Welcome to better today with your host Shawn Maguire and with over 25 years of counseling experience. This is the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City podcast. It inspires you to create both an amazing family and marriage. This is the podcast that helps you to navigate the challenges of modern life. In this podcast, you will be given the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City tools, techniques, and stories that Sean and his team have used to help thousands of people to transform their lives. If you’re ready to make real progress, that will change your marriage, your family, and your life. Then get ready because better today starts now.
Welcome back and I’m so glad you could join us again. This is how to heal the past, to embrace the future part three. Now, if you haven’t listened to the first two, I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to jump back in and do that when you’re done with this or even before, because today we’re talking about the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City letter of confrontation and we’re going to give this specific steps about how to write it, how to execute it, and what to do after it’s done. You know, in my own life, I know that forgiveness has played a crucial role to how I’ve lived life now. I don’t know that I learned a lot about forgiveness, how to practically apply it. I did grew up most of my life from six years on in us. Really Small Church and forgive us, was talked about God loves you. He forgave you and it, it was good, but it really wasn’t super practical because when I was angry at my mom or I was angry at friends or girlfriends or my teachers or whoever was in the flow of my life coaches, I didn’t have a navigatable practical way to apply forgiveness.
I just was told, well, Jesus forgave you. Now you just go and forgive them. That works great on Sunday mornings and in Sunday school and maybe Wednesday night if you’re Super Christian and you get to Wednesday night church. But for me it didn’t work as well and for a lot of the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City people I see at Edmund Marriage counseling, it didn’t work for them either. And that’s why they’re in my office because they’re hurt and they’re stuck in a past relationship or a past offense and they just can’t seem to move past it. Well, this letter of forgiveness is a really practical way to identify a specific person that has hurt you from your past and remember the steps is to identify if you’re going to give it to them, you’re going to ride it a certain way. You’re going to use tact. You’re going to consider their feelings, their reactions when you’re writing it because the only reason you would give a letter, let, well mostly the only reason you would give a letter like this is in most circumstances, not all that you would want reconciliation and so you’d write it in such a way that would lean towards reconciliation.
You would be honest, but not brutal. You’d be truthful, but with an intention to rebuild something that has been broken or even potentially destroyed. Now there is those really low percentage of situations or you give a letter to somebody that is just gut wrenchingly honest. You don’t want to write something that you would not be willing to have, but all of her Facebook because it stings. But that’s just the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City society we live in. So if you put it out there, you got to know it may find his way on the worldwide web. So in the one offs like the really, really like 0.05 or 0.5 percentage where you give it to somebody would be relationship where you just need for your own benefit. This is like a child on drugs or a parent that’s been abusive and you’re just, this is your last effort, but really it’s just you for your own conscience sake, saying all the things that need to be said and putting it out there so that maybe they’ll want to come back, but you’re doing it more for now because you believe they will because they’re their habits and their patterns of said they won’t.
But it’s because for you to sleep at night and for you to be clean and free, you want to say that you’ve done everything and believe that you’ve done everything towards reconciliation that would be healthy. Now for most other situations, you’re really not going to give this letter to the person because regrettably a lot of people are not available for reconciliation. I know it’s really sad, but I’ve seen so many people think the other person was and it just cost them even more in the relationship or even fractured to the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City point of being destroyed when they give the letter to him. So prayerfully consider that move. Will you give it to him or will you just read it to an empty chair where you read it to a friend? Like how are you going to do that? Because there’s lots of really productive and healing ways to do that.
If you’re not going to give it to the person, but we’re going to do this one. I’m going to do it as if this person that you’re giving it to is your spouse. So this, now I’m going to do this. Spouse, spouses, I it’s spouses from the time you meet them on, I’m going to do a parent because that’s from birth till now and for a lot of people that are listening that you guys can relate. That’s a lot more years. Now, for some of you it’s about the same. So let’s just do the thing. You’re going to do it to your dad. You’re going to write a letter of forgiveness or confrontation to your dad. Now this needs to be written unilaterally and he’d say, what do you mean by unilaterally? Well, I mean that it needs to be written in a loop that no matter what your dad’s response is, you’re going to be good because your faith is in God healing you.
Cause you know when you get forgiveness, you get forgiveness. When you get forgiveness, you get forgiveness. Maybe not from that person, but the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City Bible’s clear. If you don’t forgive your brother, when he sins against you, your heavenly father won’t forgive you. But when you do forgive them, he forgives you. You can go look that up, but I just want to say it needs to be a closed loop, a circle between you and God that you’re inviting them into. But even if they don’t respond in the way that you hope and pray, they will. You’re still going to be good because your faith again is above them. It’s in God. So that’s another thing. Decide what you’re going to do afterwards. Are you, you know, are you going to burn it? Are you going to shred it or are you going to bury it? What are you going to do with it?
And then think about how you will celebrate. You said what? Yeah, you need to have some kind of a ceremony of a memorial to commemorate this transition, this big deal. Now for a dad, that’s a really big deal. He’s one of the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City most important people in your life. At least that’s the way God designed it. Whether he was or not is unique to each of our lives, but that’s the way God designed it. So if he wasn’t and you’re running this letter, or even if he was, but there was some big mistakes, this is your chance to really memorialize, let it go, give it to God, make an effort to reconcile and then go to celebrate some things, some things that I mean by that are one, going to dinner as a way to celebrate. But it’s not a way to memorialize it memorializing it is buying a charm, buying a ring.
Uh, I don’t suggest this, but without my recommendation. Lots of clients have gotten tattoos to represent their freedom. Again, not my recommendation, but no judgment from me and others have done pictures, really nice pictures and framed them with scriptures. Others have just done the scriptures and there’s all kinds of ways to represent freedom to you. And it would be unique necklaces. Uh, some guy had got a shark tooth necklace. It was pretty cool and it just means it needs to mean something to you and what God has done in doing in your life. So that’s all in advance of what you’re going to do. I strongly recommend as in unless there’s a great reason not to, you need to have a friend with you during this process. I like to, especially if it’s a parent and a bigger deal for it to be done in therapy.
I have just seen a lot of things go sideways and then me or another therapist being able to be there, especially in Edmund Marriage counseling that we were able to come in and coach, consult, comfort and then practically give you steps to take to deal with whatever’s coming up because when you do these letters, a lot of emotion comes up and I really go into the details of what to do before and what might happen in the process in part two of this series, but I really just want to encourage you to have somebody else there now, little issues with like a friend that wasn’t a big deal. You don’t necessarily need to take to this degree, but for sure on the parent and the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City dad like we’re talking about now, you’re going to want to do something like this and they’re there for support. They’re there to encourage you and then your friend or your family member that’s with you is there as well, to just be present and to encourage and just to be prayerfully, quietly there in a loving way.
So thing about running a letter and I want you to go through, you can do this lots of ways, but something that I find helpful is start when you’re young and just in your mind, go back and think of the different areas of life, you know, zero to five five to six to 10 11 to 11 to 13 and then 1418 and then you know, however you want to do it, you could do 10 to 18 you can do one to 10 10 18 however you want to do it. But in these different series and sections of life, I’m going to give you some questions to ask and they’ll just get you stimulated and thinking about what you need to talk about. And again, this is just a framework. I want you to be unique and create your own based off of this. So what angers and what resentments do you have?
So for example, a starting would be, I’m angry that I hate it when I resent you for I resent this. I’m fed up with, I can’t stand. It irritates me when you did. The second one is thinking about hurts. What hurts our there that you’re trying to get over. It hurt me when I was devastated, when I felt sad, when I felt like you took advantage of me. When I felt disappointed, I felt abandoned when then the next one is fears and it’s, I was afraid that I was scared that you would leave. I was afraid when I’m afraid that I will never measure up. I’m afraid that I’ll never be good enough for anyone because I wasn’t good enough for you dad. Fourth is think about things that you regret, things that you are sorry for in your own life because this is, and this is just you being transparent and this is really related to the first podcast.
We went over this briefly. I’m sorry that please forgive me for, I’m sorry for, I didn’t mean to and just things that you are taking ownership fro for and then move into the wants. What you want. This is the reconciliation and Bart. So all I ever wanted was to have a relationship with you. Dad. I want you to love me. I wanted us to be best friends. I deserve a relationship with you and I want to move forward in that. The Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City last one is a six. Think about ways to love. She’ll compassion, forgiveness, appreciation. So this is you giving that. I understand that you had a tough challenge and I appreciate that you were there for me at my games. I love you for providing for my family. I forgive you for not being, um, there in saying you love me in for the things that you did and thank you for coming today and thank you for loving my mom.
Whatever the things that you can highlight that are good, try to incorporate those in there and then be really clear about what you want today. That I want a relationship where we forgive each other and we’re able to talk about our feelings and not live out of the past hurts, but move into future benefits, future joy’s future hopes, future dreams. And that’s what I want. That that’s where I want to move to. I want and then leave the floor open to have some discussion and you might have it in the counselor’s office partially for sure, for sure, for sure. But I always have people plan on going out to lunch afterwards or dinner depending on the time of the appointment and our Edmund Marriage counseling and they go out to dinner and they process and usually it’s just with that one person, unless it’s a different situation than it might be with a few different people.
Um, especially if it’s a child or somebody young than it’s usually, well it just depends on the situation, but most of the time it really is just one on one so they can connect and go. The only time I would say probably don’t do that is if there was an abuse situation that occur that you’re forgiving this person for, then the rules change in this regard. If you’re trying to reconcile, then the rules are still changed. Maybe there’ll be different moving forward because the situation is different. The person may have been saved and accepted Christ, but moving forward you really want to be clear on having something to pro someplace that process it, even outside the counselor’s office so that you guys can continue to build and go deeper on the things that you said that you want. It’s also gives them the space to share what they would like in the relationship.
And again, I went over a lot of the details of preparation and some things that I didn’t talk about in this podcast. So there’s a lot of value of listening to the one before this and the one before that as well. So think about all the different ways this could be good. One of them is avoid defending your position if the person’s not available, if they start to be critical that they start to attack you in a therapy office, good therapists like our New Vision counseling team will stop them. They’ll interject and they’ll redirect to the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City positive side of what needs to happen to create reconciliation when it’s available now, no matter what they do refuse to get into arguing match about how wrong they were, how your dad didn’t love you, how he wasn’t there for you, how it was great to have money, but you’d rather have him.
Don’t argue with them. Because what I’ve learned, and I think I continue to have to learn, is that people will only do what they want to do and they’ll, they’ll do some of what they don’t want to do for a short time under pressure, different levels of pressure create different opportunities. But at some point they’re going to go back to the baseline of what they really believe and what they really want. And that’s where you’re doing this as a closed loop because your faith and your focus is on God, not on the person that you’re able to get to a place where you’ve let it go and you’ve been invited God into the space to heal you. And then you can be okay even though they’re not okay. Even though the reconciliation didn’t happen the way you hoped it would, you’re still okay and got silicon out for you and taking care of you in a loving way.
So I hope this was amazingly helpful. You may feel like Sean, but you don’t know my story. And you’re right. And there’s a, there’s those of you listening right now that have enjoyed this podcast, sir. All three of them and you’ve thought this is great but I need more. I’ve got great news. This is not counseling, but we do have a team of trained counselors that Mary Biblical principles to cutting edge counting techniques and they join you in your story. They don’t just sit on the couch and take notes. They actually jump in the story with you talking about ways to change your life today. Now all you have to do if that’s you is reach out, go to New Vision counseling.live nuvision, counseling dot Liv, Liv and contact us through email, through text and through phone. Phone is probably the fastest way to get in touch with one of our therapists and they would love the opportunity to serve you.
Think about it. Each team member I’ve brought on to our team and and trained and mentor to love people, care about people. The Way Jesus does, 30 to 90 lives eternally changed every week. And I, my prayer is that there are those of you listening that that’s you and you know that it’s you and you’re going to call in and we’re going to set something up and you’re going to start the process of changing your life, getting free in the past so you can embrace the Best Premarital Counseling Oklahoma City future God has created to be amazing for you. Thank you so much for listening. It would mean a lot to me if you’d go to New Vision counseling and rate us on the web. That’s how people find out about us. Do a Google review that this has been helpful. Really appreciate that and I hope that you create an amazing day here in Oklahoma. It is amazingly beautiful today. It’s sunny in the 70s can’t ask for much more than that. So even when it’s not something on the outside because you’re Christians, you can let the light of God shines from the inside out. God bless and I’ll look forward to talking with you again really soon.