Real Talk
On Real Talk, Carrie and Grace will help you get Inspired, find your direction, and navigate your goals until they become reality.
Real Talk
Moving Past Hurt: 3 Keys to Freedom from Offense
Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of offense, unable to move past hurtful words or actions? After our previous episode discussing the nature of offense, we realized we left you without practical solutions. Today, we're completing that conversation with three powerful strategies that have personally transformed our approach to handling offense.
The first strategy might surprise you: choose forgiveness whether or not the other person has asked for it. "Forgiveness is so freeing to us as individuals," Carrie explains. "If you love yourself, forgiveness is the first thing that should happen." We explore how forgiveness isn't about condoning actions but freeing yourself from emotional bondage. The second approach feels counterintuitive but incredibly liberating: what others think about you is none of your business. Grace shares a personal story about letting go of others' opinions and finding peace in not needing to defend her character. Our third strategy involves honest self-reflection: examining whether there's any truth in what offended you. Sometimes, the things that trigger us most contain kernels of truth that can lead to personal growth.
Underlying all these approaches is the fundamental understanding that our worth, acceptance, and validation should come from God, not other people. "All these voids that we're trying to fill can only be filled by God anyway," Grace reminds us. We discuss practical daily reminders, like affirmations and scripture cards, that help reinforce positive truths about our identity. These simple practices can transform how you respond to offense and criticism.
Ready to break free from the power that offense holds over you? Download our free PDF with all these tips at carrieandgrace.com, and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast to help others discover these transformative conversations. Your journey toward emotional freedom starts now!
✨Get Free Resources at: https://carrieandgrace.com/
Welcome to Real Talk. If you're looking to be inspired to find your direction or just need help navigating your goals until they become reality, you've come to the right place. So pull up a chair and get ready to buckle up for an up-close and personal ride with your hosts, keri and Grace.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody. This is Keri and this and Grace. Hello everybody.
Speaker 3:This is Keri and this is Grace. We're happy to be back with you guys today. Last week we talked about offense and we realized during the week that we kind of left you guys hanging. We just talked about being offended and went bye. We kind of left you guys hanging, we just talked about being offended and went bye. But today we're going to actually go over some things that help us overcome, get beyond that area of offense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we actually have three pretty solid things after us going you know, going through some stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I. One of the things that I do when I'm offended is I go straight to forgiving the person, whether or not they asked me for forgiveness. I am choosing every single time to forgive them. Forgiveness is so freeing to us as individuals, like if you love yourself, forgiveness is the first thing that should happen, and I believe that I am guilty of every single thing that somebody else has done to me to offend me. So if you look at it like I'm no different than that person is, I just need to forgive. It's going to be a lot easier for you to move on and not take it so personal.
Speaker 3:So forgiveness, I think that's that's really, really, really good one. But forgiveness, I think, is very confusing to a lot of people. They might say, well, I don't know how to forgive, well, it doesn't come with a manual. But I think people that say that have a tendency of not actually understanding what forgiveness is is. It's certainly not saying what you did to me is okay and I'm sure you guys have heard this before but it's not saying what that person did to me is absolutely fine, so I'm going to forgive them. Like you said, it's not something where someone has to come to you and say, oh my gosh, carrie, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. You're forgiving them on your own. And I think people just think, well, I can't do that, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's an absolute choice. It's a choice that you make, but not even for them, for you, for you, yeah, let God deal with them.
Speaker 3:Right yeah, no.
Speaker 2:And honestly it's such a great tip for me personally has really helped me to move forward after something.
Speaker 3:That's a hard one, but it's probably the best one For myself. This took me a while, but at one point in my life I realized what someone else thinks about me is none of my business and that doesn't seem to make sense. But honestly, think about it. What you might think about me, why do I mean I might care, right, but why do I care really what you think about me? Let's say it's something that's a blatant lie, and I've had this happen to me before where someone was saying actual some things about my character and I thought to myself I can't worry about that, that's really her problem. If that's what she thinks about me and you know what, that's okay, it's none of my business. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:I've never actually heard of that it's none of our business what people say about us. It's not it's true, though it's true Like, let let that be their thing, let let it not resonate with us.
Speaker 3:I'm going to push this a little bit further, because the same person at one point had come to me because she she wanted to see what. Basically she wanted to talk about some things. And at one point she said, well, why didn't you come to me? And I said, well, but why do I need to come to you? I said I'm okay with whatever I said, but I didn't feel like I needed to prove my character to you. My character should show in my integrity of how I do things. So to me it was a non-issue, but that other person seemed to be confused by it.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure but do you see?
Speaker 3:how it's not even on their radar or you know, and it's so big bottom line, who cares? What people think about you.
Speaker 2:Honestly no, that's so good. So that's that's tip two. I think the third one for me is the is there any truth to what was said? And I would absolutely say yes there is truth to it. There is absolute truth to it. If somebody said something and it messes you up, that means there's probably truth to it.
Speaker 3:It's very possible for sure. I mean it really is, unless it's some crazy bold faced lie. Obviously Right, but that is a great thing to think about. It's like if it did make you super mad. I wonder, why Is there maybe a little bit of truth in you know deep down, if you had to be honest are they truthful?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like an example when I was, when I was a little bit younger, maybe 10, even 10 years ago, I would be talking, and then, when somebody would be talking back, I would not even be listening. I would be wondering what I was going to say next. Okay, and so somebody said something like gosh, carrie doesn't listen. Well, guess what? No, I wasn't, cause I was too worried about what I was going to say next. I've learned through trial and error and through things that I've gone through just to be able to exactly.
Speaker 3:So there was truth to that.
Speaker 2:I wasn't listening Cause I was. How can I be right? What am I going to say next? I wasn't even. I didn't even know what they said. So it was actually true what they said. Not in all cases. Yeah, there's blatant lies, there's people that just can't stand you and whatever, but for the most part, I bet you we can learn something in that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you can turn it around and maybe just stop doing that and people will stop offending you by saying something that's actually true.
Speaker 3:But overall, whether it's like an offense or whether it's, don't you think that a lot of times in arguments or disagreements, that there's a reason why we get in a position where we feel this way, right, like I can't stand it when people are mad at me, or I can't stand it when so-and-so, like I think we're friends, or you know where's my friendship with her, like I feel very unaccepted by these people. It's interesting that all these emotions that we have which are fine to have, obviously we're human but I can't look at you and go, I don't know if she's accepting the way I am Like, does she even accept me as a person? Because my well-being should have nothing to do with whether or not you accept me. That is so true. The only person that can fill all these little like cylinders inside of us, let's say one that needs love, one that needs, you know, um trust, or or whatever fill in the blank fill in the blank all these little things that we have that are void inside of us.
Speaker 3:The only person, only thing, only way that that's going to get filled is by God. And God says, like there was a time way back where I was having issues and my husband and I this and that. And the pastor that I was talking to, he was like Grace, why are you talking about trusting your husband? And I was like aren't I supposed to trust my husband? And I mean surely I am. But his point was go through the Bible and he says show me one place where God says trust your husband. And of course, every single time there's like trust or trust someone, it's always trust God, trust me. And so all these voids that we're trying to fill, it can only be filled by God anyway.
Speaker 3:So, if we minded our own business or we learned something from a criticism that someone might have had, if we were being honest and if we really forgive people and we make sure that our acceptance and our assurance and our worth is from God, we really. I mean, how much more do we need to combat offense?
Speaker 2:You don't really need anything Dang. I know this is pretty easy.
Speaker 3:If you think about all of that, it's like what are you doing? Getting mad about what someone?
Speaker 2:said about you, who cares? Yeah, I think that's the answer. That's okay. So forget all the other tips, just go to God. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Well, seriously, and, but in a in a practical. Um, well, seriously, and, but in a in a practical way. I, my bathroom is awful because I have little note cards and things that I cause I need reminding every day and you can call it what you want. I mine is a lot of scripture, but a lot of the scripture are affirmations, so I have those things cause I need to be reminded first thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so replace that negative thing that came your way, that you heard, or whatever, and remind yourself every morning when you wake up look in the mirror. I am worthy, I am the king of the most high, I mean.
Speaker 1:I am the daughter of the most high not the king.
Speaker 2:He's the king, and just whatever it is you want to believe or you do believe, say it out loud, but only things that glorify and edify you through God's eyes, like the Bible. Don't go off of anything else. I think that's good. I think we covered it. If, for some reason, you're driving and you didn't get all of this, you guys can go to our website, kerryandgracecom, and you can download the PDF with all of these tips. Hope it helped. Hopefully we see you soon. Bye, guys, bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Real Talk Podcast. If we've inspired you today, please be sure to drop us a line or visit us on the web at wwwkerryandgracecom. Also, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show and we greatly appreciate it. Once again, thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.