Episode 13
Redefining Forgiveness while Grieving: Making Peace with the Past -13
This episode is Part 1 of a special two-part series exploring the messy, powerful, and deeply human experience of forgiveness. Host Sarah Peterson is joined by returning guests Dr. Marlis Beier and Dr. Dean Sharpe for an honest conversation about what forgiveness really means—beyond clichés and simple answers. Together, they explore the emotional and psychological layers of forgiving others, forgiving yourself, and even questioning if forgiveness is always necessary for healing after loss. From personal reflections to practical metaphors and insights, this episode offers a compassionate look at how forgiveness can shape grief, growth, and inner peace—while also honoring that the path forward is different for everyone.
Whether you’re a caregiver, supporting someone through bereavement, or looking for new grief resources, this conversation offers hope, practical coping strategies, and permission to forge your own path forward.
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Sarah Peterson is a licensed clinical social worker with over 13 years of experience in medical social work, hospice care and in private practice. As the founder of Clear Mourning, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shifting the culture of grief through innovation, support, and awareness, Sarah brings a deep understanding of grief and loss to her work. Her personal experiences, including the tragic loss of her two-year-old daughter and father, have profoundly shaped her mission to provide compassionate support to others navigating grief.
Sarah holds a Master of Social Work from Portland State University and has extensive experience in both private practice and nonprofit leadership. She also serves as an adjunct instructor at Portland State, runs her own private practice, and provides supervision for licensure candidates.
Dean Sharpe trained as a general surgeon and worked in private practice from 1980 to2002. His interests expanded and in 1994 he earned a master’s degree in health administration, becoming the first Vice President of Medical Affairs at St. Charles Medical Center. He shared this position with his surgical practice until 2002 when he became a full-time administrator. Informatics and computerized medical records arrived, and he facilitated that change at St. Charles from 2004 to 2006 as VP Clinical Informatics. In his two administrative jobs, relationship and change facilitation were his major roles.
His passion as facilitator and educator led to helping design and facilitate “People Centered Teams”, an organizational and personal seminar beginning 1992. The program grew from St. Charles to national, impacting the lives of over 5000 participants. He helped design and teach Death and Dying workshops at St. Charles in the 90’s with the goal that caregivers would become more comfortable with their own mortality as well as their patients. He believes the physician’s role is to facilitate the relationship between patients and their illness, which allows healing, regardless of physical cure. Teaching the Sacred Art of Living Community seminars are a natural extension of Dean’s interests because of the wedding of psychological and spiritual aspects of the inward journey. He has facilitated Healing the Healers seminars since 2008. Starting in 2017 he has facilitated with his wife the 10-month track (part of a program called Anamcara second year) Soul of Wellness: The course focuses on the lifelong questions “Who are you and what do you want? He is married to Marlis Beier, has two daughters and three grandsons. He lives in Bend, Oregon and enjoys cooking, skiing, hiking, gardening, traveling and being with his family.
Marlis Beier started her professional career in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Bend, Oregon. She found gratification accompanying patients facing life transitions. She learned about grief when her best friend, brother and beloved patients died. Her chronically ill daughter asked her to help her die at age 5. Grief comes not with just the loss of someone but also loss of identity and ability. The diagnosis of MS meant repeated grieving loss of ability and with time, her identity as practicing physician. She found similar gratification volunteering in hospice being with the dying. That’s where she met Sarah. Their deep friendship held space for Sarah as she grieves the tragic loss of her daughter Marley at age 2 from a drunk driver on a Sunday morning.
Marlis has been a spiritual seeker from an early age, learning from many traditions and teachers. She has become a mentor to many through teaching at hospice and the Sacred Art of Living Center. Although she teaches many diverse subjects, her intention is transformation of suffering. Her greatest love is her family, including husband Dean Sharpe, M.D., two daughters, Marissa and Anneliese, and grandsons Thielsen, Sawyer and Kepler. The saga of Anneliese’s health challenges since age one inspired her to become a better doctor, mother and companion to anyone facing illness or challenge.
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Transcript
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Sarah Peterson [:Welcome to enduring grief, healing practices and true stories of living after loss, where we dive into real, honest conversations about the journey through grief and the support that makes it possible. I'm Sarah Peterson, an LCSW, and in this space, I bring my experience as someone who has walked this path, as well as my work with my nonprofit Clear Morning. I'm often joined by two incredible guests, Doctor. Marlis Beyer and Doctor. Dean Sharp, both incredible people and physicians who've spent their lives caring for people and have supported me personally on my journey through grief. In our first episode, I'll share my personal story and how I've come to this work, why it matters so deeply to me and how it might resonate with you. Whether you're navigating your own loss or standing by someone who is, this space is for you. Join me as we uncover the stories, the struggles, and the hope that lead to healing.
Sarah Peterson [:Let's walk through this journey together. Welcome back to enduring grief healing practices and true stories of living after loss. I am with my favorite guests. Everybody's my favorite guest, but you guys are really my favorite guests. Right? Marla and Dean are here. And today, we're gonna talk about forgiveness. And I just wanna acknowledge that forgiveness can be so hard. And maybe, like other episodes, you cringe at the thought of forgiving yourself or somebody else because you just don't quite deserve it.
Sarah Peterson [:And we're gonna challenge you to reconsider what that means, the definition and the act of forgiveness. So please join us on this adventure and this investigation through what is possible for you and your grief process. How's that, guys?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Sounds good.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. Well, one of the things I would like to start with is the definition of forgiveness. I mean, I think in terms of the Webster's dictionary, we all have a pretty good idea, but I think each person marches around with their own idea of what forgiveness is. And for me, forgiveness has meant different things for different situations, honestly. Like, sometimes well, one time in particular, I don't even use the word forgiveness because it just feels like I'm not there yet, and that's the person who killed my daughter. So, you know, I think in my victim's impact statement, I committed myself to never forgiving him, and I'm gonna stand by that. But what I do know is that I do everything I can to not let him take anything else from me. And some people might say that's forgiveness.
Sarah Peterson [:But whether that's driving the road that we were on or putting my kids in the car, period, he's taken enough, and he no longer gets to take those things from me too. Do you think that sounds like forgiveness?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I think that sounds like a piece of forgiveness for sure. Mhmm. I mean, ultimately, when we forgive another, there are a couple of principles that need to be remembered. And that is that forgiving somebody never means that what was done was okay or that somehow you're erasing necessarily what had occurred. But instead what you're doing is taking something which occurred in the past, which you are still carrying in the present, and allowing it, as you said, to no longer steal your life for your peacefulness, to let go of it and to allow yourself to move on in the world, to unencumber yourself with that past event. And oftentimes, it requires boundaries that you would establish because reconciliation is not an automatic part of forgiveness at all. You can forgive without ever reconciling with somebody.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. Explain the difference, Dean. Give it to a straight.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, reconciling is where you go to continue to have an ongoing relationship with someone. Spouses do that all the time. Kids and their parents do that all the time. Dear friends do that all the time. Someone says or does something which is a slight or hurtful, and after a conversation, they move forward. And it's not like the hurt didn't happen, but they're willing to leave it in the past and to continue on with a friendship. Got it. And to rebuild trust over some period of time in which the behavior doesn't occur again.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Whereas forgiveness without reconciliation, you can do that with someone who's dead. You can do that with someone you will never see again. You can do that with someone who it would be frankly dangerous for you to go have a conversation with them or situations where you don't even know who the person was. You're a victim of some crime and the person was never apprehended. You may never know their identity and that doesn't mean that you can't forgive and move on for your own peace of mind.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm. Now okay. Is that your definition of forgiveness as well as the answer to my question?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I think that's how I describe forgiveness. I'm not sure it fulfills a Webster's definition, but it's my description.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, yeah. It's not supposed to because then this podcast would be not as interesting. Right. Now does that align with your interpretation and how you operate in life around forgiveness, or is that your message to others, and are they the same?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:No. That's how I Okay. That's how I operate in the world. If you look at forgiveness and you look at all of the spiritual traditions on the planet, forgiveness is a huge part of them, but every one of them has this quid pro quo kind of thing with it. And the piece that we're most familiar with is the Judeo Christian religion although that's not the only one where the same kind of a statement is made. But it's really, you'll forgive others as they forgive you or and be forgiven.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And you will be forgiven as you forgive others. And so it even goes to Matthew where it's, you know, your father will forgive you to the extent that you're willing to forgive others. Your father will not forgive you to the extent in which you're unforgiving to others.
Sarah Peterson [:Uh-oh.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:So there is a quid pro quo, and you can understand it from a psychodynamic standpoint too. To the extent that you have your fingers wrapped around the throat of another in resentment, in ongoing aged anger and blame, you are closed to receiving forgiveness from others, and you're closed to even doing your own self compassion and your own forgiveness of yourself because your energy is all focused on this other neck.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. That's a lot to unpack, Dean. That you said a lot there.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I did.
Sarah Peterson [:Good stuff. Okay. Marlis, what is your definition or description?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, forgiveness is not just with grief. It's moment to moment. But since the focus here is grief, both grief and forgiveness are huge cauldrons of emotion. I mean, I've heard them described as wild animals and icebergs and, you know, like, you just start at the top and there's just this huge amount underneath and the emotions are inevitably hurt, anger, guilt. I mean, it's all the really, really hard emotions to feel. And I would describe forgiveness as being willing to actually feel the emotion and just allow it to be and let it go. And my definition of forgiveness is freedom.
Sarah Peterson [:I like that too. Yeah. Because that's what you get. That's the payoff. It's not the reconciliation. It's not anything other than the freedom in your own story
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yep.
Sarah Peterson [:To keep going Yep. In a more peaceful way.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, inevitably, when I have the deep forgiveness work in my life, after I get done forgiving the other person God or what is the world, it always ends up coming back to, if I can just have that same kind of forgiveness for myself, that is really freedom.
Sarah Peterson [:True story. And Dean, if we think about the hands on the neck situation, you know, where does self forgiveness come into that analogy?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, we often pick up the knife and use it against ourselves.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. So we've got our own hands on our own neck.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And Marlis talks about the emotions that are around a lack of forgiveness or the hurt that we experience at the at the hands of another. And oftentimes, there's two levels to those emotions. There are the superficial emotions that we feel, which is anger and blame and resentment and rage, and they're big powerful emotions. Underneath those emotions, deeper in is hurt and sadness and helplessness, all of which are really, really hard to feel because we feel as though we were vulnerable in the moment that we were hurt.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. The trust is broken.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. And so what happens is we cover over our tender emotions with these big, rageful, powerful things in an attempt to tell ourselves that we're in control. And the reality is that we're not in control, from the standpoint of all that revenge stuff and blame and whatever. And we hold on to it so long because we wanna continue to protect ourselves from the ultimate feeling of vulnerability that we had.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. And I think what's especially complicated or more intense, if I may, during the grief process, like an acute grief process because you're already living amidst this incredible sense of powerlessness. And so something like that is a place that artificially can give that sense of control. And so no wonder people maybe cling to it a little bit longer or harder after death. Oh, Marlis might disagree.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Oh, no. Oh, you agree? Oh, I totally agree.
Sarah Peterson [:I just Listen to how smart I am. Yeah. No. I just think doctors agreeing with me about it.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I think of all the places we're so angry. We're angry at the cancer. We're angry at the doctors. We're angry at the person who left us. We're angry at ourselves for all the things we didn't do right. We're angry and all of that is I just think of Buddha. Life is suffering, and it's not going to turn out the way you want, and you will get sick, and you will get old. I mean, not only you, but the people around you, they will die.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, yeah. And I'm just thinking, like, as far as tools go, I might use this whole hands around the neck thing quite a bit because, you know, that's my language. I really enjoy the hands on the neck, Dean, so thank you. And maybe we stop and ask ourselves, like, whose hand's whose neck, and to what end? Right? To what how long am I going to continue to squeeze my own or the other's neck before I say uncle? Right.
Sarah Peterson [:Well What am I getting from this
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Exactly.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Power, control. But it's fake.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:It's fake.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, of course. Because inherently, it's fake.
Sarah Peterson [:But if I'm just picturing my hands on the neck, and I'm squeezing so tight, like, honestly, who's in charge? The person who's neck Oh, yeah. Yeah. Holding. So it's kind of the antithesis of what I'm aiming for here.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Right? Well, Thich Nhat Hanh said that when you're feeling all that anger, really, the only person who is hurt is the person who's angry.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the definition of resentment is drinking poison, expecting the other person to die. And so what if they're already dead? It's really, pointless.
Sarah Peterson [:I mean, it's really pointless, which brings us to this topic. Like, what do we do if we're so hurt by the person who's gone? I mean, we've got the forgiveness issue like the one I talked about. You know? Somebody perpetrated against my family and caused a tragedy. So there's the forgiveness around that as a major issue that I will grapple with till my dying breath, I think. And I've mitigated it by telling myself the very thing I started this episode with, which is he no longer gets to take more from me. He's taken enough. And there's a lot of forgiveness stuff to unpack, so I'm trying to move through it a steady clip. Right? Okay.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. We're laughing at something that we know is not funny, but maybe I'm funny. So that's why we're like, I'm so human. Human.
Marlis Beier, MD [:This is so human. I mean, if there's one thing I can just put in here, forgiveness is over and over and over and over. It's just like you have SUGS or sudden upwelling of grief. The emotions of powerlessness and anger and vulnerability and all of that, they just show up again. Yeah. And then you have to go through the process again.
Sarah Peterson [:Over and over. There is no done.
Marlis Beier, MD [:There is no path that goes all the way.
Sarah Peterson [:There is no path that goes all the way, and there are tools that help us get to that path really efficiently, which I think is how we live our most meaningful life is to be efficient in the process. And I know that that sounds very clinical. But in a moment, when you are overwhelmed, like, for example, when I'm driving that road, I have to have that tool dialed in to go. So that's what I mean by efficient. Like, I have to go through that. He doesn't get to take okay. And here we go. Drive.
Sarah Peterson [:So that's what I mean by efficient is that it's a rehearsed strategy for me to move through something that's very hard and uncomfortable, and it comes up, like you said, sometimes randomly, sometimes expectedly, but, nonetheless, I lean on that strategy because I practiced it. Right? So that's that forgiveness. But the forgiveness that we're gonna move to right now is what happens if they're dead because you're definitely not gonna get any feedback. You're definitely not gonna get the chance to even set a boundary. Right?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right.
Marlis Beier, MD [:How do we do it? I don't think it matters.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, of course it matters.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I don't know.
Sarah Peterson [:I've been in this teaching moment for people. It has to matter because that's something that holds people back.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I guess I was just thinking that since these are about grief, that we could almost go to a presumption that it's about some kind of death.
Sarah Peterson [:Yes.
Marlis Beier, MD [:And I really think that forgiveness doesn't have much to do with the other person.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. There we go.
Marlis Beier, MD [:They don't need to be alive. I mean, I have spent years forgiving my father who died fourteen years ago.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. Yeah. And I have spent years, you know, forgiving my adopted son who jumped off the bridge, and my friend who went weird, psychotic at the end and ditched us. I mean, people, my brother, oh my gosh.
Sarah Peterson [:But I think, like, a lot of people don't think that that's possible. I think they think that the death has occurred, as has the relationship, as has the opportunity for growth in the relationship. And so we're here to say no. No. So how do you do it?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Well, I think there's first of all, if one really gets clear about the dynamic that's going on, and I've sort of started that part of the conversation. First of all, it happened in the past. It's no longer in the present moment. I mean, whatever the hurt was, whatever the incident was, it occurred sometime ago. So it's not currently occurring. So on the one level, here you are going through your life, you driving down a road or me taking a walk on a Saturday morning with people that I love, and I see a curve on the road or a face coming towards me on the hike that reminds me of this incident that occurred long ago. And to the extent that I have done my forgiveness work and truly let go of it, in that moment, I am off and running with all of the remembered incident and into all of the emotions again in this moment for something that occurred in the past. Mhmm.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And then what happens is that my peacefulness, just like you said, you know, my peacefulness in this moment has been robbed by this other person. My experience is owned by another human being. So the first step in forgiveness is to finally get sick of that.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. I've had enough.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Like,
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I am just done with allowing my experience to be owned by another person.
Sarah Peterson [:And really quick, I don't wanna make you lose your thought, but in the grief process, there are very few things that you can dead end, right, that you can be sick of and say, I'm done with this part. I do believe that this is one of the things that even if you have to revisit it in order to manage it, you can say, I'm sick of it. I am making a change. Like, that is within you, unlike so many parts of the grief process. Agree or disagree?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I agree that that's somewhat true. And I also agree that even in the grief process, you can reach a place where you are sick of grieving in a way that continues to retell the story of how this person is completely absent in your life, and instead begin to tell the story about how much you did love and how much you did care and how they live on with you in some form, and you now have a larger container to hold it all in so that it no longer is the same. So it's not to say that this forgiveness issue is just gonna go away.
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I mean, your mom and your dad did what your mom and your dad did that you need to forgive him for. This guy did what he did. And so there are going to be times when you'll end up reworking it, but the beginning of it is to finally be sick of having your equanimity and your ability to be peaceful in the world, robbed by something over which you have no control.
Sarah Peterson [:Cannot be changed.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I mean, you have no control from the standpoint of you cannot redo the past. I've also heard that forgiveness, to forgive is to give up the fantasy that your past can be better.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, that's good. That's rich. Yeah. Oh, just another fantasy to grieve. Yeah. Right? But that it could have been better. Like, let it go. It wasn't.
Sarah Peterson [:Right.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:It was what it was what it was. Mhmm. But there is a place if we are honest with ourselves and we niggle through what's going on in these dynamics, we hold on to this stuff because we keep thinking that person is gonna come crawling on their knees 10,000 miles, begging at their knees for forgiveness and plea. And unlike I mean, certainly not gonna happen if the person is dead.
Sarah Peterson [:Right. That's for sure not happening. But I don't think it happens too often in the living either. No. It certainly never happened to me that I can think of.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:If it is gonna happen, it already would've. Mhmm. I mean, there would've been an opportunity. And you see, we're talking the big things too. The little things that happen every day. I mean, every day, there's something. There's some place I am not present with Marlis in a way that she wants me to be. Yeah.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Or I don't respond in a way that's elegant. There are lots of times when I'm fairly inelegant. There are many, many situations like that where we give each other a break, and we say, oh, shit. I forgive you, and I still love you, and I'm gonna try and do better even though I'm still human, and all of that. I mean, I just do that all the time.
Sarah Peterson [:Like, one of my negative core beliefs is about being in trouble and something's wrong with me. Like, I combat that a lot, but maybe the true negative core belief is that I am unforgivable. Yes. Yeah. Wow. Okay. It's happening right here.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Right. And deeper than that is even unworthy
Sarah Peterson [:Unworthy.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And not enough. And under all of that is the essential nature, powerless and helpless.
Sarah Peterson [:That's true. Although, I do think, like, I think I'm lovable, but if I screw up, I don't think I'll survive it. Yeah. I'm terrified of it That all the time.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:That the love is conditional. Mhmm.
Sarah Peterson [:Weird. Okay. So what's step two? Dean gave us step one, which is getting sick of it, so you say enough. What would you say the next thing you can do to forgive somebody who's gone, Marlis? I'm back to naming the feelings.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Mhmm.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm sad. Betrayed. I'm betrayed. And I mean, if you want to really get to ultimate forgiveness is when have I felt this way before, and when did I feel like that before that, and when was the very youngest I felt like that? Because, I mean, let's take my brother who died at, 49. And, oh my gosh, he was a very withdrawn person to the point that my mother remembers the last words that he said to her were, Don't touch me. And when he died, I wanted to tell him how much I loved him and to say goodbye, but those were both unacceptable concepts, words. He wouldn't hear them. And I felt so rejected, excluded, unloved, un disconnected, all of those incredibly painful emotions as he was dying. I mean, and betrayed and, you know, if I keep going back to my earliest memories, I remember my brother sitting on my chest, spitting in my face. And that is powerless, betrayed, disconnected, unloved, unworthy. And to forgive him for who he was during his life and who he was at his death meant going back and being willing to feel that sense of powerlessness and understand my brother was doing the best he could.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. That's like step three. Big step three.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. No. Everyone, I believe, is always doing the best they can. Everyone.
Sarah Peterson [:Or always do better.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:No. I'm just kidding. And like I say, everyone has everyone has a bummer factor.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Right.
Sarah Peterson [:We only like a meter that we use at our house, and we're like, hold your hand real low. Like, I'm doing my best. Or am I doing my best? Like, they're all my best depending on the day and my how much sleep I had and whether I've eaten and all the things. But sometimes my best is like a rocket ship, and sometimes my best is not there.
Marlis Beier, MD [:It's a lot about how much reserve and resilience you have at that moment. Exactly. So we're, like all freaking human. Oh, that's right.
Sarah Peterson [:Oh, that's right. Okay. So this, I think, will be really interesting, and I didn't prepare you guys for this part. But you're grieving. You share a friend, lifelong friend. This friend dies. It was tragic how your relationship unfolded at the end. Devastating.
Sarah Peterson [:Have you both forgiven this person? One. Two, how different were your processes to get there, and what do you wish you would have known going into it about the process of forgiveness for this friend? Does that make sense?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. I can go there. Okay. So have you forgiven? So much further down the path than I was. What I would like to feel is I would like to remember the good times we had with him and not have it be so flavored by how terrible his death was. I'm not quite there yet. And has he I have gaps where I can just go, oh, wow. Remember when we went skiing or we cooked this meal or we did this? And it was so lovely.
Marlis Beier, MD [:And I just think of not only us, but all the people he threw under the bus at times in his life.
Sarah Peterson [:At the end, there was only one man left standing. Right? One friend that remained. Of a very large circle of people who loved and cared about each other for his case.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Who was not even from that long a period of time, I mean.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. Did you see your process of forgiveness as something that unfolded very differently than Dean's? I don't know that we've ever talked about it.
Marlis Beier, MD [:You asked about what would I say to myself at the very beginning.
Sarah Peterson [:What do you wish you knew at the beginning of this?
Marlis Beier, MD [:Absolutely nothing different. I really think each one of us, the process we go through is what we're meant to learn. And so I think I needed to be really hurt, really, really hurt and really, really angry and really I mean, I turn his picture upside down in the closet and shove it in the back.
Sarah Peterson [:So maybe you would have said trust the process. I know that you say that anyway. But just as I don't for our listeners, there's some wisdom there.
Marlis Beier, MD [:I don't think you can go back and say to yourself, oh, gee. Do this differently. And if you take your own life and you go back and think about yourself ten years ago and you really just hold yourself in compassion, why could you have said differently?
Sarah Peterson [:Well, sometimes I think it can be driven by a sense of hope. Like, you're gonna make it. You're gonna get through like, this is not gonna gobble you up. The hurt caused by your friend, the death of my child, the failing of a class my freshman year of college, like, things that in the moment feel unsurvivable, I do think that there would be oh, it'd be so nice to be able to just whisper in that version back then and say, you're actually gonna be okay. Would you have listened? I don't I do. I'm not stubborn. I don't know if I would have listened, but I would listen now. And I lean on that wisdom that I know I've cultivated over the years Yes.
Sarah Peterson [:Now. And so that's why I always come back to this in my own mind and sometimes even in these episodes. Like, to know that what I needed to hear in those hard moments were trust the process or you were gonna be okay is content for today's life too.
Marlis Beier, MD [:My hope for anyone listening is that as you listen to the human journey that is being told in story, this podcast, you can see that it's the universal human journey. It's yours too.
Sarah Peterson [:You're right. It is. And I wanna know, Dean, do you think your process of forgiving your friend has been different than Marlis'?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I think yes, and I think it's different. It all is about forgiveness, but our experiences were profoundly different. At the end, our relationship, while close, was different. Each of us had a different kind of relationship with my friend. So what's clear to me is that I don't have as I might because as he withdrew and was nasty at the end, there were so many opportunities for me to say, I'm out of here. I'm done with you. I don't need to put up with this die alone kind of a thing. And what I knew from life before is that I would then end up in a place where I would have not said the things that I really thought I needed to say to him at the end of his life, nor would I have done what I promised to do at the beginning before it all blew up, which was to accompany him to the end.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:And so in spite of the fact that I was pretty angry and hurt, I also was clear that I said the things I needed to say to him about how much I cared about him and loved him for all the years that I did. Mhmm. And I accompanied him until his last breath.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Wow.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:So I don't have much forgiveness issue with myself other than my contribution to the schism that created this blow up on his part, which I obviously had a part of. I mean, we were in relationship together, and some things that I done disappointed him. I think way out of proportion to what they were worth, but they did.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:That's just the reality.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I have forgiven myself for that peace. I feel badly that it resulted in what it resulted in, but I'm not hanging on to that part anymore.
Sarah Peterson [:Do you think you've forgiven him?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Now from the standpoint of forgiving him for where he went in the last few months of his life, I think I have a lot of space for his reality and how helpless and how so much of the dysfunction of his own childhood just showed up at the end in its own kind of a way. While there's a part of me that says it wasn't right and how he treated us was not okay, And I'm not gonna ever say it was okay. I can hold him in a space where I can say, and it was really hard for him. And he was really profoundly inelegant. And he is, as all of us are in many ways, profoundly wounded human being Mhmm. Who in the face of his dying time, which he was not prepared for in any way, exploded in ways that were not pretty. So, from the standpoint of I don't find myself angry with him or hateful of him. I find myself regretting that his last months, which could have been truly, as last months often are, a beautiful experience, turned out to be kind of chaotic and ugly.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:But there's also a part where I have to ask the question, was it destined that the only way this man could die was in chaos and ugliness? It's quite possible. And I don't know enough to answer that question.
Sarah Peterson [:So you have forgiven?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I think I've let go of a lot of it. I don't walk around, you know, in some sort of a turmoil and unpeaceful around a lot of it. There are times when I say, oh, honey. You were such a booger. Or, oh, honey. You just so missed it. It's kind of a sadness, more than a blame and an anger. So I guess if that's probably a reconciliation.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:You see? We're never gonna be Never gonna go. Never gonna be friends Well like that again. The reconciliation I have is sort of reconciling again with what we had before those last few months of his life. I mean, really, decades. Friendship.
Sarah Peterson [:Do you guys miss him?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I do.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. On occasion. Yeah.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Miss him when I have a project that I just am dying to do. We did so many posterity projects together.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Miss him when we're up on the scale and it's freezing cold because he and I went up on the top of the summit when it was 75 degrees below zero
Sarah Peterson [:Oh my gosh.
Marlis Beier, MD [:And wind chill factor, and no one else would go with us, but we had a great time.
Sarah Peterson [:That's very, very, very cold.
Marlis Beier, MD [:It was very, very, very cold. They would not allow you to have any skin showing.
Sarah Peterson [:So how does one know, okay. I've forgiven. Is it when you can really say the meter of joy taking and theft has subsided.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:How peaceful am I?
Sarah Peterson [:How peaceful am I? There's the question, folks. And I think that there's I don't know. This is me projecting based on my own experience, which is what I'm really good at. But I can get there easier if the word forgiveness isn't necessarily part of it because I think the word forgiveness is laden with these ideals for me that I'm not necessarily okay with for each relationship. And so when I can say, is my peace mine? Do I have peace? Oh, Marlis, what? Say it. Tell me.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, I think it's like enlightenment. I think you may have glimpses of enlightenment, or you may have glimpses of forgiveness, but I think that once you have glimpsed forgiveness, you know it's available.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Yeah. But it isn't there in your amygdala.
Sarah Peterson [:Well, no. But do you think it matters that we use the word forgiveness? Can we replace it with No. My peace, my content.
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well, that's the process. You have to name I mean, avoiding forgiveness. Okay. See, my intuition forgiveness is just avoiding the discomfort.
Sarah Peterson [:Okay. Fine. And I don't know that I have to have that level of uncomfortableness around something in order to protect my peace. Because if I simply replace the word, I've got my peace. I don't know why I have to I mean, hey. First of all, guys, we've had this conversation off mic a few times, and I think Marlis is attached to the word forgiveness. And I really appreciate Dean's willingness to be less attached
Marlis Beier, MD [:Well to the word forgiveness.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:So Yeah. From my perspective, forgiveness is often so overlaid with this idea that by my forgiving, I somehow am letting the other person off the hook, or I'm making it okay, or making what they did just fine. And what I'm saying is that that is not what forgiveness is. But if your consciousness and definition of that term is so interlaced with those falsities about it, then for heaven's sakes, use a different term.
Sarah Peterson [:Thank you.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Because it allows you to let go
Sarah Peterson [:Exactly.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Of what's simply not true. I wanna say that forgiveness is something that we do with our heart, with our emotions. Forgiveness never happens in our head. If we think about forgiving somebody, what comes up for us is all of the story about how we should never forgive them, and all of the explanation and justification and all that nonsense from the past. That forgiveness comes from a place in which we in our heart, in our in our feeling center, in our solar plexus chest area, in that part of our body where that part of us just wants to finally let go of the burden. Not the righteousness of the head, but burden of carrying that backpack any longer. And what I wanna say for a final thought around this, you know, we've talked about the steps for forgiveness or steps you might take. I think ultimately, there are some things that are just really, really hard.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:I think your situation is one of those. That it's that all of the strategies that we might come up with, like walking in nature and going to confession and whatever, will just not quite do it. And there's a place where sometimes you just have to create in your imagination some grotto or forest place or something, and you need to put an altar there. And you need to imagine going there with this backpack that's weighed with a hundred tons of stones that you've been hauling around and your heart is finally saying, Oh my God, could we just let this go? And you're just willing to go set it on the altar and know you can always go back and pick it up again.
Sarah Peterson [:Know There's a lot of comfort in that.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Yeah. Know that somehow the universe or God or grace or the angels or however any of I mean, I don't contextualize it in any of those beings ways. I just contextualize it as the universe itself, which is on its own flow into the future out of my control. But somehow, the universe will take care of that backpack on the altar. And I don't need to carry it anymore because it I no longer need to. It's out of my care anymore.
Sarah Peterson [:And see, I'm willing to set down the backpack as long as you don't call it forgiveness. Because if you call it forgiveness, I'm picking up that backpack. Exactly. And I'm not doing so I'm not calling it forgiveness.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Call it forgive just call it letting go.
Sarah Peterson [:Letting go. You don't get to take my joy. You've taken enough.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:You've got it. Alright. You have got it. Thank you.
Sarah Peterson [:And that's permission for everybody out there too to dive into what is going to find you your path to freedom. We're using the word forgiveness a lot here, some of us, and some of us not. But if you can detach from that because for me, the forgiveness does mean something more than what it maybe is intended to mean. It does mean that there's this permission that what's occurred is okay and that this person was also doing their best. And in this case, I don't believe that this person was out to hurt people. Like, with my dad, he had no gross crimes against me in my life. There was not a whole lot to forgive, but there was stuff. It's easy to use the word forgiveness with him.
Sarah Peterson [:I absolutely forgive him. I know he was doing his best. He was such a great dad. All the things, that's okay for me in that situation. But when something really terrible, like being sexually abused by a parent or being physically abused by a partner or being robbed blind by a sibling at the end of a parent's estate. Those things the word forgiveness might be too much right now. And maybe someday in ten years on this podcast, I will use the word forgiveness, Marlis' heart is singing, but maybe I won't. And right now, the most important part is that you find the path that leads to freedom for you.
Sarah Peterson [:Fair?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Fair.
Sarah Peterson [:Marlis, can you agree with that?
Marlis Beier, MD [:I can. And I'm still going to hold out for I think Dean and both of you have been brilliant. I mean, especially Dean in naming that. As long as it's about thinking, it isn't gonna happen.
Sarah Peterson [:Mhmm.
Marlis Beier, MD [:But if you are willing, and for me, the term I use is that you almost have to take this level of pain, even if it's something atrocious that has been a travesty, that you take it into what I would call the heart of the absolute, the heart that holds all of us and realize that the human journey just there's inevitable suffering and it isn't your suffering and it isn't my suffering, it's our suffering. And if you can throw your pack back into the cauldron of our suffering, trusting that there is a larger heart holding all of us.
Sarah Peterson [:Yeah. I'm kinda feeling like we should pause here and even have a part two episode of this because I wanna also be able to talk about and forgive supporters for acting like human supporters.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:We've just like scanning on this.
Sarah Peterson [:Alright. We're gonna come back for part two. Are you guys okay with that?
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Sure. Absolutely.
Sarah Peterson [:So thank you for being here today and listening to the first part of our forgiveness episodes. This is a big deal issue because this is the piece of the grief relationship that one can set down. There are so many pieces you can't. This is one that you can learn to set down. Right? And we just wanna make it honest because I'm telling you right now, it's really hard for me to set it down, maybe even impossible under certain circumstances, and that's okay. That's part of my journey right now. But where in this process can you set the backpack down? Where can you change the wording so that this is accessible to you? Where you know, what's your meter? What's your barometer? How's my piece? So okay. Come back for the part two.
Sarah Peterson [:Thanks, you guys.
Dean Sharpe, MD [:Thank you.
Sarah Peterson [:Thank you for joining us on enduring grief, healing practices and true stories of living after loss. We hope today's conversation brought you comfort, understanding, or simply the assurance that you're not alone in your grief. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might need to hear it and subscribe as a way to stay connected. We'll be back next week with more personal stories and practical guidance for navigating the complexities of loss. Until then, take care of yourself and remember, there's no right or wrong way to grieve. You have the freedom to mourn in the way that feels true to you.
