Episode 38: The Power of Self-Forgiveness | Leda Mitrofanis on Healing & Letting Go

In this heartfelt episode, Jay DePaolo welcomes Leda Mitrofanis to explore the deep and often overlooked power of self-forgiveness. They dive into how guilt and shame can affect our lives, how to recognize self-sabotage, and how to begin healing through self-love and spiritual insight.

Her website: www.simplyleda.com

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Hello world and welcome to Choices, Books and Gifts where you always have choices. My name is Jay DePaolo. I'm the owner of Choices, Books and Gifts in New York City, a store dedicated to health, wellness, and recovery for over 30 years. I am the host of our podcast. "You Always Have Choices." We dive deep into stories of transformation, healing, and personal growth.

And I'm proud to present someone who has been with us before. We asked her back her podcasts are wonderful, insightful, and helpful for everyone. Even though she's been on before, I want to read a little bit so you know and you’re reminded of whom she is. So Today, we welcome Leda Mitrofanis for her fourth visit with us in her self-development series.

She is an insightful author and thought leader in personal growth, self-discovery, and emotional health. Her "Human Case of Mistaken Identity" series explores self-identity, self-perception, and the journey toward self-love and authenticity. Her first book, "Me, Myself, and I," examines how our experiences shape and sometimes distort our sense of self. In her second book, "Self-love: The Journey Home," Leda guides readers on a transformative path to embracing self-compassion and finding home within themselves.

With a background in psychology and spirituality and a commitment to empowering others, Leda’s work offers practical wisdom to help readers cultivate authentic self-love and unlock their true identities. And that’s who we’re dealing with today. How are you, Leda? How are you doing today?

So nice to see you. It’s so nice to be back with you and with Lisa. Yeah, nice to always come together and have another conversation. I love doing it.

If it’s okay with you, I have a lot of ground to cover. Can I start by asking you some questions?

Sure.

All right. Great. So, number one, what is self-forgiveness, and how does it differ from forgiving others?

So, Self-forgiveness has two components. The first and most obvious is that when we are aware that we have committed an offense or hurt someone else, we might harboring guilt or shame as a result of our actions. Even after making amends or receiving forgiveness from the other person, we may still hold onto it against ourselves. In other words, we continue holding ourselves accountable until we truly forgive ourselves.

The second component is when someone has committed an offense or hurt towards us, and we continue to hold onto the imprint of what was said and done. In both cases, we are actually hurting ourselves. This kind of harboring can last for years. Self-forgiveness is crucial because we don’t want to continue condemning ourselves. That’s how it differs from forgiving someone else.

Right, right. So I would imagine in the book, it explains that and we can learn how to forgive ourselves and others because I know that can, as you mentioned, it can stay with us for years and really nullify your life on a certain scale.

Yeah, and as we continue our conversation, will talk about that, I guess, towards the end about where the book touches on it and how, you know, we get there. Excellent, excellent. Do you have a copy of the book with you right now?

I do.

Oh, can you please hold it up for us to see? So folks, that's the book by Leda Mitrofanis Self-love the journey home. You can get this on Amazon you can get it at choices and You can if they went on your website there

Great. Thank you.

You are very welcome. All right. Number two, why do so many people struggle with self-forgiveness even when they readily forgive others?

So It's easier for us to be aware when others hurt us by their words or their actions, right? As opposed to us being aware of our own words and actions when we hurt somebody else, right? It's kind of like that old saying that says, we can look at the speck in someone else's eye and see it so clearly, but we are completely blind to the speck in our own eye, right? And meaning that we can forgive someone else more readily, yet when it comes to ourselves, we're blind to our words and our actions because either we feel justified in what we did or we do not have the emotional maturity or the ability for self-reflection to be honest with ourselves or any of the other components of self-love, all of which predicate the process of self-forgiveness. They precede it, actually.

Excellent. Thank you so much. How does self-forgiveness play a role in personal healing and emotional well-being?

When we do not practice self-love, self-forgiveness, sorry, we keep talking about the same thing, self-forgiveness, it's akin to drinking poison and expecting somebody else to die. And I know we've kind of heard this saying before, Yes. But self-forgiveness is a healing balm. And it's a release that equates to internal freedom because we're letting go of all the negative emotions that we're harboring, such as guilt or shame. or anger or resentment or you know being wounded and when we release these emotions it frees us up internally not just emotionally but physically like it literally frees up some brain space right so something new can enter because we're not flat spinning anymore our nervous system is alleviated we're in a calmer state. And internally, that conflict, that internal conflict that's going on subconsciously mitigates, it disappears. So we have more of a sense of peace.

Thank you so much for that. And I know I have suffered from that in the past and I'm grateful to be on my own spiritual journey so I don't suffer as long as I used to. I'm able to get out of it a lot quicker than I used to. Can you walk us through the steps of genuine self-forgiveness? What does the process look like?

That's a good question. So first, I think it's important to understand that it's not necessary to crucify ourselves for redemption. Because that does not bring enlightenment, only self-torment. And many times we're waiting for somebody else to forgive us or redeem us. And we need to understand that understanding and healing supersedes redemption. And, so healing ourselves is the goal here. And that being said, the first four components of the self-love process is what leads us to self-forgiveness. So first, we have to be radically honest with ourselves. We have to tell ourselves the truth about ourselves to ourselves, right? Second, we have to have a sense of self-knowledge and awareness and then acknowledge what we learned about ourselves.

Third, we have to learn to accept everything that we've learned, positive and negative. And fourth, we have to learn to trust that we already know within us what we have to do to heal ourselves. And this wisdom comes from living and embracing our self-identity. And the book goes through this process in detail. So self-forgiveness is always the final step.

Right, and it also sounds like, you know, we have to do it ourselves, not wait for approval or have somebody else do this. It really sounds like we have to do the work.

Right, and a lot of times we're conditioned to believe or we're waiting for somebody else to release us.

Yeah.

Right? And that's why we're always seeking a form of redemption. How we have to release ourselves.

Absolutely, absolutely. What are some of the common misconceptions people have about forgiveness, particularly self-forgiveness?

So our beliefs around forgiveness tend to stem from what's been passed down to us through our families and our culture, right? And they run the gamut. So some of us believe that it's a sign of weakness to forgive. Others believe that by forgiving another's hurtful action, that we're somehow condoning the behavior and thus allowing it to continue. But that in essence is a boundary issue. That's not a forgiveness issue. And other times, forgiveness is felt to be a moral or religious imperative. And this leaves you with the feeling that your hurt was somehow insignificant or invalid, like you didn't have a right to it. Others believe that forgiveness is not necessary. Some believe it's not even possible.

So they just bury their feelings and those resurface later in life when we're in a situation that triggers it. Yeah.Right? And they will always be one. Absolutely, absolutely.And then finally, I think a lot of some people believe it or not don't understand that self-forgiveness is something that is even warranted or should be done.

It needs to be done. Yeah.

Right. In other words, they're completely unaware of it as an emotional necessity.

It sounds like, while you were speaking, the people that really have a hard time forgiving themselves may even have some low self-esteem, Absolutely,things like that, because they're not worthy of forgiveness.

Right, exactly. We'll talk about that because when we talk about self-love, self-love is intimately tied into your self-worth.

Right? So the greater your self-love, the greater your sense of self-worth, your greater your confidence, more self-compassion, the more empathy, it's all a domino effect.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. How can unresolved guilt or self-blame manifest in our daily lives and relationships?

This is a great question because you know it always does manifest, right? And awareness is the key to identifying where we're carrying guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. Right? Because it's not just that we're carrying the guilt and the shame, they're always associated with self-condemnation. They go hand in hand. And when these remain unresolved, they manifest into self-sabotaging behaviors which can look like self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-punishment, self-pity. It can look like projection of our negative emotions onto others. It can look like passive aggressiveness. It can even look like procrastination, stress eating, chronic lateness, intimacy and commitment issues. Drinking in drugs. Yeah, but drinking and drugs is when we can't cope with them at all. All of these self-sabotaging behaviors are a way that it's manifesting as a coping method, right? Because we're unaware of it and we're not in position to heal it, it will bleed out. It'll bleed out and that's how it comes out. And it's amazing in how many areas it comes out where people don't make the connection that's where it's really coming from.

Yeah, so they're sort of in denial or they don't even realize it.

Well, and they don't even see it sometimes as a self-sabotaging behavior. They'll say something like, well, that's just the way I am. But it's not true, right?

Yeah, or at least that's, you don't wanna behave or have the, you wanna be beyond that. From a spiritual perspective, why is forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness, so essential for growth in our lives?

Well, for this question we have to remember from book one that first off we're spiritual beings having a temporary physical existence. And you know I always keep saying this and not the other way around because when we talk about the spiritual perspective, it's  always have to remember that. And that being said, forgiveness is rendered mute from the spiritual perspective in the face of understanding.

And this is because in spirit we are all one. There is no separation. So the sense of separation is a human illusion. Each one of us is a soul of light incarnated in our respective human life for the purpose of evolving and learning from our specific individual life lessons.

How each of us does this is unique to each of us, right? And no one person is better than another. There's no right or wrong way. We each have different lessons and different experiences. And when we truly understand this, that we each are a piece of the other, then we begin to perceive the other as our fellow innocent soul of light on their own journey.

And this means that when we begin to rub up against each other causing conflict, instead of plunging into the emotional charge of what's happening and our egos being triggered, we instead take a pause and we ask ourselves, what is this moment, this conflict teaching me that I need to look at? And what are we both here to learn respectively?

Because when two people come together in conflict, there's a lesson to be learned for both parties. It's not the same lesson, but there's something to be gained. And when we understand this, now forgiveness becomes unnecessary and understanding becomes a tool of the highest order. And here is where the growth can take place for both parties because you both realize that in your conflict, there is a lesson. and there's something for each of you to learn. And when you focus on the teaching instead of the wounding, then that conflict becomes a gift.

Yeah, I think so much of it is self-awareness so you can get to those.

Right, exactly, because the gift becomes the insight into yourself. Right? And then we can release and we can heal through the tool of understanding from the spiritual perspective. But this predicates that we have to look beyond the human condition. We have to see ourselves as more than just a human being, which is the whole foundation of the entire series. It's kind of like.

So you're saying that we're more spiritual and go towards something like that as opposed to the human experience?

Well, spiritual being is our origin. That's who we are. You kind of imagine that when we come into our human form, it's like we put on a costume, right? That says, okay, I'm Leda. I'm of a specific cultural ethnicity. I live in a certain geographical location, et cetera, et cetera. But at my core, my origin is spirit.

And my soul is what travels lifetime to lifetime in conscious, in light consciousness, and it evolves. And then when we all pass, we integrate back into our spiritual home. And we take with us everything that we've learned and experienced.

Love that. Yeah, wonderful. How can someone tell when they have truly forgiven themselves versus just suppressing the guilt and shame?

When we truly forgive yourself, you're going to feel lighter. There will be a lightness to your being from the release of the negative emotional charge of the emotion that you've been harboring. So when you let go of guilt or shame, you will feel that shift in the energy.

And conversely, of course, when you are suppressing that negative emotion, it's eventually going to resurface, like we said, because it'll be triggered by something. And you're going to have to deal with that head on. You're going to have to face that.

There'll be some negativity because you're.. Well, there's gonna be a conflict. Yeah, yeah.The triggering means that it's going to trigger the conflict within you. It's gonna trigger that guilt, that wound. And those are the telltale signs. Right, because they're two opposing things. So on one hand, if it's harbored, you're gonna get that negative response. And on the other hand, you're gonna feel lighter. You'll know if you've forgiven yourself.

All right. So what are some practical tools or exercises that can help someone struggling to forgive themselves? Is there anything you recommend for us?

Yeah, so you know when we talked about this a little bit before in our other podcast, one of my favorite tools of inner work is the technique of observation and discernment. Because it requires us to move into a neutral state and observe ourselves as if we are an impartial witness. And that's why it's also called the bearing witness technique.

So it constitutes that you suspend your emotional response to your wounds long enough for you to be able to move into an observation mode, right? As if you were a third party observing yourself. And this, from this neutral space, then you can get some clarity and you'll be able to see the truth beyond your emotions of guilt, shame, hurt, pain, et cetera.

And the way that you can tap into this, I always say, is to start with your breathing techniques. know, five-five-five is great, where you breathe in for five, hold for five, breathe out through your mouth through five, and you can really get some deep breaths. And this is just to bring your energy down and bring you energetically into a lower, less charged level. Right? And it brings you into silence and into stillness. And silence allows the mind to get quiet and stillness allows the body to move into a more uncontracted state. And then from this point, I always tell my clients, put your hand on your heart because this helps you to connect to gives you the permission to feel and then ask yourself the questions.

Why am I unwilling to forgive myself for this? How is holding on to it serving me? And when you ask the question, each one take a pause and feel into your body. Where is it landing? Where is the answer landing in your body? Because the body never lies, ever. So when, and they're gonna be markers. So if you're asking the question and you're feeling an uneasiness, an anxiety, you know, like we're contracted, like we're holding, right? Or a nervousness. When that is a sign that something is untrue. It's not an alignment, it's not resonating with you. If, of course, on the other hand, you're feeling peace, calmness, alignment, you know, a sense of.

Yeah! That's where I can explain it, right? Then you know that something is true. Right. And it takes a while to, you know, hone this skill, but it's like a tried and true method when you do it. And again, it's important to remember that you're not doing it to judge yourself or to criticize yourself. That's why it's very important to maintain neutrality because what you're actually doing is looking for answers. It's not about punishing yourself. It's about being a detective and trying to uncover what is what you're really feeling.

Yeah, I think it's so important what you said about how to get there because a lot of people won't have that awareness to be on the outside looking in to figure out how to fix that. But when you said, you know, sit quietly, breathe, you know, focus and understand that this is the issue. I love how you finished it, that you know you're in the right place when you feel it and the body never does lie. You know, it always, you know, I know when I'm kidding myself, you know, it always tells me that. And it brings me back to having to, Right. And I want to just add here, Jay, yeah, please. that a lot of people ask me at this point if they can journal the questions and just answer them. And I always say no. And the reason I say no is journaling is a great thing, but not in this particular case, because when we journal, our mind tends to answer the question, not our heart.

Yeah. and this is where you want to be.

All right, so this is a heavy one. What happens when someone refuses to forgive themselves? Can holding onto guilt and shame become a form of self-punishment or even self-sabotage, which I think so many of us do in life?

Yeah, and that's what we were talking about before. But I'd like to point out that I think that nobody consciously refuses to forgive themselves. It's a subconscious response because it's an inability to see the truth of what the instance or situation that they're not forgiving themselves for. Right? So in essence, and it's also what we also mentioned, you mentioned earlier, they don't believe that also that they deserve to be forgiven or that it's even possible. And that's where the self-punishment and all those other self-sabotaging behaviors come in. And this is how we become our own worst enemy. That person, that we committed an offense to might have moved on and forgiven us can be totally okay. But if we're holding onto that and we're harboring and we're not forgiving ourselves, it's gonna spin and spin internally and it's gonna eat at us from the inside out.

You know, it's almost it sounds like and I know it's all It will you know, the correlation is all there but it sounds like a step nine in the program where you know, you have to go to one and ask for forgiveness because if you're always holding on to that you need to make what's wrong, right and it just While you were speaking. You know, your truth, it reminded me of step nine in a 12-step program.

Right, and that is a very, very important step and probably one of the hardest steps, right? Because asking someone for forgiveness, which we don't necessarily have to do, we can forgive them even if we still don't see them, but actually asking puts us in a place, either way, of vulnerability. And vulnerability is a step in acceptance and self-love.

Yeah. All right. Okay, this is an interesting one. How does self-forgiveness impact our ability to forgive others? Can we truly forgive someone else if we have not forgiven ourselves?

Yeah, and that's a really good, really, really good question. And what I want to say about that is there is no self-love without self-forgiveness. We can genuinely forgive others and still hold on to our own guilt, right? And we're usually much harder on ourselves than we are with others. But we can only forgive and the same way we can only love others at the level that we are willing to love and forgive ourselves. Right? And that is the way of it. It's the universal law of correspondence as within, so without, as above, so below. So that means that someone can forgive you and for you can temporarily forgive yourself and tell yourself. Hey, yeah, I'm good. I forgive myself whatever and  if you internally don't really feel that The lip service isn't going to change anything and it's not about trying to convince yourself. It's about understanding that it's a process and The more you heal and the more you love yourself the easier it's going to be to forgive others and forgive yourself.

Love it. What role does self-compassion play in self-forgiveness and how can people cultivate it?

Well, self-compassion is just an extension and bread from self-love, right? The more we grow our self-love, the more our self-worth barometer rises, our self-compassion, because we begin to nurture ourselves inwardly, not just physically, right, outwardly.

And when we begin to nurture ourselves, that goes hand in hand with compassion. We learn to perceive ourselves and our errors or our mistakes or our shortcomings with love, with forgiveness. It's, yeah, you're giving yourself permission to say, yeah, I'm a work in progress and that's okay. The mistake is not what you did. The mistake is if you're doing the same thing over and over.

Right! Yeah, you gotta take the action to change that way of thinking and be able to move on. I mean, I just love that. Love it.

Can self-forgiveness be a one-time decision or is it an ongoing practice? How do we navigate setbacks in the process?

Self-forgiveness, because it's the fifth of the fundamental components of the self-love process, it can only be an ongoing process. It's not a standalone, right? We have to imagine ourselves as an onion, and we're constantly peeling back the layers of our human conditioning. And this is a lifelong process. That doesn't mean it's a horrible lifelong process, fraught with tears and drama every step of the way. It gets easier as you go. But the process is the same with each layer that we uncover. And it's about applying that process.

So as applying it and practicing it, we learn to do the things that you're asking us to do.

Right, and understanding that healing in and of itself is a process and it has to happen incrementally because we're integrating new behaviors, new belief systems, and that just doesn't happen overnight. You know?

Let me let me ask you this and it's a bit of a personal note and I'm sitting here with my girlfriend Lisa and you know on Monday we just had one of the most amazing animals in the world and I'm sure most people would say that about their animal and she was taken from us abruptly from a collapsed trachea and You know, we feel so much guilt like why didn't we see it earlier and take her to a vet? know, and once again, she's had these episodes before and usually she gets over them. So we had thought that, but it's very hard for us to move forward thinking we didn't do all that we could do for  Jilly bean our dog.

Well, first of all, I'm very sorry for your loss. this is where understanding our spiritual beingness comes into play. Every single one of us has a point where we decide to leave and go back home. Right? And no one knows when that point is and how it happens and how it transpires.

And what happens is when it's very sudden, it's a very natural response to feel as if we didn't do something, because our instinct is to protect and to save, whether it's our pet or our children. We have that sense of responsibility towards them. But the natural order of things tells us that every person passes at exactly the right moment where they're supposed to, regardless if that makes sense to us or not.

And that's a very hard thing during loss to grasp. But whatever it is that you have done for her all of these years that you've had, all the love that you've shown her, all the care, all the memories that you have, those are things that you take forward with you. You know that you were great parents, great owners of her, right? And she does too.

Now, why did she leave at this point in this way might remain an unanswered question.

But In this instance, it's impossible for us to circumvent her passing if that's the time of her passing, anybody's passing, right? It's more important to be focused on acceptance, that this for whatever reason was the chosen moment, knowing that you loved her, she lived well.

She was happy. She had a wonderful home with you. She brought joy into your life and you to hers. And you had a bond that was a gift. And it taught each of you and whoever came into, you know, your extended family that had contact with her, it taught you all something because our pets teach us about unconditional love. They teach us how to be in the moment. they teach us about forgiveness that we're talking about because they don't hold grudges and if she were here and she were talking she would say hey mom and dad you know why are you beating yourselves up.

Right. Just be present. Just remember all the moments that we've shared. Remember everything that we've done together. A period of sadness and a period of grieving is very normal, but that's not the same as guilt.

Right? if, let's say one of you passed and she stayed behind, and if you observed an animal whenever they've lost their owner, they're very sad, right? They feel the loss of the connection, but they don't feel guilty. And I know this sounds so facetious, but they don't understand guilt because it's not part of their makeup.

In terms of they're not thinking in that way. just animals work by instinct. They just are. They eat, they sleep, they accept these things passing, coming, going as natural parts of life.

Knowing that at some point it's going to happen. So as you're grieving and as you're moving forward and you are moving forward without her because when we lose something they take a piece of us with them. No doubt. Right? It's the piece of us that identified with the person or our pet. It's the same. The grieving process is the same.

Because now we have to restructure our lives without that person, without that pet in our life. Right? Because there's such integral parts of our life. And that's why the more you can focus on, even in the moments when you can, on the love, on the memories, and just know that there's no guilt. There's no way she would ever condemn you.

She would say, well, this was my time to go. And this is how I went. And I'll be over the rainbow on the other side and watching over you guys and hurry up because I want to see you again. You know, without realizing what that means. But, you know, if she could communicate, that's what she would be saying.

I thank you. can't tell you how Lisa's sitting on the couch, how much we needed to hear that because, you know, there is that slight, could I have done more? Why did she leave so quickly? And, you know, your words were wonderful, especially looking at, through her perspective, you know, what she would say to us, looking down on us. You know, that's silly that we feel this guilt and it's just, it's just so moving.

Well, no, it's not silly. It's a very normal response to Is it? yes, because you had a very abrupt leaving. In other words, when we have, there's a little bit of a trauma always associated when someone departs before what we deem is their time, or when we don't feel ready for it. It's not like someone had a long-term illness and you knew that there was a finality to their existence to some degree.

I mean, we all know there's a finality generically, but we don't dwell on that, right? And when someone is taken from us without us being prepared, whatever that means, we feel a bit of a trauma because our first thing is like, why wasn't I pay attention? Did I miss a sign? What didn't I see? What could I have said or done differently? Did I give her enough love? Did I take it for granted?

Right, did I give her enough love? Yes Did I do this? So, but you already know the answers to that. And just by the way that you describe her and you speak of her is an indication of how loved she was and what great owners you were. I mean, parents, family to her.

I gotta say this, know, I mean, and you mentioned it in this conversation that like I knew my mom and dad were gonna die, you know, separately, of course, but I knew it was coming. I knew they were sick and it was coming. And it may be so odd that I'm saying this, but the grief I feel for this lovely little animal was even deeper than that because I was more prepared for that. I was prepared for my mom and dad. I wasn't prepared for this. you know, I never chose to have children. We've never chose to have children of our own. And I swear to you, she was the closest thing to a daughter I could have.

Well, and it's also because, and a lot of people say that, and I've said it myself, when I've put two dogs down, and one I lost to car accident. the reason we cry so much more for our animals is because of the unconditional love. That we receive from them and how that opens and expands our own heart so that we learn to love unconditionally. And when we love truly unconditionally, it's such a pure emotion. And that's why the grief equates to that, to the unconditional love that we have felt. Not to say that we don't love our parents, but they're human beings where we have friction and conflict and all kinds of things. And we're conditioned that our parents, they love us, but they set boundaries. They have to nurture us and guide us and set boundaries and do all those things that we don't want them to do that we're rebelling against when we're growing up. It doesn't mean we don't love them, but the love as we grow up from, you know, children and infants to teens to young adults to adults and then our parents become older.

The relationship goes through many phases. Yes. Whereas with our animals, because they live between 10-15 years depending on your breed, that unconditional love is just a constant present. And you could, you know, scold your dog and say, you know, Don't jump in the water, whatever you don't want them to do that they didn't do. And they're just gonna come and lick you just the same five minutes later, right?

It's so true. And I think you hit on so many things, but the one thing is that unconditional love. mean, every time that you open the door, even left for 10 seconds and came right back, just the love they show you is just, it never ends.

And that Jay is the love that we have from home. And that is the love that we're missing on the planet still.

I'm sorry and I'm sorry to ask this, but when you say from home, what do you mean by that? From home.

Spiritual home. Okay.

Because if you think about the fact that we're spirit and origin, so when we return home to spirit, some people call it heaven, okay, you whatever your terminology is, this is a terminology I use, when we return to our spiritual home, we are one. There is, we don't have the vices and we, that unconditional love and that acceptance of everyone as they are is something that we have not mastered here as humanity yet. We're still struggling with that because unconditional love means that you know you're vulnerable, you're naked in front of the other person emotionally, you're exposed and here we're very conscious about our walls.

We have our human social conditioning from when we're young. We create our coping skills and on and on and on that we've talked about, you know, in other podcasts. So when we feel and we, that unconditional love touches us, it's unlike anything else. You're absolutely right. It's unlike anything else. It's about connection and bond. Yeah.

Well, Let me ask her that when we end all of this. So I want to say, you know, we're gonna wrap this episode up, which meant so much to me and Lisa. And I hope our time together was inspiring and motivating. Stay empowered and stay well. Is there any parting words you want to give us? Of course, the people that are listening and or what do you think?

Well, I just want everyone to realize how much power lies in self-forgiveness. And it's a power that we each have from within us. Nobody needs to give it to us. We have the ability to heal ourselves. And it's about making the choice to be brave, to have courage, and to just plunge in.

Thank you . Thank you jay. Thank you so much. You can watch this episode and all episodes on our website at choicesgifts.com. Now, of course, we just did this so to probably take a week or maybe two before you see this on our website. But, you know, Leda has done three others of these for us. And if you enjoyed this one, just go to the website, you know, choicesgifts.com. and click on it and you'll find her other three podcasts on there. So I want to thank you again and God bless you and we'll talk soon. Matter of fact, we're going to do our fifth session is going to be on grieving. So the next time we meet Leda, that's what we're going to talk about.  

Look forward to it. Me too. Fantastic. Stay with me though. I will.