SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to Skeletal. Exploring Psycho Spiritual Horizons with your host, Cedric Finder, and Deanna Magel. Cedric is a monumental therapist who developed the interview confidence model and is a pathfinder in the psychosciral realm. Deanna created the essential skull care model, a model suitable for therapists, coaches, and healers. The monthly episodes of Scope Models speak from the insights and the personal health and professional analysis. Thank you for tuning in for the Sculpture with Alcomin of Placing Teachers and Highlands, etc. Diana and Cast Explore New Evolutionary Landscapes.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Okay, our our special guest, our portal of the month is David Rico, uh psychotherapist, author, workshop leader, does it all, and has a new book coming out in November, which we'll be discussing, and we'll learn more about his journey as we go along. I always uh start with an opening invocation that goes like this May the spirit flow freely through this gathering and conversation, allowing it to be both energizing and edifying. Uh Dave is also the author of twenty books uh on different subjects on different uh psycho-spiritual subjects, such as this one. He has a lot of how to be an adult books, and this was a good one, how to be an adult in faith and spirituality, which is our perennial one of our themes. So the the opening quote comes from a book of quotations that he already also put out. Uh, and it's from your also from your recent talk, Dave. And on the theme of the month. It's by Edwin Markham, and it goes, He drew a circle that shut me out. Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle that took him in.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Very appropriate for these times.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Yeah. That's a short poem by as you say.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

And the the new book coming out in November, um, maybe you could all hold it up. Yeah, it's sweeter than revenge, overcoming your payback mind.

SPEAKER_04 3:15

And uh you see the the two E's together, that's you know, the sweet that we're together as partners, shall we say? Right. And in revenge, the two are fighting each other. Okay, so that's the neat and the uh title is based on a praise, revenge is sweet. Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Until it's not exactly and yeah, one of the themes if this is a good way to frame it, is like the difference between or the transition between retaliation and and retribution and restitution. I don't know if is that a good juxtaposition of two ways of approaching it.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

Um the well, let me start with the the uh title and I'll come to that. You see, the actual quote about revenge is sweet is from John Milton's poem Paradise Lost. So here's the actual quote Revenge at first though sweet, bitter airlong, back on itself recoils. Revenge at first, though sweet, bitter airlong, back on itself recoils. So something in us, our shadow side, turn that into revenge is sweet, forgetting that it becomes not sweet but bitter ere long, in other words, soon enough, and then it comes back to bite us. In fact, um Plato points out that uh engaging in revenge is worse for the soul than whatever offense came to us from someone else. So now to go to what Cedric brought up, the word retaliation comes from two Latin words. T-A-L means such, and re are the R-E means back, back as an adverb. So retaliation is do such back to the one who harmed offended you, or another way of saying it is instead of inventing a response or responding in accord with your own standards, take your cue from the offender and do back to the offender what he, she, they did to you. The word retribution is from also from two Latin words. The R-E, of course, is back. Uh the T R I B tribute as in um pay the tribute to the Roman Empire. So it literally means payback, yeah, tribute, pay, re-back. And again, um it's simply copy cap, it's not a creative response. So what I'm trying to offer in my book is an alternative.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

It reminds me of the saying that uh it's like picking up a hot coal to throw it at somebody, but you're the one that gets burned. Yeah, that's the idea.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Well, it's a boomerang.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Yes, it's a boomerang. Yeah, that's a good word. So my alternative is um, and now we have to look at the psychological issue here. When someone hurts us, hurts our feelings, betrays us, offends us, the appropriate psychological response is grief. Grief consisting of sadness that someone has hurt you, and anger that someone has hurt you. So if you were just to do a mindful pause when someone hurts your feelings in some way, you would get in touch with your sadness, you would feel that, and you would also get in touch with your anger and you would feel that. Instead of turning the anger into an immediate vengeful reaction, we would say out directly to the person who hurt us, and then we would offer to have a dialogue and try to work something out so that we could reconcile. So that's my alternative to reactive vengeance, and of course, it will it will require one that we're in touch with our grief, something that most of us avoid and try to escape from. Secondly, we'd have to have the assertiveness to be able to say out to the other person. And third, we'd have to know nonviolent ways of communicating so that we could engage in a dialogue successfully and move toward reconciliation, and then finally, it will call for a spiritual response of forgiveness. And each of these I talk about in the book, but uh it took me a while to realize when I started working on the topic that it that those four would be necessary if we're ever to have an alternative to um tit for tat. Right. I I'd love to hear any questions that any of you have as we go along.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah, if you have questions, just put them in the chat. Yeah, and yeah. And Deanna, you can make a question. I do. Um you have you are a very prolific writer. You've been writing about spiritual issues, you're a counselor, you're Jung, all of the things that that I love. Um, but I'm I'm curious, and now you're writing, it's like it seems like your writing is always another iteration or evolution. And I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what initially sparked you to go onto this vocation, spiritual vocation.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

You mean regarding this topic of revenge?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Just from the beginning, and then now I see now we're landing with the revenge.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, sure. A little bit of a timeline. Like what influenced you?

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Yeah, like your vocation. I I noticed that when I was teaching, I was able to say things in a way that uh were clear to the students, and they gave me that feedback that when you explain something, we can really understand it. So that led me to figure: well, maybe it would be good to write something so that I could reach a wider audience, and uh that led to my very first book, which was called How to Be an Adult. And uh from then uh I've felt a calling to address some specific issues, and each time I was uh in the uh in the embrace of whatever Holy Spirit seems to um be animating me, uh, I wrote a book on that topic. And I certainly felt this book very interestingly see that television behind me? So I was sitting having lunch in that chair right there, that black chair. And uh Netanyahu was on the television and they had just had the attack um that you're aware of. And uh he said I it was October 7th, 2003, and he said, I intend to retaliate against Hamas like the world has never seen. When I heard that, I felt the calling. I need to say something about an alternative to revenge because it's so deeply in the human psyche, there has to be some alternative that uh saves life and creates reconciliation rather than destroy. So I got up from that chair and got into this chair, and I started writing this book. Good. And it's two years, it's it's the first time in my life this ever happened, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Today is the today is the two-year anniversary. So this is the anniversary, and so it's great to be. I'm glad you brought it up because I have a question. So, but for starters, without of course, without going into the sides of it, you know, not this is not the place for that discussion, but it does raise the issue of the uh when there's an ongoing threat. So everything you said about uh revenge, retribution being hurt, and the process, the fourfold process to healing, how does that apply when there's a an ongoing threat? Like that as Israel has been experiencing that's not a one-time event, and the Hamas is their whole purpose is to arrange an infrastructure so they can do it again. So, how does that fit into uh you know retribution or restitution or some way of reconciling that without the revenge motive?

SPEAKER_04 15:17

Well, that would require work with the United Nations and people who are trained for mediation, and I know it's it hasn't really happened, unfortunately, but uh the book is specifically about uh revenge happening in personal relationships, yeah, which is the only topic that I could address, right? So um but it does start with the hoping it would apply.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

It does start with the personal, with with all of us, yeah, right, and then it then it can echo out into the collective, yes, I agree, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

Think of that. I thought, well, if we could just change something in our own life, yeah, uh it would make a difference, yeah. Because I'm as an Italian person here in America. Um revenge all through my childhood, revenge was not only thought of as legitimate, it was thought of as necessary. Otherwise, people are gonna walk all over you. They never got it that um that Jesus proposes in the Sermon on the Mount that we love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who um mistreat us. They didn't have the Buddhist element that says, show loving kindness to all beings, including those who are your enemies. And I don't hold any of that against anybody, but it took me many years to find those wonderful teachings, and I am totally allied with them. I believe they are the way that we humans will survive, not the path of I intend to retaliate like the world has never seen. What if you have to what's happening in Gaza right now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

What if you what if you have a neighbor like either individually or collectively, whose intention is to kill you? So, and of course, Jews have a long history of experiencing that, and now the history is repeating itself with a organization, and that's their mandate to wipe you off the map, and that's it's their goal, not to build their own country or to destroy another one. So we we don't have to pursue it, but you know, because we want to talk about the personal, but there is a that big picture problem.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

Well, uh, society offers a way of dealing with somebody who's threatening you physically, which is to contact the police rather than take the law into your own hands. Revenge began in cave people times when there was no such magistrate to turn to. So it's even illegal to engage in revenge, uh, equivalent of take the law into your own hands. Um, we're supposed to turn to the appropriate resources in the community.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Uh changing sorry changing channels back to your journey. Sorry, I we're probably gonna.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

I was just reminded of something that it just reminded me of the the defense as uh used in court with battered women's syndrome, that a lot of times the victim does not get off because it was the revenge piece that that's rejected because there were things there were things in the community in place for the battered woman to have sought, even though I believe that there are reasons why they can't. Um many, many reasons, but yeah, it just reminded me of that defense.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah, there's so much injustice. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to get back to your journey in the sense that uh at one time you had an explicit religious vocation. Yes. And can you tell us about that and the transition to your present vocation?

SPEAKER_04 20:30

Uh yeah, I was uh ordained a Catholic priest in 1966, and uh then I left the priesthood uh it and got married. And uh then in 1971 I found Buddhism and I've been um hopefully working with the Dharma all these years, and uh at one point I made a vow to Buddha that I would never again retaliate knowingly and uh of course in Catholicism I had learned about the Sermon on the Mount, and I have a chapter in the book on that uh teaching. And uh I guess um all my uh sense of a calling and service that began in the priesthood, just carried over and turned into teaching and writing, and uh being a psychotherapist and also a um also a person who you know teaches counseling skills. And a supervisor. Um, so it feels like I simply continued in the realm of service, and uh I'm glad that that's my style.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

And do you have an integration of Christianity and Buddhism? That um was there a joining a convergence of those paths? I didn't quite get that. Was there a convergence of Christian and Buddhist paths? Oh yes, yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

Yeah, yeah. And Tignadhan has a book on that that really helped about uh you know Christ and Buddha as brothers.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Can I ask a question about um supervision?

SPEAKER_04 22:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Because I'm a I'm a clinical supervisor and I teach clinical supervision. And I'm always encouraging um my students to integrate this as appropriate, this psychospiritual piece. And there's a lot of resistance. And I know when I was in school a long time ago, they said, you know, don't go there so much. And I'm seeing that that's kind of carried over, it's shifting a little bit, but some of the very traditional um counselors in the field just it's like the spirituality piece is hands-off. Can you talk about your experience or your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_04 23:48

Yes. Um what I've noticed is that the healthier you become psychologically, the more spiritually oriented you are. And that would especially include an ethical sense and um a real commitment to moral standards. And so uh on a personal level, it seems as if um acting in a spiritually conscious way is not just an add-on, it goes with uh becoming more psychologically healthy. And I did try to get that across to my interns, uh, you know, not in a pushy way, but just bringing it up as a question to examine together.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Do you think one can be um spiritual without being psychologically mature? Um or would that involve what they without doing the psychological work? Yeah, what the I guess just some comment on what they call the spiritual bypass.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

Yeah, that's a danger. Yeah, and it catches up to imagine, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Like my generation became quote unquote spiritual very early in life in our development, and then ran into the unfinished business of maturity, basic maturity and psychological integration. Because you can run, but you can't hide from that.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Yeah, good way of putting it.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Well, I think that the for me the key term here is psycho-spiritual, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Right?

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Not just psychology and not just spirituality, but you know, it's the blending of the two.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

But at this point in my career, I don't know how to separate out of my work. But I I suppose there was a time when I did.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

I guess it's become integrated, and that's wonderful, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Since you're a mentor too many, uh is there someone or some persons who mentored you? Do you have a mentor that influenced you or role model?

SPEAKER_04 26:34

I I I think mainly um the Buddhist teachers that I've come in contact with. Uh, but no specific one person.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

And you spend time on at Buddhist retreats or in Buddhist monasteries?

SPEAKER_04 26:54

Yeah, I'm in fact this Saturday I'll be doing an annual workshop at our local Zen Center with a um Zen priest. She and I uh do a presentation every year called Love and Power. And each time we orient it toward a specific way that those two can come together. Um so actually, I could um put something in the chat in case anybody wants to come to it on Zoom.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Yeah, that would be good.

SPEAKER_04 27:34

Okay. Do any of the other people in the group here have something they'd like to uh bring up?

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Or do you have any questions? So far as their internet, some internets are being unstable.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

Okay, I'm gonna put something into the chat now on what I'm doing, just for your information. Okay, I uh did that come through?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

No, I don't see any.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

Okay, I I put it in there and I pressed return, but nothing happened. And then I pressed enter to send. But that didn't work.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

You want to tell me and I'll type it? You wanna tell me and I'll type it.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Oh, that's kind of lengthy. So you did the message anyway everyone field and then clicked enter to send or well, we'll figure it out by the end.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

What I can do is I can email it to you, Cedric, with the email that just came.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Yeah, and we do yeah, we do a uh a follow-up that goes in the library, and it certainly can be included there.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

Okay, I just send it to online events.co.uk. Is that okay?

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Yeah, you can CC me. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:36

So your butt is uh and yours is just set start cedric. It's the yeah, I emailed it and I CC'd it to you. Okay, and then if you can put it in the chat, that would help. Okay, unless anybody wants it, not that big a deal.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Um, anyway, your Buddhist practice shows in your aura and your equanimity. Oh, well, thank you. You're doing do you have a a daily practice that you that you do?

SPEAKER_04 30:12

Yeah, just meditation and uh pray to the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and the sacred heart. So I see a combination of my Catholic background and my Buddhist foreground.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

And it's a Zen Zen style meditation, like a blue sky mind and leaving leaving lots of space.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

You know, doing the um meta practice.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Yeah, what's that?

SPEAKER_04 30:52

What's the meta practice? You know, a loving-kindness practice. Oh yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, you see, the um one of the things that you realize when you work with this topic is um that there are three options. So someone does something that you find offensive or hurtful, you can one retaliate, or two, not retaliate, or three not only not retaliate, but love back instead of payback. So the first two anybody can do, anybody can retaliate, anybody can not retaliate, but the third one, which is not only not retaliate, but do good to the one who hurt you, that third one requires a special grace, um, access to uh that higher self within us that is willing to override the ego with its engaging, engaging in its favorite sport, revenge. So when it comes to going to the third tier, that's what would um call for a spiritual practice that then opens us to grace, and grace can come to you without a spiritual practice, but a spiritual practice makes you more open to it, so that's an important part of what I'm trying to get across in the book, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Because you're making sense to you, Cedric. Oh, yeah, because you're going against the uh grain of the human nature, right? And then they call it again, not not uh a false transcendence, but being fully human, which includes all the elements you're describing. You know, we're less than human when we fall into that retaliation mode. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Although retaliation seems to be and and this is the question, be part of the human condition, or are we conditioned?

SPEAKER_04 33:43

Oh, yes, it's in there like Flint. It's there's no way to uh well I there's one exception. The Dalai Lama said he no longer even thinks of retaliation. So I guess that's possible. That hasn't happened to me. I will think of it, I just don't act on it. Right. So I think it's asking a lot to say you won't even think of it, especially since every movie that we ever see on television or in a theater is full of revenge and how good we feel when the bad guy gets his, that uh the people who make the movies know that uh we love a revenge fulfillment.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Right. You brought that up because those movies I've noticed, especially lately, lately, being the past decades, that the hero, the one we identify with, is also psychopathic. So he can kill without blinking his eyes. But we cheer, we're cheering for him, but he's just as psychopathic as the villain in the in the killing without feeling uh feeling anything, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

Yes, good point. We have a question not feeling anything is exactly what you're up to when you choose the path of revenge. Yeah, uh did someone have a question in the chat?

SPEAKER_01 35:23

It says, Does that not mean that we allow the other to go on hurting us or others? If I'm a doormat, surely they will keep on wiping their feet on me. I'm kind of struggling with this. I'm curious though, and open to another way. I need to honor my hurt, right? What was the last part? She says, I need to honor my hurt, yes?

SPEAKER_04 35:45

Oh, yeah. So when you feel the hurt and you go to the mindful pause before reacting, and when you let yourself feel the grief, that's when the anger comes up, and that's the healthy anger that says ouch and makes it clear to the one who offended you that you do have boundaries and that you're not going to allow any further hurt, and and that you're um indignant about the hurt that's already happened. So this um spiritual interior program that releases us from the choice for retaliation in favor of the choice for reconciliation does not mean letting others walk all over you. It only means that part of your response has changed from imitating the offender to acting in accord with um higher standards, ones that have to do with uh working things out with someone rather than hurting back. So none of this is about uh being taken advantage of. So now let's go to the familiar phrase turn the other cheek. And I do explain this um in this way. If turning the other cheek means enabling someone to hurt you again, that's not the true meaning of turn the other cheek. Turn the other cheek is more like what you see in Gandhi in his approach in India when he was uh handling the whole issue of the British uh releasing their claims on India, um he would uh allow himself to be hurt, and his followers were also hurt, but it was a form of protest. So that kind of hurt um, temporarily, as part of a protest, is one of the tools of nonviolent resistance. But in personal relationships, we don't allow ourselves to be hurt at all, and we maintain our boundaries. And um paradoxically, the more you let go of being like the other person, uh, the stronger you become in being who you are. Who are you? One who protects yourself while at the same time not hurting others, and how much of the you see how there's a spiritual and ethical element to this whole topic? Yeah, it's it's it's not just psychological, yeah. That's what makes it so fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

When you're going through the first part of the process expressing saying the ouch part, how much of the so-called primitive feelings do you express at that point?

SPEAKER_04 39:45

Like, um hey, what you said really hurt. I didn't like it at all. Uh, the way it landed on me was, you know, like uh really painful. Is that what you intended? That's what you sound like. You see, that's gonna take assertiveness, yeah. And most of us don't have that skill. So this is uh very difficult. I mean, I get it that it's hard to do, but and then how do you if you just follow the dirt Dalai Lama? If you can't do the the program, at least do no harm, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:30

The to follow your role play, if the other person says, Well, I only did that because this because you did that to me, and the tit for tatty get beyond the tit for tat, and yeah, there's no more tit for tat, there's no more pleasure in tit for tat, right? So if it comes back at you, so they're not saying, Oh, like I understand how you feel sorry it landed, if they're saying, you know, you remember what you just did to me, yeah, you know, that's so then that what's just following the role play. What's that what's your response to that? If if the person is not joining you in sharing of feelings, you know, they're coming back saying, Well, the only reason I did that to you is because you did this to me. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

Now we can open a dialogue. Now we can talk about our mutual pain, and now we can acknowledge that we have hurt each other, as Hamlet said. I have shot my arrow over the house and it has hurt my brother. That's what I want to talk about. So let's end the retaliation and go to nonviolent dialogue. That would be the step. And by the way, this also applies to the court system. It's the difference between punitive justice and um restorative justice. So uh you're aware of that element of it. Just I just remembered it and thought I'd throw it in. And what about we have another question in the chat? Do we?

SPEAKER_02 42:15

No, that was the uh the link. I figured out what it was. Okay, it was too much data, it was over the limit of the words they allowed. Oh, that's the problem. Okay. I just put in the link and then it accepted it. Uh what about uh NVC with Marshall Rosenberg? Uh yeah, I love his approach.

SPEAKER_04 42:37

Yeah, yeah, I love his approach, and we had lunch together once, and um, you know, he's totally on he was totally on board with this non-retaliation, obviously. Um and uh he's done so much to help us design a way of communicating that uh is respectful of the other and protective of ourselves. So that's our approach. I want to be protective of myself and respective of the bond. Ultimately, letting go of retaliation is about one topic only, the main the maintaining of healthy relating. That's ultimately what it's about. Took me a while to realize that.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

And there is a method, you know. Do you know Marsha Linhan of dialectical? Oh, yes. Yeah. She has a method called opposite action. And when you are consumed with those feelings, those payback feelings, or or just the anger and rage, I found the best method is opposite action. You just feel it, but then. Not only act on it, but actually do the opposite of what your emotions are telling you to do.

SPEAKER_04 44:08

Yeah, so there's a primitive voice inside, and there's also a healthy voice.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Um you've heard also just similar to the ho'apono opono prayer. I beg your pardon. The hoopono opono prayer. Cedric, give us a whirl on that.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Well, that's that's really next level. The Hawaiian prayer. I don't know if you know it, Dave. It's called the Ho Opono Pono. I can I can actually send you the description of it.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

Okay. It's yeah, I have heard of that. It's that it also is uh contrary to retaliation, right?

SPEAKER_02 44:53

Yeah, oh yeah, very much yeah, I have heard of that. I'm glad Deanna brought it up because that's a tool that it's like prayer when you remember it, it works every time. It only doesn't work if you don't remember it. So in the midst of any battle, and even somebody, even when you're witnessing, so passing a couple on the street who are yelling at each other because because it's in your energy field, you can say the hono pono pono prayer, and it's and it's suddenly gets mixed up with you know taking responsibility, codependence, but it's it's next level, so it's not that. So the prayer is I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you for any energetic disturbance in your energy field, yeah. Which you are on a like on a in a mystical way, energetic way, it you're taking responsibility for it, not in the personal way, but in the energetic field, and it's it is really powerful. Like, uh so when I realize I'm being drawn into an argument and I don't want to be in an argument, you start saying it silently within yourself, and like magically things start diffusing. Yeah, it's like a mantra. I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love it. You can be talking to the person and running that prayer. Yeah, so I recommend anyone who who wants to experiment with it, like give it a try and see for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Um, somebody's asking for it, so I'm gonna I'm gonna pull up the link and post it in.

SPEAKER_04 46:33

Uh Julie Stone, do you have a question? Uh Julie, do you want to unmute?

SPEAKER_02 46:43

Well, we do it by the chat. So critically you do it by chat. Okay, go ahead. Critically, it involves whole community engagement in problem solving.

SPEAKER_04 46:51

That's that would be the ideal. Yeah, it's hard to herd cats, but yes, that's what it's about. Uh, I do want to point out something else that you might find interesting. This changed my whole belief system regarding hell. Hell as eternal retribution for having offended God, higher power. That would make God totally primitive. That would not be God is love. Behold the heart that has loved humanity so much, that that kind of a God would not have a hell waiting for us so that he, she, they could get back at us not only temporarily as we humans do, but for all eternity. So you would want to ask yourself: do you still have a belief that there's a hell in which a higher power will get back at all the people who have ever hurt you since you weren't able to get back at them as much as you would want, as you would, as you wanted to? This is an interesting spin-off to this topic. It's funny, just blogged.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

I just blogged about that. So it's very synchronous that we're having this conversation because that was the blog I wrote yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

Can you put the link in the chat to that blog?

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Yeah, that one of the pundits, like uh Chesterton or Mark Twain or somebody said, nobody needs forgiveness more than Satan. Yeah, but right. That um, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:05

But it's I want to point out about forgiveness. Um, from my point of view, forgiveness is not just letting someone off the hook, it's certainly not excusing what you've done to offend me. Forgiveness is something internal. Pardon is from one person to the other. Um, it's an interactive. So the judge pardons you uh from your offense, saying you don't have to pay a fine and you don't have to spend time in jail. That's pardon. But when it comes to forgiveness, it's in a whole other category. The judge can pardon you but can't forgive you. To forgive is to let go of resentment, ill will, blame, and the need to retaliate. So if you think of forgiveness that way, instead of I'm excusing what happens, uh, you're more likely to open yourself to the that grace. I don't I believe that you can pardon, but you can't forgive. That has to come through you from the Holy Spirit. So um, when you look at forgiveness uh even in a wider way, I explained this in the book: the difference between forgiveness and forgivingness. Forgiveness is I forgive this offense. Forgivingness is the virtue of no matter what happens, I'm always in the mode of forgiveness. Um, it's a whole spiritual attitude that you can't make yourself get into, but you can open yourself to whatever spirit um will let that happen.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

It's interesting that you don't separate it from the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_04 51:22

That so that yeah, you're I say Holy Spirit, but it's you know higher power, whatever whatever works for you as something greater than an ego. Right. We can't do it just on our own ego standard terms, and if you and if you can't have and if you completely um uh if you're completely against anything that sounds like spirit in a transcendent way, you can instead say the evolutionary impulse of the universe to further cooperation in order for us all to survive. So you can go to that if you can't believe in grace or spirit. Can you put that in the chat? The evolutionary can you repeat that again? Evolutionary drive toward survival, which has to include cooperation rather than division, right? Reconciliation rather than retaliation, right? Um, can you say a word? All we have is destruction, can you say a word about how the purpose of evolution?

SPEAKER_02 52:44

Can you say a word about how this plays out in very close relationships such as marriage? So let me give you an example. Say you're in a marriage, you know, that's gone on for years, and you find out like it takes a long time to get to know someone, you find out one of their core beliefs, ways of being contradicts one of your, you know, a core value for you, creating animus, you know, like animosity on that primitive level. Like, how could a person so close to me believe what he or she believes, let alone express it and reject my you know, opposing view? Like that crunch time in a marriage. Like, so how would how would the principles you're talking about be applied?

SPEAKER_04 53:36

That would be the spiritual practice element, wouldn't it? By the way, um, I have a whole chapter in the book on retaliation in relationships. We don't have a lot of time to go into it now. Yeah, but one of the most surprising things I've worked with one thousand at least 1,000 couples over the 55 years I've been a therapist, and I've noticed over and over again that they retaliate the partners. That does not seem like it fits with real love. If you really love someone, would you retaliate or would you try to reconcile? It's a fascinating question, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

So when you try to reconcile, then it does come down to not sharing core values, you know, but a lot of people would even get divorced on that basis if it's really central, and in in divorce, you definitely see retaliation, yeah. So if there's a if there's a real clash of core values, how does this you know philosophy spirituality apply in that moment?

SPEAKER_04 54:59

Well, your core value would be um loving kindness in all circumstances, while at the same time saying ouch. The ouch is part of the expression of love. I honor you by telling you about my real feeling, right?

SPEAKER_02 55:27

So it goes beyond like that that agree to disagree truce, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:33

It goes beyond just agree to disagree. You can trust me in this relationship. The one thing I won't do is retaliate. If you retaliate against me, I'll say ouch, but I won't do it in return. I would love to see that as part of the marriage vows.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

Yeah, so I guess that leaves opens the space for the wonderful differences of the different person, right? Even you know, even if they in fundamental ways they're different from you, then it opens the space to vive la différence instead of trying to eliminate differences in the in the name of some union, right?

SPEAKER_01 56:27

That's yeah, okay. And we have a comment. Respect is a common promise in marriage vows.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Yes, question mark, yeah. Question mark, yeah. Oh, it's a question, yeah. Like so are you including that respect is a common promise in marriage vows?

SPEAKER_04 56:49

Oh yes, very much so.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Yeah. Okay, well, that that answered my opening prayer.

SPEAKER_04 56:59

It's very I would um before we end, are we just about coming to the end? Yeah, we're at 159, so but by all means, yeah. I would like to uh just recite the poem once more. Okay, is that okay? Sure. Then it's he drew a circle to shut me out, heretic, rebel, a thing to float, but love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle that took him in.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

So thank you. Now I have the closing blessing, which is a different one every month to fit the theme, and it goes like this may we change some of the madness of this world into meaningful relationships and make that the priority. Thank you for everyone in attendance.