13. God Forgives, I Don't

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Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 this episode might get me in trouble.

Speaker 2 Hi, friends. Let's talk forgiveness.
In honor of my merch that I'm launching, the whole collection is called Fuck Forgiveness. The merch is officially live.

Speaker 2 Everybody else thinks it drops on Halloween, but I'm going to give you an early passcode if you want to go get it first. The password is early as hell.

Speaker 2 No capitals, no nothing. Just early as hell.
No spaces. I'll leave the link in the description, LeoskeppiCollection.com.
And then the passcode to get in early is just early as hell.

Speaker 2 There's two hoodies. One is a zip-up.
There's a t-shirt and a crop top. And then there's a pair of slides.

Speaker 2 And the reason I love this collection so much is because you do not need anyone's forgiveness. for living your life how you want to live it.
You don't need anyone's approval.

Speaker 2 You don't need to ask for forgiveness or permission or approval to be who you are and do what you want to do. That's it.
That's the point of the collection.

Speaker 2 But for this episode, I want to talk about the topic of forgiveness. I'm so hyped up and I'm so excited.
I have no notes. We're just going to wing it like the old times.

Speaker 2 As someone who has been through so many betrayals, I don't know how I'm not in prison. The self-control I've had to learn to have.

Speaker 2 From my own experience, some things are unforgivable. There's no justifying it.
There's no making it okay. There's no getting things back to how they were.

Speaker 2 I do not believe in forgiveness in the typical sense that everybody pushes it. Everybody's always like, oh, you can't harbor resentment.
You can't hold grudges.

Speaker 2 You have to find it in yourself to forgive and let go so you can fully move on. I've moved on from everything.
Rebuilt, redone, redid my whole life. I'm happier than ever.

Speaker 2 But it's because I snapped back into my old mentality of hold that goddamn grudge. Keep it in your pocket.
Hold it nice and tight.

Speaker 2 But the whole narrative of like you have to find forgiveness for people so you can move on. That's not the thing that's making you feel stuck.

Speaker 2 And that's not the reason that you can't let people go is because you can't forgive them. Forgiveness is not what everybody thinks it is.

Speaker 2 And a lot of people confuse it with letting people off the hook and not holding people accountable. Sometimes people do things where you cannot put things back to how they were.

Speaker 2 Sometimes they betray you or hurt you in a way or do something to you you would have never done to them and there is no get it back.

Speaker 2 So some people's version of forgiveness is like, you have to get okay with the wrongdoing so much in your mind that things go back to how they were. No, it's like cheating.

Speaker 2 Once you cheat, the trust is broken. It's like shattering a vase.
There's no putting the pieces back to get where it will hold water like it did before. It's always going to leak.

Speaker 2 Sometimes betrayals cut too deep. They cut all the way through.
And there is no way to go back to how things were. And the whole, you need to forgive them.

Speaker 2 That comes from people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about because they've never been through anything in life. That was unforgivable.
So.

Speaker 2 With that, I also want to say you're allowed to have that opinion if you have that. You are fully allowed to say forgiveness is the end-all, be-all, and that is the way through everything.

Speaker 2 You're allowed to have that. And I'm so happy you do not have experiences where people have done shit that is unforgivable.

Speaker 2 Because for you to say you should forgive everybody all the time for everything shows you've never had something bad enough happen to question and challenge that belief.

Speaker 2 And another thing that I've learned for my long 26 years on this earth, they've been long,

Speaker 2 is a lot of people who say that they forgive others don't. They just bullshit themselves and they lie.

Speaker 2 But my biggest problem with the whole forgiveness thing is when someone hurts hurts you or does something to you, betrays you, for your first obligation you feel like you have to have is, oh my God, I have to forgive them.

Speaker 2 I have to find forgiveness so I can let go of the resentment and the hurt. No, you're allowed to be fucking pissed off.
Sometimes betrayals are so bad.

Speaker 2 The anger is the only thing that keeps you alive. It's the only thing keeping you kicking.
So to try and relinquish that and get rid of that? No. For what?

Speaker 2 So you you feel like you can handle it properly? To let go of any resentment towards someone is not something you can force. You cannot force forgiveness at all.

Speaker 2 And it's very unfair to go through something where someone hurts you and then put all your focus and your attention on trying to understand why they did what they did.

Speaker 2 What were they feeling? What were they going through? Taking on the burden of trying to understand and justify what someone did to you is the opposite of what you you need to do.

Speaker 2 Trying to get in their perspective neglects the shit out of you. You're hurt.
You've been betrayed. One thing I know for certain after everything I've been through is broken hearts still beat.

Speaker 2 Do not take that broken little fucking heart of yours and try and use it and force it to go find compassion for the other person. Your focus is you.
You put the compassion on yourself first.

Speaker 2 If someone has shown you they don't care about how you feel, they'll hurt you, they'll betray you. They'll look after themselves.

Speaker 2 If you take your focus and you put it on understanding them, being too understanding leaves room for excuses. So you're allowed to have a boundary with how understanding you're willing to be.

Speaker 2 So if you're over here in their perspective trying to understand them, who's left to take care of you? Nobody. They showed they're not going to do it.

Speaker 2 You over here listening to all these dumb shits who are like, oh, you need to look for forgiveness.

Speaker 2 No, you need to look at the fact that you're hurt and you need to handle the situation that you're in. Whatever they just did landed you in a situation that was unwanted.

Speaker 2 Your focus is that you're hurt and making sure that you're okay with wherever you're at and whatever's going on. No consideration to their feelings.
But people have a big issue with that.

Speaker 2 When people do shit to you and then you hit them with what they did and you do it back or you hit them with that stay strong like I did. Oh, they don't like that.
They don't like that.

Speaker 2 Then they're going to try and shame you. Well, why don't you have forgiveness?

Speaker 2 They're going to play the moral card of like trying to shame you into trying to forgive them because they benefit off of you overlooking and letting them off the hook for what they did.

Speaker 2 They force you to have compassion for them after they hurt you. Forgiveness, a lot of the times, is a manipulation tactic.
And a lot of people push that whole forgiveness shit because

Speaker 2 they want to feel better. Like they can sleep at night because they need to know you're not enraged.

Speaker 2 They need to know that you forgive them and you don't harbor any resentment so that they can sleep better at night. I don't give a fuck how you sleep after you betray me.

Speaker 2 Like some people have done me. I'm going to give you some examples to show you exactly how like I've been through this whole shit and shevang of like I never believed in forgiveness.

Speaker 2 Then I was like, you know what? I need to soften taking everybody's advice fucked me up. Now I'm back at the point where, no, back to the roots of you're accountable for what you're doing.

Speaker 2 It's like when a dog shits in the house. If you don't want your face in it, don't fucking shit there.

Speaker 2 You know, I'm going to rub your face in what you did and you're going to sit there and you're going to face it. I love to hear people out.
I always want to hear their perspectives, but that's after.

Speaker 2 I've made sure I'm all right. I handle what's happened.
So that's the biggest thing I've learned is you don't owe nobody shit after they betray you. Your focus is you.

Speaker 2 But the other thing with feeling like you can't move on and the whole appreciation aspect of forgiveness, like, ah, when someone does something bad to you,

Speaker 2 looking back at it after time has gone on and you've improved, like with me, with my ex who destroyed my fucking life.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I can look back at the situation now, four years ago, and say that happening was a key part of me getting to to where I am.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 that has nothing to do with where I'm at. What happened after that is what the fuck I built.
It is not that changed me and made me better. No, I got hurt at a level I can't even put into words.

Speaker 2 And I transmuted that hurt. And what I built for myself, I appreciate.
I don't appreciate what happened to me. I don't appreciate what he did to me.

Speaker 2 No amount of success and no amount of what I've I've built and created of myself after the damage that was caused will make me feel better about it. I do not forgive him.

Speaker 2 I will never forgive him in my life. Nobody deserves the shit that I went through.
I don't sit here and like harbor hatred for it. I don't feel anything toward him.

Speaker 2 Will I smile the day I Google it and see his obituary? Yeah. Do I want to do anything to him? No.

Speaker 2 But I don't have any ill will. I just hope that you leave me to fuck alone.
Like you're dead to me in my head. As long as you have no type of reflection in my reality, I don't care what you do.

Speaker 2 I don't care if you become a billionaire. Go have fun.
I just do not want you in my experience at all.

Speaker 2 And that's not a bad thing. And I've tried to do that whole route of you need to forgive people.

Speaker 2 Nothing in this life would get me to a point where I could sit across the table from him and say, I forgive you.

Speaker 2 I don't, and I never will. You did what you did.
It fucked me up the way that it did. I don't believe in forgiveness.
And that's something you're going to have to take up with your fucking God.

Speaker 2 I'm not holy enough. I'm not spiritual enough to be able to forgive certain shit that people do.
That's not my obligation. That is not my responsibility.

Speaker 2 I'm not even going to try and take it on as my responsibility. It's not for me.
I don't possess possess that ability. I don't.
I truly don't. And I'm able to accept my faults.

Speaker 2 When you do something bad, you do something wrong. I have a whole different perspective on revenge, but I want you the fuck out of my life.
There's nothing wrong with telling somebody.

Speaker 2 I don't want nothing to do with you ever again as long as I live. Tea.

Speaker 2 I like that. That's my favorite go-to.

Speaker 2 Since I don't crash out no more. I've gained some new awareness, but also I have too much to lose.

Speaker 2 Best believe, if I was still struggling and I wasn't so online, I would still be mopping the floor with people. But from this perspective, I men, I don't crash out like I used to.

Speaker 2 I don't get revenge like I used to.

Speaker 2 I can let it go, but will I ever forgive it? No. But the only way I'm able to let certain things go is because I see what it did to me and then I don't let it stop me.

Speaker 2 I build and I create something that I want after it. That's what helps me kind of feel better about the situation.

Speaker 2 To be in a fucked up life that someone has caused and expect yourself to feel any kind of increase in like feeling better about it, you're not.

Speaker 2 It's unrealistic and it's unfair to expect it of yourself. And the whole thing of like, you need to be grateful that this bad thing happened because look where you are.
Nope.

Speaker 2 It don't have shit to do with them. This is what I built.
This is what I turned myself into. You caused a lot of harm.

Speaker 2 I had the responsibility of flipping it, healing myself, and then achieving what I wanted. The best shit I can ever dream of.

Speaker 2 Now I kind of want to hit on the religious side of forgiveness

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 I personally choose not to believe in a God that creates a heaven and a hell. I believe in God, but not the typical most religion God.

Speaker 2 Like I have my own beliefs and views around that and i'm gonna protect that because that's my relationship i've built and it's been a rough road

Speaker 2 but in my opinion i don't think human beings can do anything good enough to deserve eternal happiness and peace unless you're like a little kid like a child like a little innocent child duh but like once you become an adult and like once you live actually

Speaker 2 we all do good and bad. There is no

Speaker 2 infinite good you could do. There's not like a scale that determines you did more good than bad and this one bad deed is gonna get you sent down to the fiery pits of hell.

Speaker 2 I don't know how that's ranked. I don't understand it.
And I hope that there's not a God

Speaker 2 that would send me to burn in hell for eternity. regardless of all the good that I've done, but just because I'm gay.
Like I can control that.

Speaker 2 For anybody who thinks people choose to be gay,

Speaker 2 I would have never fucking chosen this in my life. Okay.
Pray for me, actually. If you someone that thinks you could change it, pretty pleased.
Give me a little piece of prayer. Get this gay shit out.

Speaker 2 But when I say that there's not something that people can do good enough to get into heaven, there's some people.

Speaker 2 That I could, yeah, I could toss you to hell myself. Like I could see it.
But most people don't deserve to burn for eternity for certain things that you could do or not do.

Speaker 2 And I choose not to believe in a God that created us all and did not give us clear guidelines to follow.

Speaker 2 Every single transcript, manuscript that we got, the Quran, the Bible, every single piece of anything that gives some kind of like testament to God or like translation of it is not clear.

Speaker 2 And for

Speaker 2 a God to create us and throw us in here without any clear direction, but to say, if you do this one thing or these two things, you're going to burn for eternity.

Speaker 2 Huh?

Speaker 2 I don't like that. That's a piece of shit of a parent to me.
You're going to create something and then punish your kid like that because they didn't obey your orders, which you didn't relay clearly.

Speaker 2 I don't like that. And I'm not attacking anyone's religious beliefs.
There's a lot more that goes into it, and I'm aware of that.

Speaker 2 But these are the principles I choose not to believe because no way these pedophiles in the churches are going to heaven, and I'm going to hell. No way in hell or heaven, that's happening.
All right.

Speaker 2 I will crawl my way out of those fiery pits. I will crawl my hateful ass out of the pits of hell and scratch my way to heaven if that happens.
I will go back to crashing out, getting revenge.

Speaker 2 My soul, ooh, ooh, it's going to get everybody.

Speaker 2 But I can joke about it and laugh about it because I don't truly believe that's a possibility. It's a very unfair kind of God.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I'm very like

Speaker 2 ego-driven and I'm very choose your consequence. So I also understand

Speaker 2 this potential might be real.

Speaker 2 And with that,

Speaker 2 if everything that is in Christianity, like the hardcore Christians that are like, you cannot be gay, if that is true and I've chosen to live my life gay,

Speaker 2 if that's the consequence when I die, I got to own it. I'm not going to sit here and beg for forgiveness.
I'm not going to sit here and beg for all this and that. I did what I did.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to pay the price. It's going to be hot as hell, literally.
It's going to be a nice, hot price to pay, but consider it paid.

Speaker 2 I'm I'm not going to sit here and beg for forgiveness for actions I know that I took. And that is a problem I have with a lot of fucking people.
A lot of people know better and they don't do better.

Speaker 2 And then they want to sit back and ask for forgiveness. You're not going to get it from me.
Like I said, I'm not holy enough to grant unrealistic, stupid levels of forgiveness. I don't do it.

Speaker 2 I don't spend my time on it. I spend my time focusing on the people who love me and scooting out the people who do not have loyalty like I have it.

Speaker 2 I am going to hit in this episode on forgiving yourself, but I want to talk about a little example. This is something I need on the internet: digital footprint, and I'm doing it intentionally.

Speaker 2 Back when I got canceled earlier this year for a bunch of horseshit, I had to pretend like I cared. I had a publicist, I had a team of people who were like, Leo, no, you have to handle it this way.

Speaker 2 I chose to no longer be under anyone's thumb, but my own.

Speaker 2 But this is something that nobody knew behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 There were a few creators on TikTok and online who I was friends with personally and publicly online.

Speaker 2 When the whole cancellation went on, 300,000 people unfollowed me and made videos dogging the hell out of me i lost

Speaker 2 250 thousand dollars worth of opportunities because of that whole cancellation and

Speaker 2 people who didn't know me wanted to chime in people who

Speaker 2 misread the entire thing chimed in My intention's never to hurt nobody. And if my intention is to hurt somebody, I'll sit here and say it.
My intention with all that was never to hurt anybody.

Speaker 2 And I see where certain things were taken out of context, but at the end of the day, what I said wasn't that fucking bad. I think it was pretty fucking clear.
But I digress.

Speaker 2 This is me standing up for myself because I had to forgive myself for sitting back and not defending myself.

Speaker 2 That's what we're going to get to later with like the whole self-forgiveness thing because I'm also going to change the podcast around. We're going to get there.
But during this whole cancellation,

Speaker 2 a lot of my friends, friends,

Speaker 2 were

Speaker 2 turning on me publicly. A lot, a lot, a lot

Speaker 2 of people spoke against me, made up lies and bullshit to further fit in with the crowd. They wanted to get on everybody's good side.
And everybody was flipping on me.

Speaker 2 I could not understand it because it was like all the good I've done got wiped out. Nobody wanted to defend my character.
All the people

Speaker 2 who I gave money to, all the people who I saved from unaliving themselves, all the people I stood up for, all the people I helped make money and get opportunities.

Speaker 2 This is all shit that was behind the scenes. All the people who saw my true heart, all the people I fought.
for all the people i put myself in physical danger to protect flipped.

Speaker 2 I didn't understand what was going on at the time. I just started cutting everybody off.
Damage control. Everybody, your reliability.
Get out. I have two people from LA that I still am cool with.

Speaker 2 Is there two?

Speaker 2 Three. There's three.
One you didn't know about online. This is a personal friend, but three people.

Speaker 2 And if you wonder if I don't like anybody, if I don't follow them on Instagram, I don't fucking like them.

Speaker 2 But when I was getting canceled, I want to do a full podcast about explaining what it's like and what it does to your brain when you have 300,000 people turn on you.

Speaker 2 Most people can't even handle one fucking bully. And what it did to me and like what it does to you when you get canceled.
I've had it happen a few times, but makes you strong as shit.

Speaker 2 But when your personal life starts to flip, people start turning on you and then pretending like nothing happened. Oh no, baby.
Uh-uh.

Speaker 2 I was in a really, really bad like spot mentally and I was so heartbroken from so many people I knew personally and so many people just online. 300,000 people turned on me.

Speaker 2 When I was going through that,

Speaker 2 I had this whole like compassion thing flip

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 Shortly after my cancellation, I got swatted and was like fleeing the fucking city. I was flying different states to get out of the apartment because people were making up a bunch of crap.

Speaker 2 Anyway, a lot of the people who talked about me and flipped on me,

Speaker 2 shortly after

Speaker 2 I got canceled, they got canceled.

Speaker 2 And it was even worse than mine.

Speaker 2 But there was one person in particular who

Speaker 2 I was laughing when it flipped. And I was pissing myself.
I was so happy watching them get exactly what they did to me. They literally started like the upheaval of it.

Speaker 2 Had they just shut up and sat quiet, that would have been better. But no, they literally flipped and lied and pushed it.
And that's what caused like the second level of it getting even worse.

Speaker 2 But they got canceled real bad. A couple of them did.
And I was so happy with the one that I was actually like really close to.

Speaker 2 I was very happy. I was giddy.
And then I started to see how bad it was getting. And I knew how I was feeling throughout that whole process.
And I'm the strongest person that I know.

Speaker 2 Not to brag or be like, oh, overly boastful. I'm speaking the fucking truth.
I don't know how I'm still alive with the things that I've been through.

Speaker 2 But when I was watching them go through it, I remembered what it was like and I texted them privately. And I said, hey, I know it feels like the world is against you right now, but hang in there.

Speaker 2 Everything's going to be all right.

Speaker 2 I decided to be

Speaker 2 what I wish everybody else was to me because I was like, maybe

Speaker 2 then

Speaker 2 by handling it like this,

Speaker 2 I will help them learn and understand. Like maybe I have to lead by example with this, like let the anger, let the hurt go and like step up.

Speaker 2 And like, I did care because I truly started to feel bad when I saw how bad it was. But also this friend that I had, I talked this one off the ledge a few different times.

Speaker 2 They were going to take their own life.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they admitted to me, I was the reason that they didn't.

Speaker 2 So I'm the reason you still drawing breath. And you're going to go turn and use that breath.
to capitalize and push my downfall. Gotcha.
Like I said, some things are unfucking forgivable.

Speaker 2 That's one of them. And when I sent that text, the person called me, bawling their eyes out, literally was crying so hard they could barely speak and started spilling all the truth.

Speaker 2 So what really happened is

Speaker 2 all the people who I knew personally had a phone call. And their phone call basically was, hey, Leo's getting canceled real bad right now.

Speaker 2 And everybody's starting to turn on us because we were publicly friends with him. So they're saying that us by staying silent, we're defending him and we're siding with him.

Speaker 2 So all of them in the little group got together and decided, okay, we have to throw Leo under the bus. We have to turn on Leo.
So everybody online stops coming at us.

Speaker 2 And the way that they justified it was, oh, Leo's hot. He's white.
He's rich. He lives in LA.
He's going to be fine. He's smart.
He'll be able to recover.

Speaker 2 Now, us, we're going to have a harder time recovering if we go down with him. So we just have to fully throw it all on him.

Speaker 2 And the person who I talked to about this admitted that they knew I was going to see it as the ultimate betrayal. And I fucking did.
And

Speaker 2 I'm. actually appreciative that I got to hear them out and I heard what they said and it all made sense because I'm like, okay, they weren't just fucking stupid.

Speaker 2 They all saw my heart and they all felt so bad about doing what they did, but they fucking did it anyway.

Speaker 2 But I can respect the fact that you can grab yourself by the nuts, look me in the face and tell me I chose myself over you.

Speaker 2 I know you would have never done it to me, but this is why I did it and I did it. I can respect that.
I'm appreciative that people can own it at least.

Speaker 2 But the real gag of all of this, just to expose how fake social media is, all the people who were friends with me spoke out against me on that call with one of them.

Speaker 2 They all agreed with what I was saying. They all were like, yeah, I fully get his point.
He was totally right.

Speaker 2 And a lot of them were like, we know Leo's not fat phobic or transphobic or homophobic or any of that. We know he's not like that.
We are, but we know he's not.

Speaker 2 But they were like, Leo, you know how social media goes? You have to play the game. You have to say what these people want to hear.

Speaker 2 I don't.

Speaker 2 They did, though. So, all the people that spoke out that knew me personally, they all fucking agree with me.

Speaker 2 They were just placating everybody and just saying what everybody wanted to hear so they can get the heat off their back. That's the funniest part.

Speaker 2 But then it turns into this cycle of like, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.
I don't want to fucking hear. I'm sorry.
I don't like hearing the words, I'm sorry. They They don't do nothing for nobody.

Speaker 2 And it was pissing me off. We got into the conversation where they were saying, I'm so sorry.
You know how much I love you. And

Speaker 2 you are the reason I have any kind of confidence. You're the reason I feel any kind of good about myself.
And we all feel so bad about what's going on.

Speaker 2 None of them talked to me in between any of this. Nobody told me shit.
I watched it unfold on social media.

Speaker 2 Nobody I was friends with who spoke out about me, called me, or texted me, or gave me any kind of decency, any kind of anything.

Speaker 2 And then on the FaceTime, they start saying, I would love to be friends and I would love to go to lunch and like talk and catch up.

Speaker 2 And I said,

Speaker 2 Let me make one thing very fucking clear. I'm glad you're all right.

Speaker 2 Thank you for telling me the truth about this, but I don't fucking forgive you and I will never forgive you in my entire life. You did to me what I never would have done to you.

Speaker 2 I'm the type friend, you getting canceled, I'll go down with you. I'll figure it out with you.
That's loyalty. I'm Albanian.
I'm loyal to a fault.

Speaker 2 I will literally die to defend the people that I love. You can't even take a little heat on the internet.
Yeah, we're not going to be cool. We're never going to be friends.

Speaker 2 I'm never going to forgive you. And it didn't end in like an angry way.
I got out how I felt where I said, I'm never going to fucking forgive you. Like, I'm glad you're all right.

Speaker 2 I'm glad you're safe. I'm glad we talked about it.
But going forward, we don't exist to each other. I want to leave it like that.
I don't want any type of friendship.

Speaker 2 I don't feel safe having you know anything about me or having any association with me therefore

Speaker 2 we're done

Speaker 2 there's no go back there's no friendship there's no nothing i don't wish anything bad on you i hope you're all right i hope you recover from everything like i'm trying to do but just know that it's neutral i don't wish nothing bad now the other ones i hope they choke and die but with you

Speaker 2 i don't wish anything bad on you. Glad you're all right.
Let's leave it at that.

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Speaker 2 It took a minute for me to get to a neutral standpoint with everybody else who spoke out about me. I don't want anything bad to happen to them, but I don't want anything good to happen to them.

Speaker 2 Like I said, it's neutral. I don't care.
You do not exist to me anymore. That's it.
That's my forgiveness of this situation. Zero.
There's no forgiving what went on with that. There's no way for me

Speaker 2 to rationalize it or understand it. I understand the position that you were in.
You described it to me perfectly. But if I was in that position, I still would not have done that to you.

Speaker 2 And that is a situation you never have to grant forgiveness. I don't give a fuck what the explanation or the reason is.

Speaker 2 If somebody does something to you that you would never do to them under any circumstance, you do not owe them a lick of consideration of any kind of forgiveness.

Speaker 2 And it's not that you're angry forever. I'm getting amped up talking about all this because it's like, oh shit, I finally get to tell the internet.
But forgiveness is not something that you can force.

Speaker 2 Like I said, with this person, I was pissed until we talked and cleared it up. Then I got to a place of neutral.
Like, all right. And then I was still mad at the other people.

Speaker 2 It took a while for that to turn into a neutral feeling. You cannot force forgiveness.
You can't change resentment that you feel.

Speaker 2 You try, but like I said, you're going to put the focus and the attention on trying to let go of the feelings that they caused by damaging you and betraying you?

Speaker 2 Are you going to focus on fixing your life and getting to where you want to be?

Speaker 2 Because after moving, buying my house, getting situated, getting back with myself and like fixing myself mentally, getting my body back in check, getting my teeth done, getting everything good, I don't give a flying fuck about none of them.

Speaker 2 I genuinely don't care. Like, if I saw their their obituary, I would feel like, oh,

Speaker 2 a little.

Speaker 2 Some of them, I would feel nothing. Some of them, I would be like, oh, my ex, I'm going to smile.
I'm going to show these fucking veneers.

Speaker 2 But I just want to make you feel not so crazy. You can't force forgiveness.
You can't. You can't force yourself to feel better about it.
It takes time.

Speaker 2 It takes you rebuilding yourself and a fully recovering from the position that you were left in to have any kind of ease with the pain and the hatred and the anger and all of it.

Speaker 2 It's going to fade, but it's just going to get to a state of neutral to sit back and be like, ah, I wish the best for them. I fucking don't, but I don't wish anything bad.

Speaker 2 So people thinking that forgiveness is wishing the best for people after they dog you out? No. That's not my version.
You can go cling to whatever version you like. That version drove me stupid.

Speaker 2 I tried to

Speaker 2 be the bigger person

Speaker 2 by other people's definition and let things go and not hold people accountable and not get angry and not stand up for myself and be so understanding that I allowed excuses to slide in.

Speaker 2 That destroyed me.

Speaker 2 It absolutely ruined my self-esteem. So like I said, I'm back on the fucking track of,

Speaker 2 no,

Speaker 2 forgiveness is not needed.

Speaker 2 But moving into the next point with you don't need anyone's forgiveness for being yourself, the whole manipulation tactic of forgiveness and people putting you in that subservient position with shame of like telling you something you're doing is so bad, you need to ask for forgiveness.

Speaker 2 What the fuck is that about? Because I'm gay.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 you're going to think that you're somebody to put your thumb on me and demand that I'm below you and I need to ask for forgiveness because I swear or I smoke a cigarette or I'm gay. Boo hoo.

Speaker 2 Go cry to somebody else. I don't give a shit.
I don't need nobody's permission. I don't need nobody's approval to be who I am, to do what I like and be however I want to be.

Speaker 2 If I want to paint the fucking wall black and buy a bunch of gold stuff, that's what I'm going to do. I don't care to have anyone's approval to do it or not.
If I like it, I'm doing it.

Speaker 2 If I see it fits with my morals and my values, I'm fucking doing it. And that

Speaker 2 I lost for a while when I was trying to

Speaker 2 care about other people forgiving me or care about other people's approval. Fuck it.
It will literally destroy you from someone who tried it.

Speaker 2 I've swung this pendulum so many times back and forth and I'm finally at the point where I'm happy, not in the middle. I'm a little to the side of, no, no forgiveness for you.

Speaker 2 I'm not fully at the end where I was. I have compassion now, but I do not forgive.
I do not allow you to think it's okay. I don't allow you to

Speaker 2 feel better about what you did to me. I'm not granting you that.
You can go inside yourself and you can find it. I'm not going in myself to dig and find the forgiveness.

Speaker 2 I'm not using the heart that you stabbed and broke and stabbing it again to force my heart to go find any kind of compassion or consideration for you. You just stabbed me.
Not happening.

Speaker 2 You go find it for yourself. It's not your responsibility is what I've learned.
And like I said, broken hearts still beat. UVM8.
Okay, now I want to talk about forgiving yourself for things.

Speaker 2 Only person you should ever dig inside yourself to find forgiveness for is yourself or your children. This whole topic, I'm talking about adults.
I'm not talking about kids.

Speaker 2 Kids are a whole different ballgame. But adults, if you an adult enough to know better, yeah,

Speaker 2 you getting held to the standard of accountability. All right.
If you crumble under it, sorry. Harsh world.
Get better at it. But with forgiving yourself, I started the reset series on my podcast.

Speaker 2 Like I started the whole thing and it aligned with where I was at and what I wanted to do. And I, y'all know I've talked about this before.
I change so fast and so rapidly.

Speaker 2 When I'm actually doing good, I change into a new person every like two to three months. Right now, it's happening like every month.

Speaker 2 So I'm at a point now where where I was two, three months ago when I started the reset series, I was fully like, all right, let's do this.

Speaker 2 Now I'm at a point where the things I want to talk about and the way I want to talk and the way that I want my podcast to go for it to be at like.

Speaker 2 the fullest potential and what makes me happy, I need to get rid of that trying to slip it in every title. It doesn't fit and it's not working with where my brain is at now.

Speaker 2 So I'm not going to sit here and force myself to go down that road. It ain't working.
I don't like it. It's not what I want to do.
So why do you need to forgive yourself to change it?

Speaker 2 You're allowed to change what you're doing. If it makes you feel better, if it's more in line with what you're trying to do, do it.
Make the change.

Speaker 2 If you want to change career, you want to change boyfriend, girlfriend, them friend. You want to do whatever you want to do, change it.

Speaker 2 You don't have to turn it into a whole big thing where it feels like you're betraying yourself to switch routes. If you see a quicker path or a better path to get you where you want to go, go, do it.

Speaker 2 Change it. You don't have to beat yourself up.
You don't have to freak out. You don't need nobody's forgiveness.
You don't need nobody's approval but your own. If you see it's fit for you, do it.

Speaker 2 You don't got to freak out and turn it into a big thing. Just make the change.
You be fine.

Speaker 2 Wasted energy. Sit here and freak out about it.
Just do what you want to do. Like I said, I don't have any notes.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to think if there's anything else I want to add about the topic of forgiveness. With family, it's different.

Speaker 2 That's a big one. That's one where I will work through so much more than I will with like a friendship.
Blood is different. Like I said, I'm Albanian.
It's a very different family dynamic.

Speaker 2 You still are allowed to hold family accountable for what they've done or what they're doing and damage that they've caused. I've had periods where I've cut off my mom.

Speaker 2 I've had periods where I've cut off my dad multiple times, each one back and forth. My sister, we've cut each other off, we've gotten into fights.
We all always come back together and figure it out.

Speaker 2 There's been years we didn't talk, there's been months we didn't talk, but where I've been for the past three years is the best place I've been with all of them.

Speaker 2 It takes a lot of learning each other back and forth, creating the repair, changing things, but don't let nobody and their title of parent relative sibling allow that to shadow the disrespect and the mistreatment you're allowed to

Speaker 2 check how anyone treats you and

Speaker 2 as someone who's done it don't be scared of it because you love each other At the end of the day, with my family, we have cussed each other out like dogs. We have had physical fights.

Speaker 2 We have had knockdown dragouts, like the worst shit you could say to each other years and years ago. But at the end of the day, nobody is there for me like my family.
Nobody.

Speaker 2 When everything went to shit, when I was hiding from the cops, when I was, let me not reveal too much information. When I was doing so many things, my family was always there.

Speaker 2 I had to hold my family back a lot to not harm people. When I was getting getting canceled, my family,

Speaker 2 they wanted to do worse than I did to the people that I was friends with because they knew them personally. My family had met these people and loved these people, and they turned on me.

Speaker 2 Who, trying to go through the cancellation and get myself in check, deal with the whole career and my whole team and all that shit, and then reel in my family? Oh my God, it was a shit show.

Speaker 2 But when you go through a betrayal, you'll see who steps up. You will see who steps up and is there for you.
The other night, I was with one of my best friends, my sister and my cousin.

Speaker 2 And some situation happened where the cops were on the way. And it was my fault.

Speaker 2 This was a couple of months ago. And everybody

Speaker 2 started fighting over who was going to take the fall. for me.

Speaker 2 And I literally got into it with my sister because she's like, you're, you're doing too much. You have too much of an impact to make.
You have to do it. Like, I'll take the fall.
I'll go to prison.

Speaker 2 Don't stress it. There's no question.
I'm taking the fall. And I, this is something I had to forgive myself for.
I said,

Speaker 2 no.

Speaker 2 I was so relieved with where I was at the time mentally. I was like, my chance at this life is over.
I was like, it's your turn. You got to go do it.
Like, finally, my turn's over.

Speaker 2 Please just let it be over and go. You go do it.
You go fucking kill it. Go live it for both of us because I'm tired.
I'm done.

Speaker 2 I'll go sit in my jail cell and fucking be happy at peace left alone finally, you know?

Speaker 2 But that night actually made me very, very sad. And that was something I had to kind of forgive myself for was.
I had lost sight of

Speaker 2 my value and appreciation for myself. And like I said, self-esteem was shot.
Like from everything I've been through and made it through, I was at such a bad spot where I was like, finally,

Speaker 2 I'm going to go to prison. And like my turn is over.
I don't have to do it anymore. And I'm like, I'm going to go sit in prison.
Like, yeah, yeah, I did what I did. Yeah, fucker.

Speaker 2 In that moment, I was like face to face with

Speaker 2 The people who love me most see the value that I can't see right now. They're not wavering.
They're not questioning it.

Speaker 2 And they are willing to throw their lives away to contribute to what I'm able to do and I'm trying to do.

Speaker 2 And it was a sad moment where I felt like I had let myself down, that I had forgotten and like let so much of the world fuck me up where I forgot and like was blind.

Speaker 2 to myself and like anything where i had to kind of like forgive myself and i like made myself sit down and force myself to talk with them and write on my own time and see what I stopped seeing.

Speaker 2 Like I forced myself to see what they saw and what they were willing to throw their life away for. And it made me like the doctors were like, clear, and like resuscitated my ass.

Speaker 2 It was a really nice thing, but luckily nothing happened with the cops. Everything was fine.
We all, everything feature king, be fine.

Speaker 2 But that was a moment where I really really had to like try and find a way to forgive myself for not appreciating myself and not seeing value.

Speaker 2 Being at a point where I saw none of it, where I was like, yeah, I'm going to go to prison and just take my time. If I can, I'm going to just, yeah, I get to be free.

Speaker 2 That just reveals how low of a spot I was at. Cause I don't back down from nothing.
I don't stop. I don't back down.
That is like my biggest thing. I don't know how to back down.

Speaker 2 Anytime I've backed down, it's rotted me. It's destroyed me.
I don't have that ability. I pretended, like with the whole cancellation shit multiple times, I pretended to back down.
I fucking didn't.

Speaker 2 I was behind a screen laughing at these fucking people. But there was a lot of growth that came from it.
And I did grow a lot. And a lot of new perspectives came and I changed a ton.

Speaker 2 And I'm in a way better place because of it all, but

Speaker 2 that's a lot of it. And the other thing with forgiving yourself, sometimes you shouldn't.

Speaker 2 It's not that you sit here and you beat yourself up over something.

Speaker 2 You go through something, you see how you handled something, you don't like it, and you use that experience to get exact clarity on what you're not going to do again.

Speaker 2 And by not just telling yourself, oh, it's okay. I forgive you.
You're off the hook. By actually looking at it, grabbing a bull by the horns and saying, okay, what did this just show me?

Speaker 2 I'm never doing again.

Speaker 2 Next time a situation comes up and you handle it differently, that is making it up to yourself.

Speaker 2 That is when you're instantly forgiven with yourself is when you show that you've changed and you keep that and honor yourself and act how you want to act. That is when the forgiveness comes.

Speaker 2 You can't force it. So if you feel like you've betrayed yourself in a way, look at the betrayal.
Stop trying to make it okay and look at what you can do different and what you learned.

Speaker 2 And then as soon as you act on it, the forgiveness falls right in. All the hatred, all the fucking anger, all the anything falls right off.

Speaker 2 That's the whole thing with self-forgiveness and forgiving yourself.

Speaker 2 But I'd love to do an episode about guilt and like accepting things from the past and not like having like shame and like embarrassment from the past. That's a whole different thing.

Speaker 2 But the whole thing with self-forgiveness is not as difficult as it seems. But like I said, you're the only one that deserves your forgiveness.
You of all people and your children.

Speaker 2 Hey, and your family. Sometimes.
Sometimes.

Speaker 2 I also want to do an episode about self-acceptance that's a big one I'll do I feel relieved that I'm not like trapped behind the reset thing anymore we about to just kick this bitch out the water I'm so excited

Speaker 2 but like I said in the beginning if you want merch go fast the passcode is early as hell the website is leoskeppy collection calm I'll link it in the description if you enjoyed this episode leave me a comment let me know what you thought if you want to like discuss things i'd love to if you want to let me know what you you want to hear about next week, let's do it.

Speaker 2 Leave me a little comment. If you're listening to the audio version, hit the download button.
Helps me a ton. Thank you.
Also, share this to your story if you want. Spread it.

Speaker 2 Let everybody in on the little train. The little hate train.

Speaker 2 But that's all I've got for this episode. I just want to say I fucking love you guys.
And I'm so excited to see you all in the merch.

Speaker 2 If you order it, screenshot it and post it on your story and tag me so I can see. Y'all know I go through everything.
Y'all tag me in and look at it. And I like everything.
I love it.

Speaker 2 Also, when you get it, post pictures because I want to see. Also, on the tag of everything that you get, read the tag because there's a little message from me on every single one.
That's it, I guess.

Speaker 2 That's all I got for this episode. So, everybody, be safe.
Take care of yourself. Don't forget to get your merch while you can.
And I'll talk to you guys next Sunday.