Hi everyone, it's Keisonga, just a reminder that you can listen to all of our podcast
ad free on the Headspace app.
Hi, my name's Andy and welcome to Radio Headspace.
So as Friday morning we are almost at the end of the week and whatever you plan for the
weekend.
I hope you're going to have the opportunity to let go, to relax.
And today we're going to focus on how we can let go of grudges, how we can find a place
of forgiveness in our life.
Yesterday I was reading the news and I was really struck by a particular story of a driver,
a man who'd been driving with his family and been involved in an accident.
And his entire family, both of his children and his wife, were killed in the accident.
And he was talking about how in the moment he was able to immediately forgive.
And I think for most of us, the idea in that situation that we could immediately forgive
the other person is almost unthinkable, it's extraordinary.
And as he talked about it, he said the reason that he was able to forgive was that when
he was younger, he'd actually been involved in an accident where he'd killed somebody.
And that family had forgiven him and it enabled him to go on and live his life.
And thinking about that ripple effect of how we may forgive one another over time, it's
of course it's not always going to be in such extreme circumstances.
And it reminded me of somebody who wrote into Headspace not so long ago.
As a lady she was in her in her 70s, she wrote in paper and pen, lovegain, let us
like that. And she was telling me of her life really, how when she was in her 20s, her
husband, soon after they were married, her husband had cheated on her.
And how soon after they had separated, divorced.
And how since sort of 45 years had passed by and she talked about how over that time, how
she replayed that story in her mind so many times.
The feeling of sort of bitterness and heaviness and hostility towards her husband, you know,
had almost created a groove in her mind.
And it got to a point where she wasn't even aware of those thoughts.
It kind of become who she was.
And it wasn't until that she'd actually taken some time out and she was actually in
the process of learning meditation at the time, that she'd actually started to see that
a bit more clearly and to realize what that had done to her life, carrying that heaviness
with her.
And that hostility and anger really sort of eating away at her.
She came to the end of the story, she described how really in just a period of weeks, she'd
not only seen that thinking, but she said for the very first day she could remember in
her life since she got married.
She had experienced a mind that was free from that hostility, free from that anger, no
longer carrying that weight around with her.
For all of us actually, whether it's something big like that the last decade or whether
it's something much smaller, that just lasts a few sort of days or weeks in our life,
feel there is a tendency for us to hold on to those things.
We tend to find it difficult to let go of those things.
I'm reminded of that old sort of saying that when we carry a grudge with us, it's a bit
like we create the poison of revenge and then we drink it ourselves.
We suffer ourselves when we hold on to things in that way.
So my hope is as you head into the weekend that you might find an old situation, something
that happened in the past that you might still be holding on to in some way.
And that you find the space in your mind to let go of that.
In forgiving that person, not excusing their behaviour, that's something else.
But in forgiving that person, finding a greater sense of peace in your life and as a consequence,
that idea that we began with, people around you feeling a little bit more of that as well.
Thanks for listening today.
I look forward to seeing you back here on Monday.
