Is therapy culture destroying us?
Pushing us to analyze every moment as a potential trauma. Turning minor slights into rage and sadness. Making us feel good about feeling bad all the time.
Fred Luskin has a different idea. Forgiveness. He’s been studying it for over 30 years and the biggest takeaway? We can deal with 99% of the crap that comes our way. Feel the feeling, sure. Do some self soothing… vent to a friend, go for a run, eat a cookie. But then forgive and move on.
Resentment is an addiction. Fred should know. He held onto resentment from a painful experience for years until his wife told him “it ain’t that pleasant living with you.” Fred found a way to forgive what happened and turned that energy into the Stanford Forgiveness Project, doing research on methods to help others forgive.
Forgiveness is a gift to yourself. A decision to take ownership of how you feel and refuse to let the behavior of others drag you down.
Imagine if we took this advice at work. Letting the petty BS slide and allowing ourselves to truly connect with people. We’re all dicks sometimes. Let’s own that and do cool shit together.
This is what emotional intelligence looks like. And it’s the thing that will keep us human as AI does whatever the hell it’s gonna do.
You wanna get mad about it? Feel free. But don’t hold onto that feeling for too long. It’ll ruin you.
As Fred says, “take the blinders off and realize what a gift life is.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Welcome to the DesuckifyWork podcast. The show where we cut through the BS and find ways to make work more fun, more human and less ridiculous. All of which makes your business more profitable, by the way. Today’s episode is a part of the ProHuman Series, in partnership with the ProHuman Foundation, where Fred is an advisor.
(If you enjoy this one, please like, share, rate, review or subscribe to the podcast.)
Let the desuckifying begin.
You can follow Fred on LinkedIn. And check out his site at fredluskin.com where you can learn more about his books, including “The Forgive for Good Recovery Workbook.”
If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to help your teams bring their absolute best to work, I invite you to schedule a free half-hour discovery session. Type “meow” in the calendar invite and I’ll also send you a free DesuckifyWork® t-shirt!
Bye, everyone!
Bonus question from Fred to our audience:
How can you take the blinders off your life so that you stop taking so much of the good in your life for granted?
If you’d like to watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.
