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Description

Being a religious leader doesn’t mean you’re an expert at practicing forgiveness. Lutheran minister Nadia Bolz-Weber says being in quarantine gave her the ego check she needed to get real about forgiveness and compassion — for herself and others. This episode’s practice is about apologies and circling back to the relationships in your life that could use some mending.

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Resources from the show

• Listen to Nadia’s podcast, The Confessional.
• Read “The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World” by Desmond Tutu
• Check out Dr. Kristin Neff’s self-compassion meditations and exercises here.
• Nadia references Jean Valjean, one of the main characters in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Claire, Nadia Bolz-Weber

Claire  00:09

Hi, I’m Claire Bidwell Smith. Welcome to New Day. This week, I’m thinking about confessions. Why do we make confessions? Who do we make them to? And is making a confession truly absolve us or is there still work to do? I made a confession last year to Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. And it was one of the more unexpectedly powerful experiences I’ve had in recent years. For her podcast, the confessional. I told Nadia about the night my mother died about a decision I made that resulted in me not being there and not getting to say goodbye. It’s a story I’ve been sitting with for two decades. And it’s a story I’ve told so many times. But here’s the thing about making a confession, who you tell it to is just as important as what you’re telling. And what was so different for me this time was how the story was received. It was about the way Nadia listen to my story with compassion and empathy. And the way in which she saw into who I was that night, and the way in which she acknowledged who I’ve become since somehow she helped me bear witness to myself. I’m excited to say that Nadia Bolz-Weber is my guest today, she’s a remarkable person, someone who has gone through a ton of her own shit, and come out on the other side as one of the wisest and most compassionate people I’ve ever met.

Claire

Hi, Nadia,

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

Hey, Claire.

Claire

I’m really excited to talk to you today. In some ways, I kind of feel like it’s an extension of the conversation we had on your podcast, The Confessional. Which was one of the most vulnerable, intimate conversations I’ve had in a long time. You know, I’ve been in this very professional space for the last 5 to 10 years as a grief expert and grief therapist. And when I spoke with you, I really took off that hat and was just Claire. And I feel like you got into me and my story in such a profound way.

Nadia Bolz-Weber  02:14

Yeah, well, your episode really impacted people. It’s one of the most talked about episodes when people want to talk to me about the podcast. Why do you think that is? I think, because so many people have shame about missing somebody’s death. Like that’s, I think it’s more common than we may realize. And it’s something that people just never talk about, or hear somebody else talking about. So that’s always a gift. You know that I mean, like it is invitational.

Claire

Yeah. Yeah, this idea of like, I’ll go first, being the one to open up and talk about that thing that people are afraid to talk about or feel ashamed about. And when you go first, it is it’s an invitation for other people, even just to acknowledge it within themselves that they are going through something like that.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Yeah, that’s the form of leadership that I practice, which I call screw it, I’ll go first. So, I mean, as I like so called spiritual leader. I’m not somebody who is offering wisdom and advice out of my excess of virtue, you know, like, somehow I’ve, like, I’m so good at forgiveness that I’m just, I’m overflowing with it so much that I can just offer you, that’s not at all. I mean, I just struggle with the same shit other people struggle with, and try and be as honest as I can about that, and hope to sort of share some of my process around it. It’s interesting, though, because I’m very confessional in my preaching too, like, I’ll admit, somewhat inelegant things about myself, in sermons, which is not what people are used to hearing preachers talk about. But there’s a reason to do it. So there’s a difference between being vulnerable for a particular reason, right? And just trauma dumping on people. To me, the reason I do it, is that my hope is that it will cause a response in the other person about themselves. So if I go okay, screw it. I’ll go first. Then my hope is it creates a space around me that safe for somebody else to step into, to finally go. Yeah, I struggle with the same thing like now that you’ve gone first. I feel more comfortable. That’s the reason if what they have instead is a reaction about me. I’ve not done it right.

Claire  04:53

And is that trauma dumping when you when you talk about trauma dumping? Is that what you mean? And why do you think people do that?

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Because people don’t know what to do with their pain. And they often don’t have great models for what to do with their pain. And so sometimes if they’re in an online space, for instance, they’ll just immediately lead with, oh, I suffer from PTSD from childhood sexual abuse. And, you know, it’s like, yeah, I think maybe, for a lot of people, that part of them had to be hidden, or ignored in order to survive. And now, they actually feel like they have to lead with it in order to survive. But that’s not a survival strategy, either. That’s not a path to flourishing, either.

Claire 

I agree. But I see a lot of failure on the part of our culture, our community, our resources, you know, that people don’t know where to turn to get their needs met to heal this pain. And so they end up doing their trauma jumping online, and on Instagram, you know?

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Totally. And then what it is, is it tests all the people around them, how compassionate are you? Like, if you’re a good person, and you have compassion, they’ll respond with nothing but absolute empathy towards this, one thing I told you about my entire life. Whereas, I mean, it’s good for people to be shown care and to be listened to. It is an it is a half measure when it comes to healing, right, like the sort of continual affirmation machine that people are going to the internet to receive. That’s fine. It’s not going to heal you, like what’s probably going to heal you is doing some work that feels a lot worse, frankly, than just pure affirmation.

Claire  06:45

What is that work? Where do people turn when they need this healing?

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Well, there are different avenues. I mean, I’ve been in, you know, I’ve been in AA for nearly 30 years now, and talk about people who do hard work that’s not that comfortable. But in order to get the freedom, you know, I think people think they’re going to get freedom from their pain, if they make sure everyone sees their pain. And everyone says, Sorry, and they’re completely affirmed for their identity as a victim. And that might be a step towards, right that might be better than hiding and just being filled with secrecy and shame. But I have never seen anybody stay in that place and actually be a free person.

Claire 

That makes sense. How do you introduce yourself these days for someone who’s listening, maybe up until now, and they’re like, who is this woman? We’re having this really compelling conversation, but they’re like, maybe like, who is Nadia Bolz-Weber, how do you how do you introduce yourself these days?

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Oh, gosh. That’s a hard one. Because I guess sometimes I’ll just tell somebody, I’m an author. Or I’ll say sometimes I’ll say I’m a public theologian, which is true. I do pastoral theology in public, basically. But I do that through, you know, like that, like the podcast like, that’s me. Doing pastoral theology in public and having I am entirely uninvested. If anybody happens to intellectually assent to the same theological propositions I do like that’s not that is unimportant to me. So a lot of times the gems within religious teaching and practice have been hidden in this little cave of belief like, well, you have to believe certain things in order to access these. And I don’t think that’s true. So sometimes I describe it as my friend Curlin gave me this image. I basically am sneaking into cathedrals, looking around for the most beautiful, valuable things, holding them into the front yard and slapping a free sign on them. Like saying to people tell me what you’re most ashamed of that you’ve done. And if you offer me that, I will exchange it for a blessing. Well, that’s a priestly role. You don’t have to believe any of the things I believe in order to have somebody function in that way in your life.

Claire

But don’t you feel like most people do feel like they have to ascribe to the whole thing or believe all these things in order to even just get a piece? I understand that you’re trying to help show them that they don’t have to do that. But why do we think we have to you know, I mean, I stayed away from spirituality and religion for years because I didn’t realize I could take bits and pieces of it that made sense to me and would fit into my life.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Well, I think that the ego of religious leaders did a lot of damage when it comes to this. So if as a religious leader might Ego is very much attached to creating ideological carbon copies of myself, then I will, in subtle and not so subtle ways manipulate the people in my care to either say they ascribe to it, or to actually ascribe to it. And it’s kind of like with our children, like, they’re our little, like, our children are not our little ego projects like, oh, they have to be gifted and excellent. And like, this is why churches do confirmation when kids are like, 13. I’m like, why the fuck are you trying to get a 13-year-old to tell you what they believe about God? I mean, seriously, the only reason is because it’s a way of justifying ourselves. It’s a way of going like, I know that I’m good if my kid is spouting off the stuff I believe. I mean, why is there such anxiety in our generation of kids? I don’t know.

Claire 

That’s a good question.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Although this is coming from someone who very pridefully realized this morning, but my 20-year-old and 22-year-old both drive stick shifts like I do. So I was just about to tweet that. Like, again, it’s another version of what I just described.

Claire 

That ego identification with your children. Yeah, totally. How’s the pandemic been for you?

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Well, it was extremely abrupt lifestyle change. In 2019, I was on 90 airplanes in seven countries. And in 2020, I was in my apartment. So talk about like, an opportunity to look at your ego. I’m not special here. I’m not being treated special. Or given a fit, like taken to a fancy dinner. No one’s sending a car service for me. Upgrades in my apartment. None of it. These things that I had become sneakily accustomed to without realizing it. So. But having said that, do you know Annie Lamott? Are you friends with Annie, in her recent book, she says that a friend of hers says that when you first meet him, you’re really meeting his bodyguard, which I’m obsessed with this idea. And so, in a way, I spent a lot of my life with a very highly trained, well compensated bodyguard, whose job it was to protect me, and she did a killer job. But for the most part, she’s been on not needed during the pandemic, just in my apartment, but it’s not that I couldn’t do it, it’s that I was not yet familiar with the me who could do it. And she’s who I met during the pandemic. So I feel like closer to the me that I didn’t feel safe showing to the world for most of my life.

Claire 

I remember in the beginning of the pandemic, just how all these things fell away from us, you know, all these ways we identified ourselves and these ways that we felt success and achievement, were no longer accessible to most of us, yet, everybody began to do new things like, oh, I’m baking bread, I’m doing an AB challenge. These things everybody was doing at home, it was so difficult for us to let go of these external, external ways of measuring who we are. And I’m curious what you have to say about that, in this kind of idea of achievement.

Nadia Bolz-Weber  14:22

All we’ve done is live in the same, like, having to prove ourselves having to achieve having to strive having to, you know, earn our worthiness in other ways. So instead of trying to only think clean thoughts, now we try to only eat clean food. And instead of like yammering on about how much time we spend at church at how much time we’re spending at the gym, or how tired we are, because we’re on 90 airplanes on this year, all of it is this attempt to sort of gain a sense of identity and security through external reference, you know, and so much of the project of the self is constantly telling other people who we are and what they should think of us in a sense, I do it all the time. Instead of just being a human being, and just existing, it’s like, Could I maybe stop doing my own fucking PR for 10 minutes? You know.

Claire

But so this comes around to something else I want to talk to you about, I feel like the only way to do that to stop constantly telling other people how to perceive us or caring what they think, is to have self-compassion, which is something you and I talked about in our first conversation, I’m bringing it back to you knew I was gonna go there. So we have this incredible conversation about forgiveness and self-did you just say gross? self-compassion and forgiveness? I know you hate them. But I think this is such a huge part of the self-project, as you call it, you know, a project self? How do we find that?

Nadia Bolz-Weber  16:10

I feel like doing something like the confessional and asking people have you forgiven yourself? Or do you have compassion on your 22-year-old self who did this thing? It was very selfish of me to take undertake that project, because I was really trying to get there myself and sort of just asking other people the way. I think I’ve allowed myself to hear that there’s permission to have compassion for younger, like, there’s actually permission to do it.

Claire 

Yeah. Why do you think you didn’t feel permission before that?

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

I think like, we don’t want to let ourselves off the hook. Or I don’t want to let myself off the hook. But sometimes I think my love of hooks might be killing me. So, right now I’m working on a whole huge project around forgiveness. So I’m working on a book and then recording conversations, that’ll be a podcast and then doing a tour. I mean, it’s this going to be a huge thing I do for them and I, you know, I’m driving around the country and recording conversations with people about it.

Claire 

What do you think the difference is between self-compassion and forgiveness?

Nadia Bolz-Weber

Well, again, my friend, Dave Zoll, who’s just so smart, he talks about, and I wish I understood this concept as well as he does. But he says there’s a difference between forgiveness and what he calls applied empathy. What he means is kind of what I did on the podcast, sort of going, there were extenuating circumstances that led you to this, like, you know, saying, Okay, you did this thing you’re ashamed of, or that hurt you or other people. Okay. But had you ever seen a different type of more mature behavior modeled for you in your life? Did you have undiagnosed mental illness? Did you like what were the mitigating factors, and to have enough compassion for those things, that the person’s offense becomes somewhat more understandable, not that the harm it caused wasn’t true harm, and there shouldn’t be concerned for it. But I can get to the point where I’m like, Oh, my God, of course, you stole all that money. Do you know, okay, but Dave says that’s applied empathy. And it’s good. He’s not saying there’s something wrong with it. But he’s making the claim that forgiveness is a different order of reality.

Claire 

So do you feel that you need to be forgiven by someone else instead of yourself?

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

I have my rogue’s gallery of people who I’m like, they owe me an apology. That person owes me an apology. Because I have this finely constructed narrative about why. And I can take all the facts of the situation and the relationship. I can tell them to you in a very crafted way so that I’m the victim and that they’re horrible, and they owe me an apology. And so I have those in my life. And this week, all I can think of is oh my god, there are so many. I guarantee you, there are so many more people out there who believe I owe them an apology. I’m in the Rogues Gallery, and I don’t even know it. You know what I mean?

Claire

But this is important. Let’s talk about this because I think we all have this, right? We all owe someone an apology. And there’s lots of people who owe us apologies. How do we hold those? How do we let go of them? How do we sleep with them? Why do we do this?

Nadia Bolz-Weber  20:02

Well, I mean, I think that if, if the goal is mending a relationship, like if that is a high value, then apology owning, owning up to our shit, you know, really hashing it out. It makes sense.

Claire 

It’s hard. It’s really scary.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

It’s hard, it’s also possible. And I actually think that it’s like alchemy, it’s spiritual alchemy. I swear to God, something happens that is magical sometimes when it comes to reconciliation that I see the divine, having entry points to help with the mending. I’ve seen it, I do. I believe that somehow the divine gets its sticky little hands in there, and helps the process in a way that just us alone can’t create.

Claire 

Like this is where we really learn how to be human. Yeah.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

And like there’s a magic happens when we let our egos you know, just take a break enough to like and lay our stories, our cherished tales.

Claire 

Our narratives about ourselves, oh, my god.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

Minor worn smooth; you can see yourself reflected in them.

Claire

Well, what are your steps to breaking out of those narratives? You’re right, we all have these stories that we have to hold for so long about ourselves about our actions, our behaviors. And yet, you know, like you’re saying, a lot of times we know, we know, this is a story we’ve been clinging to for a long time. And then there’s sometimes a moment where we feel willing to drop it for a minute. How do we do that?

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

I don’t know how anyone would do it short of being desperate. And somehow I mean, I think desperation is a really great motivator. When I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m much more teachable.

Claire  22:09

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think it’s harder to ask for an apology or give an apology?

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

Why would you ask for an apology? I don’t know.

Claire 

Maybe you’re not asking for an apology. As much as you are letting someone know that you’re struggling with something that happened?

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

It takes so much for me to get to that point, if I’m honest. Because I will continually ask myself, what part is this is mine? I like I think there is, oh, if I’m hurt, it must be someone’s fault. Let me look and see, oh, well, I know, you know, I’m feeling some kind of pain or discomfort or harm or whatever, it’s gross. And then you externally go, Okay, well, who’s whose fault? Is it? Oh, well, you know, this person said this. And right after that I started, you know, post hoc ergo propter hoc, that’s, you know, whatever, but, and then you have the story. And then you say, okay, the pain, I have to alleviate this pain, so I’m going to go to them and tell them how much they hurt me. Well, there are very, very few people in life that I trust enough that I have a solid relationship with enough that I could approach that kind of conversation. So I think we often just want to put our hurt somewhere and like, I just so there’s a caution. So there are times when it’s something that is when it’s a relationship, that’s important enough, sometimes you just have to air it out. And then you have to be prepared for hey, they might have something too, they usually do. So when we can let that stuff go? We’re in so much better place to have some actual restoration and healing. If what I’m saying has a soft-landing space, not an ego defense with the other person. I will often come to something that I apologize for as well.

Claire  24:39

I can think of several situations I’ve had with friends over the last 20 years where I have done something, but even when I’ve gotten to apologize, it hasn’t been accepted and the friendship has deteriorated. You know, and really, yeah, and then there’s lots of cases where that’s the opposite. You know, I’ve moved through a major Using moments with people and become closer and had that sense of that divine magic in a way, you know, and grown from it.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

How do you make sense of the previous thing you describe though?

Claire

That’s what I’m asking you, I don’t know, you know, these are like, I still dream about these people sometimes because it’s still sitting with me, you know, this sadness and pain that the relationship is over or that they still haven’t forgiven me. Or that they haven’t been able to talk about it. And I still hold some of those, you know, because I don’t know what to do with them. And I don’t think I’m alone in this.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

I feel that so much. I feel that so strongly. Claire, I, I mean, there are people who I had loving friendships with, and the friendship has collapsed because of certain things. And there’s been no reconciliation. And I don’t, I don’t know what to do. I don’t, and part of me is like, well, can I let go enough of my stuff? I don’t I don’t know. They’re complicated. But I do feel the grief of it. I do. You know, I mean, again, as somebody who, you know, thinks about and teaches and counsels people around grief, you know, like, the end of friendships, that’s grief that we don’t talk about that.

Claire  26:22

It’s true. And it can be so painful. I have moments where I feel like I’ve moved past it or moved through it or forgiving myself for not being able to have achieved forgiveness with them, you know, but then sometimes it comes back and I’m like, gosh, I still really miss that person. And I still feel pain around this breakup.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

That landed in my ears as kindness when you said you don’t know anyone who gets to midlife without that happening, because I just assume I’m part monster, like I just. And that’s why I have several of these.

Claire

But that goes back to this, you know, screw it. I’ll go first idea. So if you show your monster first other people are more likely to be like, okay, you know, here you go. As a last question, let me let me ask you about a little bit more about this generosity, because I was thinking about when we spoke for your podcast, you were so generous in the way that you listened to me. When I listened back to the episode after it aired. I remember, I sat in my car and I wept I called you. And because I felt like you had really listened to my story. And in that, because you offered this blessing at the end that so succinctly saw into all these moments of who I was in ways I hadn’t seen. And I felt like that was very generous. I think sometimes we’re scared to, to love people, or to give them parts of ourselves. Because I don’t know why we get so scared. But what you did in that, in that experience was very generous. Is that something you’ve always been able to do?

Nadia Bolz-Weber  28:01

No, and I think I’ve, I’ve experienced the generosity of others, because you’re talking about generosity of spirit, in a sense. And I have experienced that in others in that has transformed me in a way that the criticism of others never could. So this is what I keep going back to is like, if we do believe in human transformation, if we think human transformation is possible, where do we really, really see it? And as a result of what, so, you know, Jean Valjean was transformed, just absolutely melted into a different shape of a man. But it wasn’t because of the accusations of levar. It was because the priest when he had completely fucked the guy over literally said, I want you to have these candlesticks to please, please take them. You need them. Like, it was a generosity from somebody, when he knew he didn’t deserve it, right. He hadn’t earned it. He hadn’t made himself good enough to have somebody be that generous. None of the bullshit messages society gives us. It was Grace. That is what transformed him. And so I think that that is much more of a path towards transformation than call outs, accusations, shunning things, all the performative cruelty that’s very popular right now.

Claire 

Grace, I think that’s a really good word for this for both compassion of ourselves. For others. Forgiveness is having grace. Thank you, Nadia.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 

Yeah, my pleasure.

Claire

I love This conversation. When you talk to someone like Nadia, you can skip right past all the layers we usually cover ourselves up with and dive into some really amazing places. So this week’s practice is about forgiveness and mending past relationships, we just got through Thanksgiving. And I’m sure that things got stirred up in one way or another for most of you out there. It’s kind of impossible to take an already loaded holiday like Thanksgiving, throw in a bunch of mixed family dynamics, a little pandemic, and a lot of regular life angst and come through it unscathed. Perhaps you got your feelings hurt, or maybe you hurt someone else. So this week, I want you to think about apologies. Think about the people in your life you have let go. Is there any relationship worth mending and circling back to as you’re considering mending a relationship? Think about what Nadia’s friend told her, offer that person applied empathy, and consider all the circumstances that were at hand when the relationship split. Think about the way it ended, what part of it is yours. Does someone deserve an apology? If so, when reconnecting with that person, try to give your words a soft intention and tone. Think about how you would like an apology to land in your ears. And regardless of what happened with that relationship, Have you forgiven yourself. One of my favorite techniques is to write a letter to the person you’re in conflict with, you’re not going to send this letter. This is the letter you write as though they’re never going to read it. Say anything you want. Say everything you need to, confessions, apologies, rage. When we allow ourselves to really say what we want to say that’s when we can fully understand what we’re feeling. Often we don’t even know why we’re so upset because we get so caught up in trying not to be, look, the art of forgiveness is tough. It takes a lot of different tries sometimes, if you’re struggling, here’s some things I recommend. Obviously, Nadia as podcasts, that confessional, and Desmond Tutu has a beautiful book with his daughter about forgiveness called the Book of forgiving. Kristin Neff, future guest has some amazing self-compassion meditations, many of which are available for free on her website. As always, thank you for listening. And if you’re a fan of our weekly practices here at New Day, you’ll want to subscribe to our Lemonada Premium channel on Apple podcasts. Each week you’ll hear a new original practice written by me just for you. Search New Day on Apple podcasts and click the subscribe button.

CREDITS

NEW DAY is a Lemonada Media Original. The show is produced by Jackie Danziger, Liliana Maria Percy Ruiz and Erianna Jiles. Kat Yore is our engineer. Music is by Hannis Brown. Executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer, Lily Cornell Silver and Claire Bidwell Smith. NEW DAY is produced in partnership with the Well Being Trust, The Jed Foundation and Education Development Center. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow us at @LemonadaMedia across all social platforms, or find me at clairebidwellsmith.com. Join our Facebook group to connect with me and fellow NEW DAY listeners at facebook.com/groups/newdaypod. You can also get bonus content and behind the scenes material by subscribing to Lemonada Premium. You can subscribe right now on the Apple podcast app by clicking on our podcast logo and then the subscribe button. Thanks for listening. See you next week.