Welcome to Renovating the Soul Podcast. I am your host, Alexandria Robinson, and I am so excited that you have joined me for episode number nine. Episode number nine. I'm kind of getting sad because we're getting to the end of the first season. Only one more episode to go, but I might drop a bonus episode for y'all. I was thinking that because I'll be on maternity leave for a few months, that maybe I'll just drop another episode to keep you guys, you know, engaged. And I don't know, we'll see. We'll see. So I have been failing to mention for all my listeners on the different platforms that I am putting up video episodes on YouTube. So you can go to my YouTube channel, I believe it's just under my name, Alexandria Robinson. But you can also search the podcast, you can listen to the podcast on YouTube, and you can also watch the video responses on YouTube as well. So those are up if you are watching right now. And I I dropped the YouTube episodes on Fridays. So if you are watching right now, you see me in this beautiful hat that I am sporting. This was handmade. She did not ask me to do this, but I am so in love with this hat that I was like, I have to show this. So I always talk about all the cousins that I have. I have a bunch of them, and the girls, no shade to the boys, but the girls are so talented. Like they crochet, they do their own nails, they um, I mean, they're they do their own hair. Like me and the older ones of us skip us a little bit. Skipped us, anyways. I'm sporting this hat. I will link her Etsy boutique in them. I think she makes them as she as the orders come in. But I'm as always really excited for today's episode. This one actually took me a second to really wrap my mind around because this is something that I'm processing. This is something that I've thought about for a long time, as I've already said about many of these topics in these episodes. But I was a little hesitant, I was kind of dragging my feet, I was really procrastinating. I just wanted to be able to get my thoughts together and really get across what I'm trying to say. So today's episode is about revenge, and I've been singing it to this tune of revenge, how many of us want it? And then the follow-up question is, how many of us get it? Like, I did this Instagram poll where I was asking people, you know, do they get revenge? Do they not get revenge? Or are there times that you wish you would have gotten revenge and you didn't? And majority, I don't remember the exact percentage, the majority said that they would love to get revenge, but they never do. I think there was only one person that said that they get revenge. Um, but majority everyone either said that they don't get revenge or they want to get revenge but they never do. And I am definitely in that last category. I have been trying to think of revenge stories and times that I regot that I got revenge, which there are a few that came to mind, so we'll talk about those in a in a moment. But um, majority of the time it was just fantasizing about it, dreaming about it, talking about it, oh, the things that I could do, the things that I could say, the things that I want to do, but never actually getting revenge. And so we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about revenge, we're gonna, but we're we're really not just talking about getting revenge because I think that there are more people who desire to get revenge and who don't, and that's what we're gonna talk about. We're going to talk about how you might spend years, or let's say it like this: you might flash back to a situation that happened years ago and still think, man, I should have. Man, I could have. I still could, you know, and we have all these different terms for revenge, right? Um, getting even, payback, getting your lick back. I like to say that when I always say get my lick back. Um, getting your lip back. I just heard get back the other day. Like, so we have all of these different names for how to get revenge, but plain and simple, revenge is revenge. And so we're gonna spend some time talking about why revenge, like why we chose to talk about this topic. What is revenge? Y'all know I like to define my terms and make sure that we're all on the same page when it comes to the context, and then we're gonna I'm gonna share some revenge stories, and then we're gonna get into why that desire doesn't aid us, you know, especially on this journey. So let's get into it. I'm so so so so so excited. So, so going into this episode, some of my preliminary questions that I wrote down was like, What does revenge do for us? Does revenge really satisfy us, or do we always have to get revenge? Like when I and then when I say that, it's like if I actually do get revenge, do I have to keep getting it, or will getting revenge one time will it satisfy me? And then I also had this question about is revenge a form of closure? So that's where I started with my thoughts. My thoughts started with just those questions and really trying to tease out was this a worthy topic? Why did I want to talk about this? And why did I feel like it was necessary, you know, to talk about it and spend an episode on it. And I realized that on this journey, we're going to we're gonna struggle, right? We all know that, and I'm talking about there's a journey of life, we're gonna struggle. And I read the other day where it was saying that an inevitable and unfortunate fact of life is that we are often gonna be mistreated by others, and I would almost go further to say that there's no one that will walk this earth that will not face some type of mistreatment from someone. A lot of times, unfortunately, that mistreatment does come from the people that we know, and even when it doesn't, I think that it hurts more when it comes from the people that you know and the people that are supposed to know you, and so because of that, uh some of us have heard take the higher road, be the bigger person, and I go back and forth with my parents on that big be the bigger person bit because there were this is a you know random example, but there were times being the oldest child that me and my brother would go back and forth and he would antagonize me and he would bother me. And my parents would constantly say, Well, you're the older one, be the bigger person, be the example. But I'm like, at what point does he get punished? And I'm not saying that he never did, but majority of the time it was like I had to be the bigger person, I had to uh uh take the higher road, and that doesn't always feel feel right when you're watching somebody get away with doing something to you that kind of deserves to be dealt with, called out, talked about, right? And that from my childhood experience has not changed. I have had so many encounters with people family, friends, strangers, colleagues, you know, especially those group projects in college, child. They always want to test your patience. Like, but I've had so many experiences with people where they've done something and you want them to feel the way you feel. You want them to hurt the way you hurt, you want them to experience the pain that you felt from the things that they've done to you. And what I'm questioning today is what happens when that feeling doesn't go away? What happens when we're looking at situations from 10 years ago, 12 years ago, five years ago that still bring up the emotions that we felt when it first happened? How do we deal with that and why is it important to deal with it, honestly? And looking before we get into kind of like the definitions and stuff of revenge, I do want to say that revenge is like the climax in a lot of situations. So typically, you don't start out just wanting to get revenge, it typically, you know, there's maybe like a conversation that happens in an argument, or someone does something, you do confront them, right? They don't own up to it, whatever it is, it's like revenge is kind of that climax that that step beyond. But I believe that revenge comes after those emotions have festered within us and have not been dealt with. But when you're someone like me who doesn't get revenge but dreams about it, like I have a really big imagination, I make up a lot of stories in my mind, and when a situation goes awry or something happens, I I will make up some kind of story, and honestly, it is just natural, like it is some some type of story will happen. Sometimes the story's not good enough. Sometimes you want to want that to happen like in real life, or for sometimes I'll even put it on God, like, well, God, you get them, and then when that doesn't happen, I'm like, Well, dang, they just gonna get away with what they did forever, like that's crazy. Um, and I've had way too many fighting dreams, like way too many dreams where I'm just mollywapping someone, like, you know, so when you have all of that like festering inside, I think for me, I'm reaching a place where I'm like, I actually don't want to keep waiting for for revenge to happen, even if I don't do it, like I don't want to keep waiting for someone to get their lick back, so to speak, or for something to happen to them. I want to figure out what I can do to help myself with those feelings, why I'm having those feelings, and move past it, honestly, right? What does it say about me that I am seeking revenge without wanting to get it? What does it say about me that these feelings are festering inside of me, right? So, anyways, those are some of my like preliminary thoughts, some of the things that I've been thinking about when it comes to this topic, and really asking myself, like, what good would revenge do? And would I ever be satisfied? Or is it gonna be a never-ending cycle? So, this episode, y'all, is for me as much as just for y'all. Like, I always say we're in this together, we really are. So, let's start to define some terms. We look at definitions, you know. I I go through definitions, we look at definitions to help give us a guide. I like to put things in context because when I say revenge, you might think something else, right? And that's fine. But when when I'm talking about it on the podcast, I want to make sure that we're all on the same page when it comes to um, you know, what how we're defining the term and what we mean. And then we move past the definition because um that definition doesn't always encompass how that plays out in real life. So we'll move past the definition to kind of look at some real life examples, which revenge is not that hard to think of. Again, you can probably think of several movies that talk about revenge. Um, and so that's what we'll do, right? We'll look at that, we'll try to apply it in real life. So, revenge the definition from Webster is the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. So the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. Another way that they put it was an opportunity for getting satisfaction. So the re in revenge is from late Latin, and it's the part of the word that expresses intensive force. So the re is expressing intensive force. I say that because revenge is intense from your emotions and it's supposed to hurt. When you are getting revenge, seeking revenge, wanting revenge, and I would I was kind of put it like when you actually act out revenge, not just the wanting it, but when you act out revenge, it is supposed to hurt, and it comes with um deep and intense emotions. So some of the synonyms of revenge are payback, which we've already said, retaliation, retribution, and then, like I said, we have these cultural terms getting even, lick back, um, your get back, and then the antonyms of revenge are mercy, grace, forgiveness, and lean leniency. And we're gonna come back to forgiveness, which is said to be the opposite of resentment, but we're gonna come back to that later. So, examples of revenge, we see revenge on these bigger scales, wars, um, you know, wars, battles, uh uh, even in in law, right? Or politics, I should say, like, or no, like law, politics, right? Um, you see it in like institutions, you um see it in campaigns, right? And then I'm not just talking like political campaigns, but even um school campaigns, like revenge can be carried out on this big scale, but then we also see it in siblings, like I mentioned, parenting battles when you're going or custody battles, you know, parenting custody battles, those divorces, divorces, woof, child, and you see it in friendships or when your friend becomes your friend of me or your enemy, right? But even in in friendships, though, people will get or you know, let's put it in air quotes friendships, right? Like you see it, um, churches, businesses, which you know can be on a big scale, small scale, depending upon the size of that business or that church. You have church rivalries, you have business rivalries. Um, we're even seeing it now with these diss tracks. The I don't know if y'all keeping up, but we we're seeing it now in the diss tracks and the gossip logs. Um, we see revenge, so so that's like where we see revenge, and then how we see revenge come into play is through exposing um or telling someone's secrets through the cancel culture, right? Because cancel culture is not always done for the right reason. Someone could wear the wrong thing or say the say something that you don't agree with that's not necessarily wrong. But if you don't agree with it or the culture doesn't agree with it, then it's it's cancel culture. Like we're gonna take away the things that you have, right? Um, publicly humiliating or shaming someone, uh, sabotaging people at work, sabotaging their reputation or their work or work projects, you know, um, or even like I said, school projects, college projects. You see it in breakups, cutting someone's clothes, cutting out their face in pictures, ruining the gifts that they've they that they've given you. Your whole point in getting revenge is that you want them to hurt how you hurt, even if you're not sure that that's what's gonna make them hurt. You wanna do something that inflicts again that harm, that pain. Like your intent is to hurt them. Um, so throwing their stuff out, a lawsuits like we talked about, playing mind games, being manipulative, cyberbullying, um, stealing, excluding people from activities to like punish them, right? And then at its highest peak, we have physical violence. Some of the best examples come from movies. You know, when you watch something where someone gets their revenge and it just makes you feel so good, you see someone being treated bad, and then they get their their lick back, and you're like, Yes, you you you got it. One of the best, I think, revenge stories that I've thought about, and I know there's several, like, there's mean girls, John Tucker Must Die. These are rom coms. So if y'all are not, they're not really rom-coms, they're like teenage comms. I don't know what they're called, but they're movies that probably not everyone has seen. But like again, Mean Girls, John Tucker Must Die, Why Did I Get Married has that scene in it. But I think from my from my personal kind of what I watch, one of the best revenge stories is Diary of a Mad Black Woman. And if you have not seen it, I'm just gonna tell you about it real, real fast. But in that movie, she's married to this man, he ends up leaving her for another woman. They have been married for like I think double digits, 13 years, 15 years, something like that. And he comes in one night and he's like, I'm leaving you, I got kids, she had always wanted kids, and then what happens is later on in the the play and the move. No, I think the same thing happens in the play, so it's a Tyler Perry movie, but I think the same thing happens in the play as does the movie. I think he gets shot in both of them. Um, but either way, in the movie, I think the movie does a better depiction of what how she treated him. Um, but he gets shot, and then the young new wife don't want to take care of him, so he comes back to her and she, you know, becomes his caregiver, and boy, she was starving him. He was paralyzed from the waist down, I believe. Um, but she was starving him. She she told that man, clear off, uh, flipped him in the bathtub, and you're watching it, and you're so well, well, now maybe it's just me, but I'm so satisfied, and I'm like, yeah, girl, get it. Like, flip him in that though. But as I was thinking about, you know, this episode of revenge, I'm like, man, that is such a a good example of revenge, or that moment that you're able to get revenge, um, she took it. Like the moment that she was able to get revenge, she took it. And I want to clarify because revenge is not the same as like retaliation, even though they're used um interchangeably, that there are there is like a difference, and I'll just put it like this revenge is almost always unhealthy, and it's driven by deep emotions to want to hurt someone. Whereas retaliation is more about responding to an action directly, and it's not always driven by intense emotions, but sometimes for self-defense or protecting like your interest or someone else's interest. Um, revenge oftentimes, like it keeps going, it's very unnecessary. It like I said, it heightens. Um, whereas retaliation it aims to address the situation immediately without escalating it further. And one of the things that one of the questions that I was saying that I have for myself is about that cycle, and revenge is usually a cycle. People going back and forth, or that person just not stopping again, kind of reaching at that height where retaliation, retaliation tries to restore a sense of balance without a cycle of like vengeance. So, not everything is considered revenge. I say that because there are times when someone does something to you that is unfair, unjust, and wrong, and needs to be handled. So if you're going to work and someone, I don't know, discriminates against you, or you know, I've had people talk to me crazy, me demanding respect, or me setting boundaries, or me, you know, reporting it, those things are not revenge, right? I'm I'm I'm trying to protect myself, I'm sticking up for who I am. Again, I'm setting those boundaries, or let's say you have set boundaries with a family member or a friend or whatever, and they continuously like step over those boundaries, right? It's not revenge to cut them off, it's not it's not revenge to you know seek to protect yourself in a way that is best for you, right? So maybe you stop answering their calls, or maybe you were their ride and you no longer want to give them rides anymore. Like those things are not revenge. Again, revenge is where you are intentionally seeking to harm or hurt someone for a pain that they caused you. I just like to say it as you want them to hurt like you hurt, you want them to feel the pain like you felt pain. But I don't want people walking away thinking that every little thing you do or or sticking up for yourself or whatever, or or even um pacifying things that have been done to you, which we'll get into in just a moment, that those things are our revenge because they're not. It's not okay for people to disrespect you and treat you unfairly. And in an ideal world, I think more people would be held accountable for the things that they do. I again we're coming back to this idea that when they're not, or when they deeply hurt us and they can continue on to go live life, and that pain just festers within us, that's when we start to have those thoughts of like, man, I could air them out, man, I could uh you know, tell their business, man, man, I could um, I guess that was the same thing, air them out. I guess air them out could be telling them off too, because like yelling at them, telling them off, right? Man, I could fight them. Like what whatever that is for you, it's like you know, when those feelings start to come up is what we're looking at, right? So I just wanted to make that clear. So now I'm gonna tell my revenge story. We talked about a movie, but y'all, I was racking my brain, and I was really trying to be fair. I was like, I'm not a saint, I know that my mind constantly makes up stories, but I gotta have some real stories in there somewhere. And I did ask around, I asked my husband, asked my best friend and my cousin who's known me all my life. I asked them both. I was like, Do you guys know of any times that I like got revenge back? Luckily, they were like, No, I can't really think of any times. And my my best friend, my cousin, like, she knows every everything, like I pissed it with people. So if anybody would know if I've gotten revenge, it'd be her because she probably would have been in on the plot, but she couldn't think of anything, however, I did. Um, and I re it was so random that this story even came back to me. So I was in high school, I had this boyfriend, and we were on, you know, not I I wouldn't say we were necessarily on and off, but being sheltered and not, I was actually technically not allowed to date. Sorry, dad. Um, but I was actually not technically not allowed to date, but it was like junior year. I'm like, I feel like I'm a responsible person. So I started dating this guy that a lot of my friends warned me about. They were like, you know, you're a decent person, like, don't do this. But I but in my mind, I genuinely thought that I could change him. I genuinely thought that I would have an effect on him. I hadn't had a lot of experience in relationships and dating, so I didn't know that that was a myth. Um, but I was like, I'm I'm good, I got this, and so towards the end of the relationship, I'd already been cheated on. Like a couple of times I had girls actually like intentionally throw themselves at him to prove to me that he was not good. Um, this was back in the day. I think we had MySpace. Um it I'm pretty sure it was MySpace. I don't think it was Facebook. I'm pretty sure it was MySpace that we had. And um one of the girls on the Cheers God that I was actually supposed to be friends with had this like picture coupled up with him. And him and I were not, I can't remember if we were like officially together, but either way, we were definitely still in contact, definitely still talking, trying to work out our little relationship, and then I see this picture pop up. So I take the picture, I'm like, oh, you want to embarrass me? So I'm gonna embarrass you. So I took the picture and I had his login information. So I log into his account, I changed his profile picture to the picture of her and him, and I type this status out on the I tried to make like a caption, and I think I type the status about her, like, you know, this my girlfriend, this my whatever, whatever, woo-doop-do-woop. And of course, he was getting like texts and stuff about it and getting asked about it, and then you know, she kind of got put out there too. And honestly, my intention was to her both of them because you're supposed to kind of be my friend, at least at the bare minimum, we're we cheer together, like you could have had a little more respect because you know that we were just in a relationship, like you know, we were talking, and then you post this picture of you two like boot up. So, again, y'all want to embarrass me, so I'm gonna embarrass you. So I put the picture up on the MySpace, and then he called me and was like, Why did you do that? And I was like, Because, like, you might as well put it out there that you two are together, and he's like, No, we're not together. We're just I was like, I was not having it, I was not hearing it, I was a scorned woman in high school talking about a scorned woman. And when he asked me about it, I was like, heck yeah, I did it. Like, what I don't know what you expected me to tell you, but I did it, and I'm proud of it. And of course, it's a bunch of we're not together, you know you're still my girl, da da da da da. And I was like, you know what? I'm good. So that was my one, like one of the times that I actually did get revenge. I unfortunately, oh, I shouldn't say unfortunately, but I do have more stories of times where I wanted to get revenge, or I don't want to say should have gotten, but again, I'm still dealing with those feelings where like I should have gotten revenge on somebody and then I didn't. Those times outweigh, you know, the times that I did. We can see revenge on these big scales, like I said, wars, battles, politics, but we can also see them at our own our own level, the things that we would do to get revenge, which I think is a good question to ask yourself. If I could get revenge, what would that look like? And a lot of times it's not this grand plan, like the movies make it seem, it's something very simple, like tarnish your reputation, you know. And I have um did I did that in in college in a sense where I still struggle with whether I was wrong or right because the what the girl did, I feel like was worse than what I did, um, in lying and lying on me and my friends, and when confronted about it, not telling the truth, and that really irritated me. So I didn't necessarily I didn't necessarily go around offering the information up, but anytime someone asked me, I didn't hold my tongue back, I definitely let them know how I felt, and I definitely wanted her to know that I said what I said. That was one of the few times, very, very few times in my life where I wanted to fight someone so bad, so bad. And if if our if our male friend, shout out to Hampton, if he wasn't there, I probably would have fought because I was just that angry and upset. So, because okay, I'm not gonna physically fight you, and this is in college, so you know you kind of do dumb stuff in college. I'm like, well, anybody that asks, anybody that brings up your name, they're gonna know. So my goal, yeah, was to definitely tarnish her reputation. And we had like a class together where she would come in the class and like sit in the corner and not say anything. I wanted her to feel that intimidation, I wanted her to feel that heat, right? But looking back at that, uh, on both situations, it didn't do anything for me though. And I think that's the illusion of revenge is that you can get revenge. I've I've gotten revenge. I'm sitting here telling y'all like I've I've gotten my revenge, I've I've done things to hurt people, embarrass them, call them out. And at the end of the day, did it make I want I want us I want to lie to y'all so bad and say it made me feel better, and actually I won't lie, in the moment it definitely made me feel better, but it didn't fix the situation. Getting posting the pictures of that boy on that internet didn't change his him being faithful to me. He was still the same old boy right after that, and so much so that there was nothing to go back to, and it didn't change my dynamic or my relationship with the girl because we were never that close to begin with. I probably should have done a little more research into you know who she is and you know just her character before even accepting the the you know the her offers or accepting you know her her fake relationship, friendship because she was just so desperate for attention. It's like there were there were things on my end that I should have done better, but at the end of it, did did what I did to them help me? No, it kind of frustrates you because you want to do more. You're like, and I and I and like I said, y'all just heard me say it. I wanted to fight her. That's like the ultimate thing that I could have done was like physically put my hands on her. So since I cannot do that, then this is what I'm gonna do. But either outcome, whether I fought her or even talking about her reputation, it doesn't stop people from being her friends, it doesn't stop her life from moving on. Like I wasn't really doing as much damage to her as I was, I think, to myself by keeping up that energy and that negativity, and that's the whole point of having this episode, right? Is that we have to, I have to together, we we we have to cope with not getting revenge, we have to confront it, call it out, and and find a place within us where we have peace about not getting revenge. Like I said earlier, forgiveness is the opposite of revenge, but before you even get to revenge, before you um get to forgiveness, there are first those feelings of anger, hurt, resentment that come, and those things undealt with, those things un those emotions uncontrolled, is what then leads us to wanting to get revenge, leaning into them instead of pulling away from them. Instead of pulling away from anger, instead of pulling away from bitterness, instead of pulling away from resentment, right? I leaned into it, and the more that I leaned into it, and the more that I was unsatisfied with the fact that people would get away with stuff, the more that it led me to act upon it. And I'm I wish that I had time to go through so many scenarios of things that have happened to me, things that I found out like later in life that close friends did behind my back when we were, you know, at the at the peak of our relationship, just things that I felt like they did to me, I don't know, maybe hurt me, but I didn't find out until later. I don't know what their motive was, but just things that I found out later that I was just like, dang, like y'all, and I'm not trying to be the victim, it honestly really is just my reality, and I'm not saying that I haven't done things people because obviously, like I have, but just looking back at some of those situations, I'm like, man, the things that I could say, the things that I could do, the things that you know, like I don't know, it just it it I I really could just go on and on, but that's what I want to stop. I want to stop fantasizing or replaying um some of these situations in my head where they bring up those negative emotions. I don't mind the memories, I don't mind remembering, I don't mind knowing because it can keep me from forgetting the character of those people or why I walked away from a situation. So I don't I don't mind that, and I don't not saying that anger, resentment, those things are bad either. You know, even the Bible alludes at the fact that you know you can be angry but control that anger to where it doesn't lead you into action, be angry and sin not. And so for me, it's like I'm not telling you to take those emotions away, but you have to confront them, address them, kind of like grab them at the reins when you first start to to feel them, or else we do reach this place of of deep um uncontentment within ourselves because we start to look at all the times when I should have got my look back, when I shoulda, coulda, woulda. Um, and that's where I want those feelings to leave. I I'm okay if the memory comes up, I'm okay if I think about it, I'm okay if I see the person and I remember you did me wrong, but I don't want that feeling of like uh you did me wrong and I left a lot on the table, and I still can't wait to the day you get hit by a bus or some or somebody else does what I should have did. You know, I just don't want that feeling. I it's damaging me and hurting me more emotionally than it is them. Some of those people may not even remember what they've done to me, you know. Some of those people, and you'd be like, How can they forget? But some of them, you who knows what was going on in their lives, who knows why they are the way they are, and sometimes you're dealing with people with such bad characters that it's just who they are, right? Like, but I don't want to be kept up, I don't want to be walking around with a bunch of resentment, anger, and frustration within me. And so we have to face those um those feelings, and I think what keeps us from doing the opposite of revenge and forgiving people is just letting those things, those strong emotions, fester, like letting them sit there unsettled, and again, not going with deep within ourselves and looking within ourselves to address why do I feel that way? Why am I having these dreams? Why am I having these thoughts? Why do I feel unsatisfied? And we we can mask it as closure. Sometimes we are saying that revenge is a part of closure, that like, okay, if I get what I get from them, then or if I can get back at them, make them hurt, then I'm good, like it's done. I I just think that it doesn't work like that. I think you're satisfied for the moment, but then your revenge is such a nasty thing that you then you start thinking, like, man, I went too small. It's like when you plan out, you know, you're gonna say something to someone, right? And you're like, I'm about to tell them this, this, this, that, and the other. And then you get in there and you don't say it, and then you're like, you feel good in the moment because you're like, okay, I took the higher road, or I said what I need to say, or I said everything, but then the more you start thinking about it, you're like, nah, I should have said this, I should have said that, I should have done this. You know, it's like you you have to, you know, deal with it head on, you have to not let it just sit there. And so looking at like, so how I kind of see this is you have this resentment, right? Which resentment is holding on to negative emotions and grievances, which can lead to increased stress, hostility, and more, obviously, if it's un not addressed or resolved. And resentment can stem from many things um expectations, betrayal, rejection, exclusion, unresolved conflict. And so my mind, it kind of works in this step-by-step motion where you have resentment, where you start with resentment, or something happens to you. Let's go back to the action. Something happens, you're hurt, you're someone does something wrong to you, right? Um, that you perceive is wrong, like you perceive that like it's something wrong that they've done to you, and then you have these emotions that say then anger, bitterness, you know, and then you have this resentment, right? This um holding on to those negative emotions and those grievances, those things that have happened to you, and then when undealt with, it leads you to get revenge. Whereas when you deal with the resentment, the hope is that you will look at that resentment and then you could forgive. Resentment plays a big role into forgiveness, but I would say that revenge is the action item, whereas resentment is the emotion um that leads us to or the and the feelings that lead us to getting revenge. So you kind of have these two paths: I can work towards forgiveness, or I can keep these feelings of revenge. And I read this, oh, I just read so much on forgiveness and um how to be a better person, how to treat people fair. Let me say this about forgiveness before I kind of get into it, but there are so many varying views on forgiveness. And when I was reading about it, I understand why we all have these different phrases or quotes or ideas of what forgiveness looks like. You know, forgive and not forget, forgiveness is forgetting. Um, forgiveness is getting rid of all your emotions, forgiveness is getting rid of your emotions in moderation, um, forgiveness is just confronting it, right? Um, some of the consensus between a lot of philosophers, and I and I agree with this too. So I'm gonna share the things that I agree with on forgiveness. I can't get into all of the nuances, but I just want to hit on this for a second. I do believe that you can forgive in private because the forgiveness is something that happens inward with you, it doesn't always manifest into an action item, but it can, it can be actionable, so it can be you saying, I forgive you, it can be you um reconciling a relationship, but those things are not required for you to forgive someone, and oftentimes we talk about how forgiveness is done for you. I think the thing about forgiveness when it's done for you is that when you are forgiving someone, though it's helping you to heal inside, you also have to view that person differently when you forgive them, you're kind of realigning them back with this is a person that is at least worthy or deserving uh now of being looked at as a human, being treated in a way that may be better than what they deserve, but I'm not viewing them as how I viewed them before. That does not mean that we have three friends, that does not mean that what they did was um um okay or uh excusable, right? But it does mean that I have to not only change something within myself, but I have to look at them differently and not carry that same resentment and anger towards them, to where I kind of am seeing them in this um completely negative way. And like I said, there's there's you can I would I I always welcome hearing you all's thoughts. I don't shy away from that. So if you disagree, if you have a different thought, like definitely let me know. One of the big things that I learned from myself was that I have condoned a lot of action that I thought I forgave. And the article that I read, they were saying that we condone an action. When we condone an action, we say in effect that it wasn't really such a bad thing to do. Um, condoning an action amounts to saying correctly or incorrectly that the action wasn't really that wrong, but this is not forgiving, like you condone and you look the other way in a sense, but that's not the sense of forgiving. And I was like, dang, I think I've condoned more actions than I actually have forgiven people for things, and that is probably why much of me still hurts and is pain by the things that people have done, is because I have not truly forgiven them, I've just condoned what they've done, I've just looked the other way, I've made excuses for it. I've said, Oh, it really wasn't that bad. When clearly I'm pained by it, it had to have some sort of effect on me. Another big one that I really love that I just want to say again is that forgiveness, I think, oh, especially in church, we think that forgiving someone equals reconciliation, and that is not that's not the case. Reconciliation is not necessary. Um, it's not it's not necessary for it's not a necessary condition for forgiveness. Not reconciling could actually help you. There's a couple of um reasons why you may not reconcile with someone, like they also may not want to reconcile, right? Like they may not welcome that. Then what do you do? But the point being, again, I just want to stress, as especially in those, again, like I said, Christian circles, Christian circles, is that we equ we make forgiveness and reconciliation equal, and they're not the same thing, they're they're and they're not required to go together. I don't need to, I think if you reconcile, there has to be some sort of forgiveness. I do think that, but in order to forgive, I don't necessarily need to have reconciliation or reconcile with someone. Um, and I want to make that clear. One of the people that I agreed with the most was Bishop Joseph Butler. And so I'm gonna read this. Um, he talks about how resentment could actually help us, and I said I mentioned that earlier that like resentment, anger, sadness, our emotions, they point us in a direction that we need to be paying attention to. I don't ever say, like, shy away from those feelings or try to act like they don't exist. I think you should lean into them in the sense that follow their direction, don't let them intensify. But like that's why we say dig down deep, address them, find out what's going on, ask yourself questions because they will lead you, they will give you answers that you may not have known was there. And so Bishop Joseph Butler, he says that um resentment it can help us deal with those who have harmed us, and it could motivate us even to to protect ourselves from wrongdoers, right? Like I was saying, you you or maybe I didn't say that, but um it can it can help you now and in the future to remember why you've kept yourself away from certain people, why you've made certain decisions, right? And so I'll read this. He says that resentment can be dangerous, but it is not resentment as such that is the problem. Rather, he claims that when resentment is allowed to become excessive, it can easily lead an agent to pursue revenge, not as a means to producing some greater social good, but as a self-gratifying exercise that seeks the misery of our fellow creatures or fellow humans. But to let resentment carry one this far is to violate a general obligation to benevolence, to forgive, then is simply to prevent resentment from having this effect on us, and so then he says that in part of the forgiving process, or in order to forgive, you have to forswear revenging, so you need to get rid of this desire to um want to get revenge, and that a moderate level of um resentment like is okay. And I agree again, I agree with that. There's no way that we can get rid of all of these emotions, uh, just you know, snapping our fingers. We need to address them, we need to lean into them, we need to see why it is that I feel wronged, what is it that was done with me, but then we have to learn how to deal with those things. If I cannot have a conversation with this person, if I can't resolve this issue with this person in a civilized manner, then I need to figure out how to accept that for myself and not let that resentment just sit there and lie dormant and then lead me to want to do these things. But I'm sure many of you, like the many people on that poll, you're just dealing with the feelings of it. You're not actually a person who sought revenge, or maybe you are, and and that's okay, right? We've that we've all done things. My my desire for this episode was to start to get us really thinking about how do I start to process these um leftover feelings of wanting to get the revenge, and I think it starts with number one confronting those situations, especially if they're old. I would go back through, think about that situation, think about that situation from beginning to end. I would actually ask yourself if you could get revenge, what what would it look like? And then I would ask yourself, would that have been satisfying? Like, sure, in the moment, but what would that have done for your life? And has that situation really affected you that much that you still to this day seek to want to get that revenge? And then I think you move forward and addressing those feelings, but then you have to try to forgive, and then it's not forgiving yourself. We're not talking about self-forgiveness, we're talking about forgiving that person. And I wanted to read this definition of um forgiveness. So let me so forgiveness is thought to involve the giving up of certain negative emotions towards the wrongdoer, the forbearance of negative reactions against the wrongdoer, and possibly the restoration of the relationship with the wrongdoer. So when you are forgiving, you're choosing to give up these negative emotions. You're you're at least, and I would say you do it in moderation. I may not be able to do it immediately, but I'm making a commitment that I no longer want these emotions to just lie dormant and stay festered within and just fester within me. And so, in moderation, I start to let go of the anger, moderation. I start to let go of that pain, that sadness, that resentment, right? I some people believe you gotta get rid of all of it. I don't think it will all just go away, but it needs to be controlled. A person who is looking within their soul, a person who is healthy, a person who is striving for that wholeness is going to have the capabilities to keep those emotions. In a controlled form instead of letting them run wild and leading you to do things. And how does a lot of things start for us? They start very small. It may start with you doing something very small, and then you get that little bit that that feeling that that that that that feeling inside of oh that felt good or oh that and then what happens? People escalate. It happens all the time. They escalate whether that's whether it's a good emotion that you lean into, whether it's a bad thing that you lean into. I'm trying to say that it starts small, but it can grow. And that's what we want to address. And that's what we want to avoid. And that's what we want to start thinking about. Going back to my beginning questions, is revenge really satisfying? Will it keep me in a cycle? Why is revenge necessary? You know, asking ourselves those questions, and then I think for me, I would challenge you all on the same thing that I'm challenging myself on is who do I want to be inside? You can't see that I want to get revenge. You can't see that I have all of these pains and feelings, right? I have to talk about them, I have to address them, I have to say them in order for you to know that I still struggle with what someone did to me 10 years ago. But asking myself, who do I want to be inside? How do I want to feel? I don't want to be on edge thinking, man, if I ever ran into that person, what would I say or what would I do? And then expect a negative experience because then that affects me physically. My heart rate's increasing, I'm scared to go places, I'm keeping myself from stuff. It's like, no, I want to be a well-tempered person who has forgiven all of these wrongs that have happened throughout my life, who can walk in a room with any enemy, friend of me, or whatever, and be myself, be strong, be confident, say hello, and keep going because it's beyond me, you know, or because I've grown, I've I've outgrown these things, and because my focus now is on being a healthy version of me, it's not about them anymore. They could say what they wanted to say, they could do it what they wanted to do, but at the end of the day, it didn't stop my life, it didn't stop my progress, it doesn't, it hasn't hindered me from finding the love of my life, it hasn't hindered me from having four children, it hasn't hindered me from be making progress on my job, it hasn't hindered my relationship with God, besides, you know, asking God why he created them and why he couldn't have dealt with it himself. Just kidding. Um, but you know, it hasn't it hasn't hindered these major things in my life that matter the most to me. No one has gotten in my way so much so that it has stopped anything, even when they have tried. Period. Even when they have tried and thought, yeah, I'm gonna keep her down, yeah, I'm gonna do whatever, yeah. I'm gonna say what I can. Yeah, I'm gonna take her man and I'm gonna ruin this project. And I'm gonna like they can try, they can keep trying, but you give back up because at the end of the day, they're focusing on you know the negative and trying to get back at you, and my focus is on growing me, no matter what obstacle, no matter what anyone has done. And revenge is only gonna be a hindrance on my journey, an obstacle on my journey, and not a help. Revenge is only gonna make me look dumb and make me look silly and bring me down to their level, and I'm not trying to be that person. I hope that this sparks some thoughts, some conversations. I hope that we can start addressing those feelings because I know y'all have them, y'all have them like me. You you it it be random, it pop in your head, like man, remember when remember when John he uh he did that thing? Remember when's when uh uh when Britney when she did that thing to me, like it'll it'll happen at the most random moments. Um or you might see something on TV again, that feeling of satisfaction that you get from seeing people get they look back, and you like I want to get mine too. Like, we have to start looking at that, questioning it, um, following those emotions so that we can understand what's happening inside of us, why we want that revenge so bad. And is this person really worth that? Is this person really that big in our lives that they deserve all this attention when they're probably not thinking about me? And if they are, I don't care and I wouldn't know because I'm not talking to them. It's just not worth it at the end of the day, in my opinion. And I'm learning how to like when when they come up, because I can't address them all in one moment. So as they come up, my plan is to address them head on. Look at that situation. Why do you why do you still have these feelings? Why are you still trying to get back at them? Do they even really matter at this point in your journey? Like, did it even really matter then? Sure, I could have said did, could, would, whatever, but like, what difference is that really gonna make? You're gonna make someone hurt. Ooh. You know what I mean? Like, I'm gonna make you hurt, but that the even their pain, even their pain will only be temporary unless you do something that's really, really damaging, and that's where you don't want to go, right? We want to be healthy people, looking within, loving ourselves, um, loving others, and seeing other people, you know, for who they are, while being able to address what's going on within us and grow. I really do hope that this sparked some sort of thoughts, some sort of ideas. Again, if you have questions, comments, I love to hear them. I love coming to have these conversations with you. I love these topics. I really hope that you all are enjoying it. Again, we have one more episode in this season, and then I'll be on maternity leave, a little break, um, and I'll let you guys know. Follow Renovating the Soul um on Instagram, and I will let you all know about when the new season will start. And I'm pumped for season two to build off of this season and to get into some stuff in season two, and we're gonna try to have some guests next season. Like, you guys stick around. But thank you all so so so so much for being here. Um, again, let me know your thoughts. Email me, DM me, write me on social media, and until next time, let's keep doing the work to renovate the soul.