Santa Clarita Relationship Coach Jessica Hartley, founder of the Legendary Love Program, talked about “revolutionizing” the way people see forgiveness during the latest “Thriving Relationships” show on KHTS Radio.

“We have been doing forgiveness wrong — there’s so many things about it that are flawed and create experiences in relationship that just don’t really work,” she explained. “So we have to really address this and start to recondition and change it.”

Hartley began the discussion by asking why individuals need their partner to say “I’m sorry” after a wrongdoing, which she attributed to what she called the “conditioned human need” to feel understood.

Related: Santa Clarita Relationship Coach: What Is Thriving Love?

“To feel understood is essentially saying that I need my partner to know that they wronged me, know that they hurt me and essentially not do it again,” Hartley said.

However, Hartley continued that this type of thinking can lead to a “manipulative game” where the person who has been wronged is holding their forgiveness over their partner’s head, and withdrawing acceptance, approval and attention until the partner can “prove” that they are truly sorry and won’t repeat the offense.  

“The thing that we need to all recognize is that we are going to learn through mistakes, and second is that we are always going to be learning,” Hartley explained. “We are never going to stop learning, which means we are never going to stop making mistakes, so it’s hand in hand. We have to accept that in order to actually improve ourselves and to do better in any one thing, that we have to fumble and fall a little bit.”

Conversely, the one who did something wrong often feels compelled by a “conditioned norm” to “desperately” seek redemption in the form of forgiveness from their partner, according to Hartley.

“And we’re not happy unless we can be understood or we can feel like we are seen for the innocence or the good intentions that we had,” Hartley said. “That’s crazy. It’s crazy because we’re giving away all of our personal self worth, our own ability to process our own mistakes and all of that away. We’re giving that power away to someone else, and now they have control (over) whether or not I feel good about myself.”

Hartley continued that this power should always remain between a person and their spiritual higher power, or between the person and themselves.

Both of these common behaviors related to giving or seeking forgiveness can lead to problems in the relationship, according to Hartley, who works with individuals and couples alike to help them introduce powerful changes in their relationship.

“Women always want connection, but we don’t realize that we’re actually creating disconnection in some of the things that we do in our everyday experience,” she said. “So we’ve got to start to, No. 1, claim awareness, and then also start to make changes with it.”

Ed. Note: This article is a KHTS Community Spotlight based on the latest “Thriving Relationships” with Jessica Hartley, a Santa Clarita relationship coach.

Jessica Hartley is a Santa Clarita relationship coach and the founder of the Legendary Love Program, which provides the necessary structure to introduce powerful changes in your relationship with or without the direct participation of both partners. Hartley uses her 10 years of experience to coach couples on how to save their marriage from divorce and learn to thrive in deep connection and strong, lasting love. The relationship coach in Santa Clarita is the host of “Thriving Relationships with Jessica Hartley” every Wednesday at 2 p.m. on KHTS Radio.

Jessica Hartley

The Legendary Love Program

661-347-8473

[email protected]

Jessica Hartley, Santa Clarita

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn4t-fI7CKY

Jessica Hartley, Santa Clarita Relationship Coach, Relationship Coach Santa Clarita, Legendary Love Program, Santa Clarita Relationship Counselor, Relationship Counselor Santa Clarita