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Segment 1: Move Out of Denial. On this edition of The Doug Noll Show we are speaking with Brenda Adelman: actor, life coach and forgiveness expert. Brenda grew up in Brooklyn in a close-knit family, but in 1995 her father shot and killed her mother and then married her mother’s sister before going on trial. Her father never took responsibility for the murder. Brenda believes some of the triggers were his unhappy marriage to her mother, an inability to handle emotions, the fact that divorce is expensive, and perhaps an undiagnosed mental illness. Her father, who has now passed, got out of prison in 2 years for good behavior. As Brenda was studying for her master’s degree in spiritual psychology she had a huge breakthrough while learning about healthy boundaries. She then decided to take her dad to court for wrongful death, and ultimately won a large settlement. She finally started to heal when she moved out of denial.

Segment 2: Forgiving, Not Forgetting. Brenda tells us that when she couldn’t find compassion with father she couldn’t forgive him, and when she couldn’t forgive him she closed her heart to him, and when she closed her heart to him she closed her heart to everyone else, including herself. She finally began to be cognizant of the effect her actions were taking on her own world. It’s about forgiveness, not forgetting. Forgetting means you lose the lesson.

Doug teaches that there are 3 steps of forgiveness: 1) Meet your own needs and forgive yourself. 2) Forgive the event by putting it in perspective and looking at it objectively (which could take a lifetime or could be a quick process). 3) Forgive the person who caused the injury.

Brenda was shocked at how much vengeance she had. It first showed up in poetry, written at night when she couldn’t sleep. It was filled with vengeance and rage. For 30 days she wrote poetry, and at the end of the month she felt an opening and felt the vengeance release. The process of healing started with deeply reflective work like writing, and more recently, from preforming her one-woman show and leading workshops.

Segment 3: No Shame. One of Brenda’s main messages is that there’s never anything of which to be ashamed. It’s all about applying love to the parts inside you that hurt. She holds space for clients as they process their emotions and sees the truth of each person. Brenda tells us the first step of forgiveness is to move out of denial and into the awareness of what’s really going on. Get in touch with the anger. The second step is to give up the need to be right. The third step is to move into gratitude and volunteer. Be of service in your community.

Segment 4: The Key is to be Conscious. What happens first when people go through trauma? At first there’s shock. People need some time to grieve and just be in shock. They need time to process and just “be” in the initial pain before starting to heal. It takes about 30 days for the memory to reconstitute itself so that the worst of it slowly dissipates. At that point we can use therapists, healers, mediators, and other specialists to start processing the emotions. We can reframe the memories so that our stories are consistent with our reality. Brenda thinks the key to healing is being conscious. It changes everything.

To find out more about Brenda, her one-woman show, or her workshops, visit http://www.forgivenessandfreedom.com/.

To listen to the entire interview:

Segment 1: Restorative Justice, Defined. Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show we have the honor of speaking with Dr. Mark Umbreit, Professor and founding Director of the Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking at the University of Minnesota, School of Social Work. Dr. Umbreit is an internationally recognized practitioner and scholar with more than 40 years of experience as a mediator, peacemaker, trainer, teacher and researcher. Has is the author of eight books and more than 200 other publications in the fields of restorative justice, mediation, spirituality, forgiveness, and peacemaking.

Dr. Umbreit defines restorative justice as a process as one which focuses on harm done and involves the people most affected by the harm in the response. It’s about offender accountability, victim assistance and support, and community involvement. True restorative justice is a victim-centered movement. It is also rooted in deep traditional and indigenous and spiritual practices.

Segment 2: A Good Track Record. Dr. Umbreit says the restorative justice empirical research trajectory is quite good. He has been involved with several meta-analysis with samples as large as 9,000+ that found significant reduction in crime by offenders, positive data regarding serving victims, and satisfaction with entire process. In fact, there is more empirical evidence to validate the core principles of restorative justice – particularly the dialogue practices – then there are for most of our criminal justice programs (which are not examined thoroughly).

Back in the 1980s there were zero states that had an administrative protocol that allowed victims of severe violence to meet their offenders. Now, 27 states have procedures to allow that process. Victims of severe violence have far more trauma, loss, and grief than other types of victims. They usually have the need to get answers and express their pain to the person who caused their loss.

Segment 3: Taming the Tiger of Fear and Trauma. Restorative justice at its core is simple: it’s about treating people with respect and honoring humanity. Dr. Umbreit’s latest book, Dancing with the Energy of Conflict and Trauma: Letting Go – Finding Peace, outlines struggles with conflict and traumatic events in the form of true stories. He has been blessed to learn from a wide range of people over the years --- people who would normally be labeled as trauma sufferers or wounded --- have been his greatest teachers and heroes. Trauma shakes up your perception of life and the world. This book is about taming the tiger of fear and working with it. At the end of the book there are tools to help heal and deal with trauma.

Segment 4: The Forgiveness Agenda. Restorative justice is an expression of a deep sense of spirituality. To say Dr. Umbreit honors the wisdom and the teachings of Jesus doesn’t cancel out the wisdom and teachings of Mohammed or Buddha. Restorative justice has affected the way he views and understands the world, how he relates to the community, the way he interacts with his wife and kids. Dr. Umbreit says incredible things can occur when we humble ourselves and be mindful of not pushing an agenda of forgiveness on others. We need to recognize that people have a right to be angry and give them time to work through the emotion instead of dismissing or denying it. To find out more about Dr. Umbreit’s important work, visit http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ssw/RJP/.

To listen to the entire interview:

dougnoll’s posthaven

Tag forgiveness

From Trauma to Forgiveness

Restorative Justice and Healing the Trauma Tiger