Breaking Free from Unforgiveness: How Bitterness Affects Your Health & Future (Episode 88)

James Divine transforms his painful past into hope for listeners in this powerful exploration of forgiveness after childhood sexual abuse. As a middle school teacher, musician, and author, James brings unique perspective to the difficult journey of healing from severe trauma.

Starting with his own story of abuse from ages 6-9, James reveals how his path to forgiveness began at 16 when he realized the hatred consuming him was destroying his own life. Far from a single decision, he describes forgiveness as "step one on a thousand-mile journey" that he's still walking at 58. This raw honesty about the ongoing nature of healing provides realistic hope for listeners carrying similar burdens.

The conversation delves into how unforgiveness damages every aspect of our lives - from our finances and physical health to our relationships and sense of self-worth. James uses vivid metaphors, comparing unforgiveness to both acid eating through skin and cancer growing within, to illustrate its destructive power. These visceral images highlight the urgency of addressing harbored resentment and bitterness.

James clarifies crucial misconceptions about forgiveness. He emphasizes that forgiving someone doesn't mean excusing their actions or reconciling with them. This distinction proves especially important for abuse survivors who often fear that forgiveness means minimizing what happened or returning to dangerous relationships. Instead, he frames forgiveness as a choice we make for our own freedom - one we may need to make repeatedly as new memories surface.

The episode concludes with information about James' free "Forgive and Live Workshop" course and his book "Sad Boy, Joyful Man," providing practical resources for listeners ready to begin their own healing journey. Whether you're carrying decades of pain or helping a young person navigate trauma, this episode offers both compassionate understanding and actionable guidance toward freedom.

For the free course James Divine offers, please click below.

https://www.jamesdivine.net/products/

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet James: Author and Survivor
• 7:55 How Unforgiveness Affects Our Lives
• 13:07 What Forgiveness Is and Isn't
• 21:56 Learning from Experience Across Generations
• 27:00 The Forgive and Live Workshop
• 31:50 Mind Shifting Moment: Choose Freedom

Transcript

Fatima Bey: 0:01

Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast, the only international podcast focused on teens, connecting young voices and perspectives from around the world. Get ready to explore the issues that matter to today's youth and shape tomorrow's world. I'm your host, fatima Bey the MindShifter, and welcome everyone. Today we have with us a returned guest, james Devine. He is out of Colorado. He is a speaker, middle school teacher, musician and podcaster. Today we're here because he's also an author and we're going to talk about forgiveness. So how are you doing today, james?

James Divine: 0:41

I'm doing well. Thank you for having me on.

Fatima Bey: 0:43

Thank you for coming on again. So, as you know, I like to dive right in. So tell us, why are you here today?

James Divine: 0:55

I am here today because I want to share a little bit about my journey.

James Divine: 0:57

So the quick nutshell of it is from the ages of six to about nine, I was molested by a friend of the family Molested is actually too nice of a word. I was raped by him repeatedly over course of those several years and then he moved away and I thought, okay, now the healing starts. I was just a little kid, I didn't tell anybody about it, but what I found was that this hatred grew within me until by the time I was 16, I wanted to kill him and I also realized because my faith was important to me, that I needed to forgive him and but I didn't know how to do that. So I did finally, at the age of 16, take that first step of forgiveness and that began my healing journey at that point. But really that decision to forgive is really just a first step. So over the years I've kind of developed through talking to people and through my own journey. I ended up finally developing a course that takes people through the many steps that I've taken throughout my life to forgive.

Fatima Bey: 1:53

I think it's really awesome that you are taking your pain and turning it into someone else's treasure. That is a beautiful thing that I respect a lot. Tell us, why do we need to forgive?

James Divine: 2:05

You know, if we don't forgive, you can see how it affected me emotionally, with where I wanted to kill this guy, and I'm actually thankful he moved away, because I think I could have accomplished that if the abuse had continued and I had access to him. And where would my life be now if I had done that? I'd be in jail, probably, I wouldn't have got to marry my wife, I wouldn't have four beautiful kids. Grandbaby number 11 is on the way now. So the reason we need to forgive is because unforgiveness affects us emotionally, financially, believe it or not, physically and spiritually and I'll talk about maybe one of the physical things a little bit later but it can affect every aspect of our lives.

Fatima Bey: 2:48

How can it affect us financially? Explain that.

James Divine: 2:50

So for me, I really struggled with my worth for many years. And so if someone said so, I'm a musician, for example, and if someone said, well, you want to come play for us and we'll pay you 20 bucks, there was a time I used to say yes, and I would kind of resent it because it's like I just played for three hours for 20 bucks, but that's probably all I'm worth. I didn't say this out loud, but it was what was in my brain, and so that's when I was younger it affected me.

James Divine: 3:18

My mom was the same way. She went through a lot of the same abuse and in the 80s minimum wage was $5 an hour and my mom was really great at cleaning and she worked for this restaurant that seated you could seat like 70 people, if you just kind of picture that in your head but she could clean it in an hour and so the guy paid her $5. She clocked in and cleaned it and she worked really fast but she thought, well, that's all I'm worth.

James Divine: 3:45

And I remember telling her at one point I said, mom, someone who had a cleaning business, they would at that time I mean prices are higher now, but at the time they would have said $50, $75 to clean this restaurant. She was doing it for five. So we just value ourselves less because we think of ourselves less when we are still struggling with that unforgiveness.

Fatima Bey: 4:08

That's pretty deep and you're right. You're absolutely right. When we value ourselves as less, it affects our finances, it affects entrepreneurship, it affects whether or not we go to college. You know, pursue. It affects what we pursue, basically, and also what we accept, which is why many, many, many, many, many many youth who are sexually assaulted when they're younger, or regularly molested, end up being promiscuous or do, or end up with people that abuse them in different ways. It all boils down to self-worth, and that's not the only aspect of anything, but that's a big part of it. So you're absolutely right, most people wouldn't think about how it affects them financially. So what did you say with the other areas?

James Divine: 4:56

There's financing and Spiritually, physically, financially, emotionally, basically every area of our lives in some way it affects it differently.

Fatima Bey: 5:07

So can you break down why that's true and how that's true?

James Divine: 5:11

I think the self-esteem aspect of it is probably the biggest thing. The shame that is a big part of it too. It just knocks us on the ground and we just don't think we're worth it. And then when you internalize things so maybe I'll step through each of these things If you internalize unforgiveness and you have hatred towards someone, it affects your physical body, your physical health and hold you back.

James Divine: 5:38

It holds you back in every area, just like what you were saying with with whether you go to college, or what college you think you could go to, or what career you can, you can aspire to, even how you present yourself when you're meeting other people and going for interviews. I've been on interview committees before and you have someone come in and they're like you know, I just I hope I get this job and and you feel sorry for them. But you wonder, like what have they been through? Because they're not coming in with confidence. Then you have people who come in with arrogance too, and that's bad as well, but you can see the people who've been hurt.

Fatima Bey: 6:17

So when it comes to unforgiveness now in your case, it was sexual molestation, correct. Now in your case, it was sexual molestation Correct Repeated, continuous sexual molestation that was the root of your anger, that you needed to release and let go of. But does it have the same effect if you're unforgiving of someone who? Unforgiving of your father who used to beat your mother, for example?

James Divine: 6:42

I think it could be the same and that's also part of my story. My father was abusive to my mom and I think that actually contributed to me being more easily molested by this guy, because I already started with low self-esteem.

James Divine: 6:58

So those things can keep going on and, as you know that we see, we see young people who continue to almost like they're drawn to abusive people, but it's it's to try to satisfy some kind of need and I'm not putting any blame. Please don't anyone think that the blame is on the young person. It took me a long time to realize. I was a little boy.

James Divine: 7:22

I had no control over how this adult was acting in my life. He was the one 100% guilty, but when I was younger I felt like it was my fault and I felt a lot of shame with what had happened and thought that it was due to me have effects that continue on to um. For, for example, if someone had a father in their home who was abusive, then they may go on and be married to someone who abuses them and they think that's okay because then, my sister went through that.

Fatima Bey: 7:56

She went.

James Divine: 7:56

We were so surprised when she she finally left her husband and she told us about the abuse and we were thinking, why didn't you tell us? And she said she felt like she deserved it. And we were like, no, you're not, you're a child of God, you don't deserve any of that. But that's what she felt like because she had seen it in my father.

Fatima Bey: 8:16

And you are. You hit the nail on the head when you said that. I mean, I seem to come on this subject a lot here, you know, on this podcast, because it's so relevant to humans. But it's more. To me it's important that this message gets across to the youth because they can stop some messed up stuff that us adults are still dealing with, if they deal with it now. So when it comes to unforgiveness, take us through. So you have a course and your course is about unforgiveness. Can you tell us a little bit about that course and what it's called?

James Divine: 8:52

Sure, it's just called. Forgive and Live Workshop is what the course is called, and it takes people through a lot of the same steps that I've been through myself, and I'm just going to cover a couple of them, of the same steps that I've been through myself, and I'm just going to cover a couple of them. For example, sometimes people think, oh, I forgave, so now everything's good. That's how my mom looked at things. My mom stayed with my father, probably too long, and she just accepted it. Well, I forgive him. I forgive him, and then he would be abusive again. Well, I forgive him, okay. Well, now further consequences need to be taken. Even when I told my mom at age 16 about the abuse that had happened to me, she still had a way to be in touch with, to have the police find this man, but she gave up too easily and I had to actually forgive my mom. So one of the things that I talk about is forgiveness does not mean excusing someone.

James Divine: 9:49

For example forgiveness does not mean excusing someone, and so what I mean by that is forgiveness. So, for example, the man who abused me his name is George I can forgive him and still pursue all the criminal penalties he deserved. Unfortunately, I didn't do that this was so long ago and plus I kind of went with what my mom was doing, and he's probably passed now. So you can forgive someone and have them face the consequences of what they've done. So, for example, if someone murdered someone in your family, they should go to jail. Even if you forgive them, even if they receive 100% forgiveness, they still need to be in jail for what they did.

James Divine: 10:35

If someone abuses a kid, they still need to be in jail. We can all forgive them, but it doesn't mean we excuse them and pass it off. I mean the small things in life we are going to. So if someone snubbed us and it made us feel bad, that's something we need to forgive and move forward from. But if someone did something where they deserve some kind of punishment through the criminal system, then that's something that we should do.

Fatima Bey: 11:02

Absolutely. Forgiveness does not mean that you forget or that there shouldn't be any consequences, because if there's no consequences, what are we doing? Right?

James Divine: 11:10

And forgiveness. Here's another important one from the course. Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. So you know, as we have siblings and we have friends, sometimes we have disagreements with them and you always want to try to reconcile with those small things and become friends again.

Fatima Bey: 11:29

What does reconcile mean?

James Divine: 11:30

So reconcile is when the relationship is restored to what it was before.

Fatima Bey: 11:36

So you're saying, just because we forgive them, we don't necessarily have to restore a relationship?

James Divine: 11:39

Correct. Correct Especially when the offense is so grievous that like molesting a child or spousal abuse. So if you had a spouse, for example, who abused you, you could forgive them. They could face the consequences in jail for what they did. But it doesn't mean when they get out of jail that you have to remain married. That would be reconciliation. Sometimes that happens, but in many cases it's not.

James Divine: 12:07

In the the example I like to give is around 2005 or whenever it was that Facebook started becoming a thing. Um, I connected with the daughter of the man who had abused me and and we hadn't seen her in 20, 25 years. So I noticed in her friends list that her dad was in there. It looked like he was sitting in a halfway house type of place and all of a sudden, all these things that for years I hadn't even thought about him hadn't given him any consideration. I thought, well, what if he sees that I'm friends with his daughter? What if he asked me to be a Facebook friend? What if he showed up at my door and said hey, you know, I, I I just want to tell you I'm sorry for what I did. None of those things ended up happening, but I started going through it in my head.

James Divine: 12:57

And it's like if he should, first of all the Facebook friend. That would have been easy. I would have denied it. That never happened, though, but if he showed up at my door I would say I forgive you now get the hell off my porch, I don't need to be reconciled to him.

Fatima Bey: 13:14

Right, no, you're that's. That's a good example. So what does forgiveness actually mean then?

James Divine: 13:19

Forgiveness means we we are putting what happened to us in the past. We're doing our best to not let it affect us today, and sometimes we have to make that decision to forgive again and again, and again, because different things come up in different points of our lives. So the example for me at the age of 16, I decided to forgive George, and that was step one on a 1000 mile journey of healing that now, at age 58, I'm still on that journey, but now I'm on about mile 997. So it's like I could see the end now. But when I took that first step, I couldn't see the end. And as different things happened in my life, different remembrances came up that I had to forgive again for. And what I mean is like when my firstborn son, when he turned five. I'm looking at this five-year-old boy and thinking how could someone abuse a five-year-old boy? He's small, he's just a kid, and so it brought back all these feelings and thoughts and I had to forgive again. And then, when I was an adult and I realized my mom did not do all the things that she could have, I had to actually forgive my mom because I think that she could have prevented some of this from happening, like she didn't listen to me, and I'll get. I'll give you a clear example of that.

James Divine: 14:45

The very last time that George abused me, he showed up at our church. I hadn't seen him for about six months. He showed up at our church and he was asking my mom People used to call me Jimmy when I was a kid. He asked my mom hey, can Jimmy come over to my place today and I'll bring him back tonight? And um, I was saying no, no, no, I don't want to go. And my mom was, um, like, encouraged me. She's like oh, come on, jimmy, go ahead and go, you'll have a good time. And, um, and he'll bring you back tonight. And I didn't really want to go, but George whispered in my ear and he's like oh, don't worry, nothing will happen. Well, something happened, and that was the last time, cause he moved away after that, but I had to actually forgive my mom for that but, I didn't realize it.

James Divine: 15:33

I didn't realize it as the eight year old boy, but I realized it as, like the 38 year old man. It's like why didn't, why did my mom do that? A 38 year old man, it's like why didn't, why did my mom do that? And I was crying over it. And even now I can feel the emotion coming up. Sorry, I can feel some of that emotion coming up, anger at my mom for pushing me towards that that day. I mean, she didn't know so, but I still had to forgive her because she wasn't listening to her little boy saying no, no, I don't want to go.

Fatima Bey: 16:01

Yeah, yeah and I've said this on episodes before, but I'm going to say it again For parents who are out there listening sometimes children are just acting up because they don't want to go to the house where they don't get lollipops. Sometimes that's the case, but when your child is adamantly seriously objecting going with or being near someone, there's always a reason and you really should look into that.

James Divine: 16:28

Yes, yes, there was one church we had attended and we only had gone there one time, and when we went to go the second time and we brought my daughter to the nursery, she started like fighting us. She was like about three years old. She started crying and fighting us and this wasn't usual behavior for her. She wasn't usually afraid to go to some place like that, and so we ended up not going there and we couldn't pinpoint whether any I mean it could have been something like a kid slapped her, you know who another three-year-old or three-year-old bumped into her, but we didn't want to take any chances, so we never went back to that.

Fatima Bey: 17:08

And that's a good idea, because there's always clues. Sometimes we don't know what we're looking at, but that's something that for anyone listening right now, you don't have to be a parent. You could be just a parent adjacent listening right now, you don't have to be a parent, you could be just a parent adjacent. You can just have kids around you, that you see. If a child is looking that fearful of going with or near someone, there's always a reason, and it's not always sexual molestation, but it can be something just as bad. You should always investigate. We have to pay attention to our kids and their responses. So, with forgiveness, tell us, you have this course. What else is in this course? Well, first of all, let me ask you this this podcast is focused on teens and anything that has to do with them in the future. You're 58 years old, you're an old man. Why are you on here talking to teens? The future.

James Divine: 18:03

You 58 years old, you old man, why are you on here? Well, I've been where you're at. So I, when I tell even my students that I teach, I still teach middle school students, and then I have some private lesson students all the way from like third grade up to high school. So I get a lot, and my grandkids go from 13 down to one. My oldest is 13 years old. So what I tell students all the time? I tell them I've been where you're at, so I've been your age, I've been through some of the same things, but you haven't been my age yet.

James Divine: 18:36

So we can we can learn from the people who are older than us. In fact, one of the things I think that saved me besides my faith and starting that forgiveness journey is I always found for me, I always had an emptiness. I felt like I needed an older man in my life.

James Divine: 18:56

And I found some great mentors throughout the years that didn't do abusive things to me and poured into my life and so many times when someone's been on a journey, we can either learn the hard way. I felt like I had to learn the hard way, and I'll tell you about my mom. My mom was against counseling. I think my journey could have been faster if I had gotten counseling but she was totally against it.

James Divine: 19:24

So I had to learn a lot of these things the hard way. So why learn the hard way? And it wasn't until I was 50 years old that I really felt like I was who I was meant to be and finally got there. But it could have happened a lot sooner, and so I'm hoping that with this course, people can start their own journey and get to mile 997 sooner than I did, because if you got some speed behind you, it's going to be faster. I felt like my journey was a crawl and a walk for that, for that duration, but we we the times do change, because I had a one of the great things about working with middle schoolers they always have great comebacks for you. There's never a day that is uninteresting, I love working with middle school students.

James Divine: 20:12

And so one of them said when I said about, I said well, I've been your age, but you've never been my age. He came back with, yeah, but you've never been my age in this year and I was like, okay, you have a point. But the temptations were similar, sometimes different. So we didn't have a phone we could carry with us all the time. But the phone was a big deal between my mom and me if she thought I was spending too much on the landline phone, so things are just different. Me if she thought I was spending too much on the landline phone, so things are just different.

James Divine: 20:45

Now we have 20 different kinds of media, but when I was a kid it was you could end up watching too much TV if you weren't careful. I do have to say the advantage that that I had as a kid. That is more difficult today. I was bullied. In middle school, at least when I went home, I had about 12 hours of relief from bullying. Now, in this day and age, with cell phones and social media, I think the bullying never stops.

Fatima Bey: 21:13

And so.

James Divine: 21:13

I feel bad for the young people who are being bullied, who never get a break from it, because then it continues on with the social media. That that is one thing, that's different. But I've been your age and you've never been my age.

Fatima Bey: 21:28

I like that. I like that response. You've never been my age, but, yes, my. My point in you know, asking that in a humorous way is this is relevant to all of us. It doesn't matter what your age is. To all of us, it doesn't matter what your age is, it doesn't matter if you're 12 or 58 or 82. The unforgiveness still hurts us. It is like acid to our souls. If you put certain kinds of acid on your skin, it will eat through your skin and eventually it can kill you because it eats through your skin. Unforgiveness is acid to our souls and it hurts us because now we're running around with this sore, this burning within us, when we could be free to do other things and grow instead, but we're holding on to this unforgiveness and unforgiveness, as you know, turns into bitterness eventually. Unforgiveness starts off as unforgiveness, but it branches off into other things as it grows, its roots deeper and deeper into our souls, right.

James Divine: 22:31

Right, right, right, right. I had a professor in my. I went back for my master's degree when I was a little bit older and I had a professor who he was the nicest guy but he hated doctors. He was probably in his mid sixties, early sixties, still fairly young, but he got sick and for about two weeks he missed work. And they said he never missed work Like but, and so all his coworkers were like you need to go see the doctor and it turned out he had cancer all throughout his body. So when he finally did go see the doctor, he only had about two weeks left and then he passed away and very quickly and very suddenly. And so that that um, I like the example of the acid um, but I also think of it as a cancer too.

James Divine: 23:17

If we let that bitterness grow.

James Divine: 23:19

it might look on the outside like everything's fine it looks like we're doing okay, but that cancer is on the inside, eating us away and it's going to kill us if we're not careful. My mom was the most guilty about not forgiving. She just kind of pulled her bootstraps up. She raised her kids, she made it through life. She was a single mom Most of the time I was growing up after after she did finally leave my dad and and then she never got help. Because she's like I. Just all I need is God and there's a grain of truth in that. But God put us with other people, because other people can help us. It's sort of like when I'm teaching kids music, some of them will say well, I can just look on YouTube and learn some things, yeah, but having a teacher right next to you?

James Divine: 24:06

teaching you some things is important as well. And so my mom. Here I am, I'm 58. I try to move about eight miles a day, either walking or running. I lift weights, I hike, I'm out and active and I feel like I'm in the best health of my life.

James Divine: 24:25

When my mom was in her early fifties, she already was acting like an old lady because this bitterness just was consuming her and she would sit in her apartment and pretty much do nothing all day.

James Divine: 24:40

And if you tried to get her, even if you like, she moved out close to us at one point and we would say hey, mom, we're going to lunch, you want to join us? No, I don't like that food. Say, hey, mom, we're going to lunch, um, you want to join us? No, I don't like that food. Um, and so she just was like, had this life that she um made? That was very kind of boring, uh, but she didn't really involve herself with other people and surprisingly, she lived to be 77, um, which we were all surprised about because we didn't think she would make it to 60 because her health was so poor all the time from her early fifties. And I think what happened in my opinion, that unforgiveness and bitterness within her grew like a cancer and just she had pains all over her body and I believe it was from this unforgiveness that it was happening to her.

Fatima Bey: 25:31

You are a thousand percent right. Unforgiveness has physical effects on us and that bitterness has physical effects on us. It hurts our legs, it makes our heart work harder. It does things to just so many different parts. I'm not a doctor, but I think y'all get the point. It really has physical effects. So when people how long does this course take? That you have.

James Divine: 25:54

I think it's really. It's really self-paced. I never really thought about how long it would take, but there's probably about 12 lessons and they're all fairly short, so someone could probably be done with the whole course in about two hours. But the best thing is probably to do one lesson at a time and give it a couple of days to sink in. Or they could do it in two hours and then go back and and repeat some of the lessons to really do do some deep work. It comes with video instruction and then there's also a PDF that you can download that some people find healing by doing some writing. So I think there's some prompts to do some writing. Some people don't like doing that and that that's okay. Use it whatever way works best for you.

Fatima Bey: 26:39

Can you give us an example of one of the steps that's in the book or in the course? Rather Sorry.

James Divine: 26:44

So one of the the one of the steps is going to be to actually decide that you're going to forgive and once you make that decision, that's usually the first step, but then the other steps just talk about. Some of the false assumptions are about forgiveness and what to do when you encounter different things and definitely encouraging people to seek out counseling as well, depending on what the forgiveness that you're trying to seek involves. But I have like six or eight of the things where it talks about forgiveness is not like we talked about earlier. Forgiveness is not excusing, Forgiveness is not reconciliation. I think those are a lot of misconceptions that people have.

Fatima Bey: 27:40

One of the other biggest misconceptions we haven't mentioned yet is is forgiveness a feeling? Do you need to feel it first?

James Divine: 27:48

No, no feeling. Do you need to feel it first? No, no, we're the are one of the. The drawbacks of our modern society is we've gone too much to the feelings. We we tend to swing back and forth. If you look at the world war ii generation, they were not about feelings at all and that was. That was too far on one side. And now everything is about feelings today for many people.

James Divine: 28:12

And somewhere in the middle is the right response. But if we wait till we feel forgiveness, we're not going to do it. We have to make the decision and we have to, and it's not oftentimes it's not a one and done it's, I need to forgive. And then the thoughts come back, or anger comes back, or the, the murderous thoughts, like I had come back and it's like no, I already forgave, that. I'm not going to follow my feelings in this, because it's not the. Our feelings are good, they're given to us by god, but they're not. We can't use that as our soul rationale. We want to use the rational side of our brain and the feeling side of our brain and have them come together in the in the middle.

Fatima Bey: 28:55

Right, it's a decision first and the feelings will follow.

James Divine: 28:58

Yeah.

Fatima Bey: 28:59

And not the other way around?

James Divine: 29:00

Right, right, and it's sort of like with the. This is maybe a silly example, but like I don't particularly enjoy exercising, so if I waited until I felt like exercising I would never do it. I just make it my habit. I'm going to go do it because I know it will make me feel better later the. To go back to the cancer example too if you were to go to the doctor today and you found out you had massive cancer throughout your body and he's like we're scheduling you for surgery tomorrow, there's going to be pain involved because that cancer has grown.

James Divine: 29:32

And when they're cutting out that cancer and stitching you back up. There's going to be pain involved, but the reason why people go through that pain is because they know on the other side their body is going to be more healthy, and so even spiritually it can be that way. If we've let a cancer grow in us, it's going to be painful when it gets cut out and removed, but then the healing is going to begin and we'll get better as that wound improves.

Fatima Bey: 30:00

I think that those are both really excellent analogies and I do think the exercise was a good analogy too. I love the cancer analogy because I think that's something all of us can really relate to and really kind of get the concept, and you're a hundred percent right on that. So how can people find this course and how much is it?

James Divine: 30:21

So it's absolutely free, and I know you're going to put a link in your show notes, but people can also go to jamesdivinenet and you'll find it there in the store, as well as a story, a book about my journey called Sad Boy, joyful man, and that book also is absolutely free on that page.

Fatima Bey: 30:43

So for all of you listening right now, audience, I don't care what your age is. If you know that you need to forgive someone for something heinous that was done to you or done to a loved one, you know that you need to forgive and you know that what we're saying is true. You just don't know how to do it. That's what this is for. So James has taken the time to put together something for you to just to guide you in that process.

Fatima Bey: 31:08

The book isn't not the book. The course is not going to do it for you you still have to do it yourself but it's just to guide you so that you can arrive at the freedom of getting over it instead of staying under it. Yep, yes, Well, James, thank you so much for coming on again today. I've been wanting to talk about this topic for a while, so I'm glad that we can do more than just talk about the topic, but we can actually offer them something that they can put in their hands to actually solve it. So I thank you again for creating that and coming on here again today.

James Divine: 31:44

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Fatima Bey: 31:46

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And now for a mind shifting moment, I want to go back and emphasize something that was said earlier in the episode Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. It's so easy to stick on to those feelings, to hold on to those feelings of anger, of hurt, and they are. Those feelings are legitimate. However, it is a choice to let them go. Forgiveness is not a feeling, it's a choice. The feelings will follow the choice and, as he said earlier, it's a daily choice. It's multiple choices, one step at a time. It's a choice. When you let go, you're choosing to not embitter yourself, you're choosing not to let the cancer run through you. So make a choice. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe to MindShift Power Podcast on any of our worldwide platforms so you too can be a part of the conversation that's changing young lives everywhere. And always remember there's power in shifting your thinking.