Episode 25: Healing Through Forgiveness with The LOVE > hate Project Founder Buck Blodgett, Part Two

00;00;09;00 – 00;01;07;12
Kelly Parbs
Is there someone that you need to forgive? Maybe you need to forgive yourself. Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack, improving cholesterol levels and sleep, reducing pain, blood pressure and levels of anxiety, depression and stress. There’s truly great power in forgiveness. I’m Kelly Parbs, a licensed clinical social worker and crisis specialist with Empathia. Today, I’ll be following up from our conversation last week with Dr. Buck Blodgett, the author of “A Message From Jessie” and the founder of The Love > Hate Project, to talk about just how beneficial forgiveness can be and why forgiveness is so fundamental to the building blocks of a strong community. Thanks for joining us again, Dr. Buck!

00;01;07;14 – 00;01;10;15
Buck Blodgett
Good morning, Kelly! Thanks for having me on.

00;01;10;17 – 00;01;27;16
Kelly Parbs
You mentioned that you’re out to change the world, and I’d love if you took the opportunity to talk a little bit more about the project that was born of this tragedy, which is called The Love > Hate Project.

00;01;27;19 – 00;03;50;24
Buck Blodgett
Thank you. And you were one of the first ones in it way back at the beginning because that’s just who you are. And this project attracts people like you and you attract projects like this. So at Jessie’s funeral, the Saturday after that, Monday, I spoke for like 30 seconds. And one of the things I said was, honey, you’re- this has been a devastating blow. But your strength is in me, too. And love will always be stronger than hate. And I didn’t know why I said that at the time or where those words came from. Feel like I do now! But a month later, 500 people showed up at the millpond in our small town of Hartford, Wisconsin. And in an event organized for a community healing, they called it a vigil not by us, but by the fire chief and the first responder on the scene with joy. And we all lit candles. 500 of us walked together in the night. There were signs for two miles and everybody had on a blue wristband that I have on to this day. And there was a big banner on the pavilion in West Side Park in Hartford. And all of those things, the banner and the signs and the wristbands all said love is greater than hate. The words from the funeral, which had somehow apparently made their way all around town and impacted our community. And so, anyways, a project was born that day called The Love is Greater than any project, and our mission now is ending interpersonal violence, promoting forgiveness and presenting love because we believe that forgiveness and love are the keys. We can have all kinds of policies, and policy’s important, programs are important, strategies are important. But there’s nothing more important to me than a powerful personal story that grabs people’s hearts and brains and is centered in forgiveness and love and forgiving the unforgivable. Just crazy to me how powerful that’s been. So that’s the essence of our project. And thanks for asking and giving me a chance to tell people about it!

00;03;50;27 – 00;04;12;20
Kelly Parbs
I’m remembering a quote, ad I don’t remember if this is an exact quote from your book, but I remember you saying in response to people who are saying, oh you’re so inspirational, you’re so strong. And you would say to them, I’m not strong. Love is strong. And we all have it in us.

00;04;12;22 – 00;06;13;17
Buck Blodgett
You know, it’s been really weird. Kelly, I said of all kinds of things that first year and then wrote them in a book. And now I’m finding that other people far smarter and more influential and whatever than me have said them for thousands of years, really. But they came to me like it was new to me and like freshly inspired in my brain. And that was one of them. And that was just my experience. Like, it’s the number one thing I’ve been hearing for ten years, which by the way, I never heard for 53 years before this happened. And now I hear it all the time. After every program, I do, “You’re so strong, Buck!” And I just sort of chuckle on the inside because I know me and I believe that you said it exactly right. It’s not- and I’m not trying to be falsely humble. This is my true experience and this is what I want people to have, that it’s not me that strong. In fact, when I’m relying on my own strength and on what Buck knows and what Buck can do, you know, I’ve got- I’ve got a pretty limited capacity as good as they think I am. But love is been just like, wow, this project we had just for a little scale, we had over- we had many tens of millions of people on five continents see one or more of the four. And by the way, this year soon to be six TV documentaries, including Dateline, NBC. And then we do print media. We’ve reached over 100 million people through print media and social media and radios, and we use all media. And I never did anything like that in my life, like 1/100 of that kind of a scale. I built a humble little small chiropractic office in West Dallas, but Love did that, like forgiveness that I just had no idea the power of forgiveness and how much it resonates with like everybody, everybody wants it, everybody craves it and needs it, whether they know it or not.

00;06;13;20 – 00;06;31;08
Kelly Parbs
It’s something that literally impacts every single person on earth. There’s no one who has not been in need of forgiveness or in a position to choose whether or not to forgive someone. It’s universal.

00;06;31;10 – 00;07;26;02
Buck Blodgett
Couldn’t agree more. There’s nothing more freeing and nothing more empowering. And especially for people like me who now those of us who consider ourselves like masters of forgiveness, you know, like I do, I’ve been practicing daily. We’re actually working hard and daily on forgiving the unforgivable, right? And now I do classes on forgiveness and blah, blah. And yet, you know, my good- one of my good coffee buddies who I love dearly will say a little something and I’ll get my sensitive feelings hurt a little bit, and then I’ll kind of grind on that for days. And then as soon as I authentically and genuinely forgive it and release it, suddenly I kind of love them again. But until that point, they kind of like hate them a little bit like, Geez, you know, I thought we were friends. I can’t believe you said that. That’s how you really think of me and blah, blah, blah. You know how our minds are.

00;07;26;05 – 00;07;46;20
Kelly Parbs
Sure! It gets in the way of forgiveness, and then you have to get off those barriers, and that’s intentional. You touched a little bit on another question I wanted to ask you, and that is, if you would, tell us a little bit about your personal journey of how forgiving Dan has impacted you.

00;07;46;23 – 00;08;26;07
Buck Blodgett
Well, it’s given me a new job in life and in the one that I love way more than the one that I used to have for 30 years that I loved and still do. I couldn’t wait to retire from chiropractic so I could just do this. How crazy is that? How- how crazy is it to want to talk about such a horrible thing every day and in a way that’s a contribution to others? By the way, that brings something up for me that for me, the antidote to trauma and pain is purpose and forgiveness. You put those two things together, you’re unstoppable. Am I even answering your question?

00;08;26;10 – 00;09;22;25
Kelly Parbs
Absolutely. In preparing for this podcast book, I came upon a few really powerful quotes on the topic of forgiveness. One was by Martin Luther King Jr. And it struck me, and I’ll read it to you. “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love.” Like I said before, in my job, I talk a lot about building resilience. People handle crises better when they already have strong coping strategies in place, and it takes effort and intention to be resilient. And it sounds like the same is true for forgiveness. The quote says we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.

00;09;22;27 – 00;09;52;06
Buck Blodgett
That’s so good, Kelly. He did- Martin Luther King didn’t just say we must have the capacity to forgive, he said. We must develop it. We must event, maintain it. Once we’ve developed it, once we’ve practiced it out and gotten good at it. Yeah, it is a daily practice. And that brings up another good point. You usually don’t- of the big traumas? Y’know, maybe a guy cuts me off on the freeway, I forgive once and it’s gone. But the big ones like Dan and Jessie, those are daily practices for the rest of life.

00;09;52;08 – 00;10;04;07
Kelly Parbs
That’s the thing I wanted to hear more about, your- your journey and that daily forgiveness. What has that been like for you? Do you have a process?

00;10;04;09 – 00;12;45;16
Buck Blodgett
I do have a process. I have a morning routine. I am blessed with an amazing coach and he’s taught me to have a morning routine that I rarely start my day without it. And sometimes it’s 5 minutes and lately I’ve been a little lazy with it. But it’s best when it’s 20 to 30 minutes or so. You could do more, you could do less. Doesn’t matter. But you got to do something. You know, if I wake up, I wake up the Buck of the world, you know, I wake up with the thoughts that my culture gives me, you know, sometimes. Here’s an extreme example. Once in a while, I’ll wake up out of a dream of what Dan did to Jessie, and, you know, my imaginations and my dream even and not all imagination. I know a lot of the facts of it. And you can bet that you might imagine. I probably don’t feel very forgiving when that happens. Right? But I go right into my morning routine. It can be anything. But the purpose of it is to connect you with something bigger than yourself, to get you out of your head. It’s for the purpose of my routine for me is for me to start my day by remembering and getting clear about not who I woke up being, not who my culture that I am, or my history or my family, or the argument I had yesterday or whatever. But for me to wake up, get out of bed, feed the cat so I can have a little quiet space. So she’s not rubbing all over me because she wants to eat right away and then go somewhere quiet and and do my routine. And the point of it is tip is for me to get clear about my mission, who I want to be, not who I woke up being my values, what I want to live from, not just the reactions I’m having to whatever’s happening around me, but but how I want to respond to whatever’s happening around me. That’s values driven. Sometimes my routine is affirmations or reading or scripture or review, but it always includes reviewing my personal mission and my values, my calling, we call it. And that changes everything. And forgiveness is a part of that. And it’s a total blessing because I know after forgiving Dan once, I know I can do it again and I know I have to because it’s such a big thing, it’s- it’s going to take reps. It’s sort of like a musical instrument. You don’t pick it up and you’re virtuoso on the first try. You know, you practice every day and then 20 years later, Can I tell you a quick story?

00;12;45;18 – 00;12;46;15
Kelly Parbs
Please do!

00;12;46;17 – 00;14;31;13
Buck Blodgett
So she- grandpa bought her a starter keyboard when she was in first grade because Grandpa was a musician. So Jessie was seven and and also, by the way, when she got into organized music in school in sixth grade and in Mr. Hucksteps orchestra, she picked up the violin. Well, the first time she picked up the violin, the dog ran and hid behind the couch on the other side of the house. And when she first sat down at the piano, you know, of course, it was a mess. But by 12 years later, when Jessie was 19, you could give her any song, any song, and she could play it by ear. And, you know, I could tell her a seventies rock song. And if she heard it, she could just sit down at the piano or pick up her violin and play the melody of it on her violin. She could sit at the piano and sing it if she knew the words. Any song! Why? Because we put her in a lesson for half an hour a week and she had lessons for 12 years and she also played every day because she loved it so much for an hour or two every day for 12 years. And then one day she woke up and she could- she was a master of her instruments and her voice. That’s exactly how forgiveness is. It takes practice. And nobody is a virtuoso When you start and it’s hard, it’s a different language. But one day when you put that kind of time into it, like anything, if it’s music, some people have sports, some people have math or whatever it is, anything we practice long enough, we master. What if what if 7 billion people on the planet decided to do that with forgiveness and love on the same day? What would happen?

00;14;31;15 – 00;14;52;04
Kelly Parbs
I would love to see that! I would love to see what would happen if- if everyone was intentional about developing and maintaining the capacity to forgive. I remember there was a time when you knew how many days in a row you had woke up and chosen to forgive Dan.

00;14;52;04 – 00;15;06;19
Buck Blodgett
Yeah, yeah. I don’t anymore. I hit the three year mark and a light bulb went on and I realized that I didn’t have to- I didn’t have to repeat it every single day.

00;15;06;25 – 00;15;09;27
Kelly Parbs
You didn’t have to be as mindful of it.

00;15;09;29 – 00;15;35;01
Buck Blodgett
Yeah. It was like after a thousand days in a row or practicing it, it just got in my bones. It just became who I was. It was- it had infused itself all the way through me, kind of like Jessie and music. And so, I mean, after that, keep doing that same thing. But that’s what happens when you practice and repeat like that. It’s all it is. It’s just practice.

00;15;35;03 – 00;15;41;05
Kelly Parbs
That makes me think of building muscles like muscle memory, but with forgiveness.

00;15;41;08 – 00;15;57;08
Buck Blodgett
Exactly like that. It’s just reps. You go to the gym and workout three times a week for years and you’re going to get bigger and stronger. And the same thing with the forgiveness muscle. It’s exactly like that. It’s simple. It’s just a- it’s just a choice and a practice.

00;15;57;11 – 00;16;19;18
Kelly Parbs
So how do you do it? And I know that’s a loaded question, but I would really like our listeners to leave with something practical and tangible and- and hopefully easy to remember in terms of how do you do it, how do you forgive? Do you have advice for us on that?

00;16;19;21 – 00;17;02;25
Buck Blodgett
Yes, it’s simple. It’s not easy, simple and easy are two completely different things. Sometimes for many people, forgiveness is the hardest thing in the world. But it’s simple. It’s just two steps. And we already talked about one of them. It’s just a choice and then it’s a practice. But there’s all kinds of distinctions around the choice and the practice that are important. One of them is that it’s a choice you might have to make many, many, many times, not just once. It’s not a one shot deal for the big ones. It’s a practice, a daily practice. So the choice. Let’s talk about that for a second. Kelly, did you grow up in a neighborhood like I did that had Baskin Robbins 31 flavors?

00;17;02;27 – 00;17;04;21
Kelly Parbs
I did!

00;17;04;23 – 00;17;07;05
Buck Blodgett
You did? You did all that when you were a little kid?

00;17;07;09 – 00;17;09;13
Kelly Parbs
Yes! I have fond memories.

00;17;09;13 – 00;17;10;20
Buck Blodgett
Do you remember what you used to order?

00;17;10;27 – 00;17;17;03
Kelly Parbs
I do! I usually went for the- chocolate chip mint is what I usually went for at the time.

00;17;17;05 – 00;17;20;10
Buck Blodgett
Chocolate chip mint? Yeah. Do you have siblings?

00;17;20;12 – 00;17;21;27
Kelly Parbs
No, I didn’t!

00;17;21;29 – 00;18;00;26
Buck Blodgett
So we went and I have three siblings. There’s four of us. Three, three brothers and a girl. And- And so I remember Dad being like, You guys, come on, choose! You know, I’d like take us an hour for the four of us to figure out what flavor we want to, because they had 31! And then when we chose, he would just say, just choose. It’s just a choice. Like chocolate or vanilla. That’s just the choice. Right? And and then when we chose, let’s say I took vanilla and let’s see, my older brother Dana took chocolate. Soon as he had his chocolate and I had my vanilla. What flavor do you think I wanted now?

00;18;00;28 – 00;18;02;21
Kelly Parbs
Maybe what your brother had?

00;18;02;24 – 00;19;00;23
Buck Blodgett
Exactly! It’s chocolate because the grass is greener always on the other side, right? So then Dad would have to say you made a choice. You got to live with it. Forgiveness is exactly like ice cream, chocolate or vanilla forgiveness or condemnation of blame, resentment, anger. Just choose. Nobody saying you should. Nobody’s saying which choice is better. Just understand the outcomes of each choice. We already we started today by talking about the outcomes of forgiveness. What the Mayo Clinic says the either the key outcomes are for your mental physical or emotional behavioral you added in spiritual wellness and not just yours, but other people’s in the communities and offenders reforming offenders. So we know what the outcomes of forgiveness are. You can imagine with the outcomes of blame and anger and hostility and hate and non forgiveness are. It’s just a choice.

00;19;00;23 – 00;19;05;14
Kelly Parbs
We see a lot of that in the world, right? The consequence of not forgiving.

00;19;05;17 – 00;20;03;25
Buck Blodgett
Yes. So it’s just a choice. Chocolate or vanilla? Violence or peace? Chocolate or vanilla? Love or hate? Chocolate or vanilla? Forgiveness or unforgiveness? Chocolate or vanilla. So first it’s a choice and then you make it and you live with you live with the outcomes you chose. And you understand that once you choose, if you choose forgiveness, you may have to choose it daily, like I did for over a thousand days until it gets in you and you are it. But that will happen because it’s a practice. So it’s a choice and it’s a practice to select Jessie’s musical instrument. Just like going to the gym, like you said, and building muscles. It’s just a daily routine, a daily habit, a daily practice. But if you do it, it will transform you gradually over time, change everything and bring a peace and a joy and purpose. Maybe beyond our understanding.

00;20;03;27 – 00;20;08;06
Kelly Parbs
I love how you said it’s simple, but it’s not easy.

00;20;08;09 – 00;21;37;06
Buck Blodgett
Yeah. Yeah. Very simple. Two step, simple process, Hardest thing in the world. By the way, Martin Luther King not only said we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who’s devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. By the way, he’s saying that forgiveness is love and love is forgiveness. If you can’t forgive, you can’t love. Don’t tell yourself you’re a loving person if you’re not forgiving someone, if you’re not putting forgiveness in action, it’s the sentence he said immediately after that. That’s part of that same quote is there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. And I think it helps us forgive to remember that. Like they don’t deserve it, they’re an evil monster. Dan’s not a monster. He did a monstrous thing, but that doesn’t make him a monster. I knew him for four years. He was like most of us. He just made some choices that most people don’t make and let himself – his computer search showed this – this slippery slope of choices that he let himself go down until he acted it out. But there’s some evil in the best of us and some good in the worst of us. There’s good in him and there’s evil in me that changes it. You know, if I call him a monster now, I can separate his humanity from mine. But if there’s evil in me and there’s good in him now, we’re kind of the same, which promotes forgiveness and makes it easier for me.

00;21;37;08 – 00;22;40;10
Kelly Parbs
It takes a lot of emotional intelligence to be able to think in that way, Buck, and I really appreciate you leading us through that process and sharing that information with us. I’m- I’m so sorry that this is your story, but thank you for sharing it. I’m truly grateful that you took this time with me today. And mostly I’m grateful that you have been so brave and so courageous and fiercely determined to make this world a safer and more peaceful, loving place, when no one would have blamed you if you would have made a different choice. Right? Like we talked about, if you would have been angry and vengeful and in your reaction to the murder of your only child, I know that you have heard it countless times, but you truly are in the truest sense of the word an inspiration. And I appreciate you sharing your story!

00;22;40;13 – 00;25;01;25
Buck Blodgett
Or thank you so much. You know, Dan not only stole Jessie’s life, he also stole her voice. That was really important to Jessie. She really thought she was going to change the world. And maybe she was right. Maybe she is. But you’ve given it back to her for this podcast time, and that means more to me than I have words for. Believe it or not, I’m usually not short of words, but that means everything to me and to to sound the craziest that I have on this podcast yet. I’m not sorry that this is my story. Like, I mean, and that’s not disloyal to Jessie. I believe we were ending and so I don’t have time to take you down this road, but some things happened to me. 24 things happened to me in the year after we lost her. That changed my worldview forever. It made me realize that I’ve been missing something. Here they were. They got there was a few of those things were really crazy and things that only only Jessie would and me, not even joy. A few of those things that only Jessie would know. And she made it clear to me, I believe, that her body is dead and gone, but she’s not, and that we’re in this together and that all of us are in this together and all of us have to get through this and out of this mess together. So what do we doin, you know, what are we doing with our lives? And I hope that this isn’t just an interesting podcast for listeners, but it will be, you know, a turning point for some and a changing point in life. And, you know, the only thing keeping the 7 billion people from choosing forgiveness today and practicing it is 7 billion individual choices to do so. My choice. Your choice, Kelly. You’re already doing it. All of our listeners choices. We can’t make 7 billion people do it, but whoever’s listening on this call can. And that matters. So thank you very, very much to Jessie’s legacy. And it honors her life and her death and makes it count for something. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

00;25;01;27 – 00;25;08;13
Kelly Parbs
Hey, Buck, you mentioned something once to me called the crux move. Can you tell me what that is?

00;25;08;16 – 00;27;06;29
Buck Blodgett
Yes. So, Kelly, my oldest brother, used to be a rock climbing instructor for NOLs National Outdoor Leadership School. And he’d take people all over the world, Patagonia and Alaska, and scale these great peaks, and he’d take me out a few times. And I wasn’t the expert he was. But we’d go up these cliffs and there was always a crux move. That’s what Fred called it. And the crux move was the hardest move you had to be able to make. It was the hardest maneuver to get up the cliffs, to get to the top. And the crux move is the most important move, because if you can’t make it, you can’t make that one. You have to turn around and go back down and you can’t get to the top of the cliff and be somewhere you’ve never been before and see a view you’ve never seen before. In my opinion, there’s a crux move to ending violence on the planet, and humans have never been able to make it before. We’ve never gotten off that cliff and seen the view from the top of that peak before. But that doesn’t mean we won’t and it doesn’t mean we can’t. It just means we haven’t made it yet. Sometimes I had to climb the cliff with Fred and I’d feel a few times and then eventually I’d make the crux move. And the crux move, in my opinion, to end the violence on planet is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the crux move. We’ve- we’ve never been able to plan a terribly make that move, yet we’ve never been able to lift culture to the point where humans are at a level where we can make the crux move. And if- and when we ever do, we’ll get to the top. So far, we’ve had to turn around, go back down and keep repeating the same climb over and over and over. We can’t get past that point. But one day we will. We’ll make the crux move and then we’ll get to the top for the first time ever.

00;27;07;01 – 00;27;32;01
Kelly Parbs
Thank you for that. And I hope that in listening to this podcast today, our listeners are thinking about exactly what is their crux move. Buck, for our listeners who might want additional resources on the topic of forgiveness, are there any resources that you recommend that you can share?

00;27;32;03 – 00;28;40;15
Buck Blodgett
Yeah, the very best one I know Kelly is right here in Madison, Wisconsin. It is the International Forgiveness Institute, founded by Professor Robert Enright and Robert Enright from UW Madison is one of if not the worldwide recognized experts on forgiveness research and the IFI, the International Forgiveness Institute, not only has a lot of that research, but it also has programs so people can have, you know, more user friendly access to it and utilize what the research suggests that we should do about this forgiveness thing if we want to be healthier, happier and more empowered and free. Also, people can Google Johns Hopkins University or the Mayo Clinic, number one. Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Berkeley University. And just in their search bar, put in forgiveness and see what it gives you. That’s what I did. And they’ve got some good material, too, like we shared on the podcast.

00;28;40;18 – 00;28;53;29
Kelly Parbs
Thank you, Buck. In the- in the minute or two that we have left, would you like to share with us how our listeners can follow The Love > Hate and continue learning more about forgiveness?

00;28;54;01 – 00;29;47;01
Buck Blodgett
Sure, they can visit our website. There’s all kinds of stuff on our website, the history of the story and all of it and resources to join us. We have seven different ways people can join us and and create- help us create a movement here. So the website is www.LIGTH.org. L-I-G-T-H, that’s short for love is greater than hate. Watch out on your devices. They may autocorrect to light. It’s not light, it’s L-I-G-T-H. On Facebook, it’s the love is greater than hate project. And we’re also on Instagram and we’re also on YouTube. And there’s also the book that you mentioned, “A Message From Jessie” on Amazon. Those are all the best ways to find out about us and hook in.

00;29;47;04 – 00;30;38;01
Kelly Parbs
From immense personal tragedy, Dr. Buck Blodgett founded The Love > Hate Project. His mission is to end interpersonal violence and for people to choose love over hate through the power of forgiveness. He shares his powerful story to illustrate that all of us can find peace and healing through forgiveness. I’ll end this podcast with the same question I started with – Who do you need to forgive? To hear all episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website, www.Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @empathia, and subscribe to OnTopic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m your host, Kelly Parbs – Thank you for listening.