while ago, you still hold on to it.
I mean...
But really, we just mean like you hold on to it in your body, you hold on to it in your mind.
You don't just throw it out and say, you know what, I'm moving on.
Yeah, so that's the unhealthy way, I think.
I mean, that's the way that's actually hard on ourselves, right?
That's really hard on the body, on the mind.
That's a lot of weight to carry around on your shoulders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Weight on your shoulders.
It's a good one.
It's just, you know, kind of like bothers you.
It's just you could be using your time in your mind in a much better and more productive way than just like holding this grudge.
Either, you know, you can try and repair it or maybe it's not worth it.
Right.
Yeah.
And for me, like a way that I try to prevent myself from holding grudges.
I always tell myself you know that person.
They hurt me, but they were doing the best they could with what they had in terms of resources energy, mind states in that moment.
They were doing the best they could.
Everyone is always doing the best they can.
Right.
Right.
Even if they end up hurting you, I mean, they just in some ways they couldn't help it.
Right.
In the end, we're all just people.
Right.
And everybody makes mistakes.
And, you know, sometimes, you know, the person can't just see that what they did was wrong.
And, you know, and. difference of opinion or whatever.
I mean, it's just... Yeah, it's hard.
It's definitely hard.
Yeah, but I think forgiveness is definitely a good thing to work towards.
This is something I work towards every day.
I mean, I think it's a really good habit to get into.
And it is possible.
It's not really... Sometimes it's something we have to try for.
So...
Anyways, thanks for bringing in this quote today, Michelle.
Do you want to read the quote one more time for our listeners?
I would love to.
The quote is always forgive your enemies.
Nothing annoys them so much.
I like it.
I like it.
I love that one.
It's just so funny.
Yeah.
Again, and this is a fun conversation topic.
I mean, it's a little bit deep, but it's fun.
Like it's interesting and it's a very human topic.
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Yeah, definitely.
And I think that it was smart what you said, like that this is like a human topic, right?
I mean, I think these are things that people just talk about all the time.
So I don't know, I think that it's really useful to be able to have these in your back pocket.
Yeah, in your back pocket.
I like it.
I like it.
All right, Michelle, let's wrap it up for today.
And thanks for hanging out.
Thank you, Lindsay.
Have a good day and let go of any bad energy you have.
Let go.
Just let go.
Okay, talk to you soon.
All right.
Bye.
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