92 : Why Forgiveness Is So Hard (And How to Truly Let Go)
💫Episode 92: Why Forgiveness Is So Hard (And How to Truly Let Go)
Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? Literally stepped outside yourself and seen everything around you, including your own body lying there?
I have. And so has my guest on this episode.
We talk about past lives and moments of remembrance. But at the heart of this conversation is something we all wrestle with: forgiveness. How easily can you forgive? Or do you hold on to what happened and the emotion it brought up? Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we get to do in this human experience.
Marvin Rolnick was born in Brooklyn, and you can still hear it in his accent, even after many years in California. He served our country in Vietnam, spent 30 years in the financial industry, and is now a speaker, comedian, writer and spiritual guide who helps people remember who they really are. He's also hosted a podcast of more than 200 episodes about the soul work of his life.
And Marvin remembers his soul choosing this life.
Remembering his last death
One of my favorite books is Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss. I read it in my late 20s, and after my own near-death experiences, Marvin's story resonated deeply.
In his last lifetime, Marvin was a middle-aged man somewhere back East. It was a sunny December day with snow on the ground and children playing. He half-jokingly thought, "This would be a good time to die." Then he had a heart attack and collapsed.
He rose above his body and looked down at it, knowing it wasn't him. He tried to get back in, but couldn't. There's a blank period after that. Then his next memory is flying over the ocean, fully aware, already knowing he was headed to Brooklyn to pick up the body of Marvin Rolnick.
He already knew things about the family he was entering, including that his mother wouldn't live long. And he already had worries: I'll have to get a job. I'll have to meet women. So much for arriving with a blank slate.
The happiest moment of his life
Marvin's mother did die young. By the time he was about two, he already felt that life was meaningless. He could understand the grown-ups but couldn't speak yet. His being, he says, felt so much bigger than his head.
One day, as his father performed one of his rare comedy routines by the crib, little Marvin had a thought: "I'm going to find the answer to life."
In that moment he blew out of his body and hovered above his crib, shining like "a hundred trillion suns." It was the happiest moment of his life. His stepmother thought his father had made him laugh, but it was that sense of purpose. And that question drove the rest of his life: What am I doing here?
I know that question well. Since I was 13, I've loved fitness and spirituality, and spirituality has always been my way of searching for meaning and my connection to Source.
Many paths, many pieces
Like most of us, Marvin found his answers piece by piece.
Positive thinking helped at first, but he was trying to be positive on top of a big negative. When the negative came back, it overwhelmed him.
Meditation brought him face to face with a dark inner voice, a "Darth Vader" telling him he was a phony.
Scientology, which he was involved in for many years, had parts he calls "crazy," but it also gave him valuable tools. A simple eye-contact exercise helped him overcome deep shyness. And he learned about the reactive mind: old experiences we don't even remember that get triggered and let the past take over the present. Its regression practice also validated his past-life memories.
Religious Science taught him that we're connected to an infinite intelligence, and that love is who we really are.
The piece that finally completed the puzzle was A Course in Miracles. It's not an easy book, he says, but it gave him the answers.
The hidden "dark mind"
According to Marvin, we're all eternally connected to a loving Source. That's the truth of who we are. But we've been covered over by a "dark mind": the ego.
The tricky part is that it hides itself. Most of us don't know we have it. It's in every politician, every family and every great mind in history. It's an attack machine that thinks it's right and others are wrong. It can love you one moment and hate you the next if you don't meet its needs. At its core, it's "me, me, me."
That's why the world can seem so crazy. We see people through their bodies and differences, instead of looking deeper at the love, kindness and innocence underneath.
As Marvin puts it, humanity is brilliant at building things outside us: roads, rockets, AI. But almost nothing has changed inside our thought system. Real change has to start within.
The good news is we have help. A Course in Miracles teaches that we have inner guidance, whether you call it the Holy Spirit, Jesus, Buddha or Moses. When you're in quicksand, you need someone to pull you out. When you access that guidance, you're never alone, and you can bring your darkest thoughts to the light.
Erasmus Joseph Lion
Marvin wanted to share these ideas in a way that felt fresh, so he turned to animals.
Years ago, after reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, he had an idea for a story about a lion who no longer wanted to kill. The idea sat for decades. Then during the 2020 lockdowns, while sitting in a park, he heard loud, explicit music blasting from a car and wondered, "Isn't there anything better than this?" A voice in his head said, "Write something."
He went home and wrote a rhyming piece he called "sermon rap": "When you forget the fear, you remember. You'll remember the love you forgot." After that, he wrote hundreds of pieces, and eventually the lion came back.
In Erasmus Joseph Lion, a powerful lion has everything he wants. Then a mother deer begs him to spare her baby, and when he doesn't, it shakes him to his core. Like a midlife crisis, he sets out to find the answer to life, leaving behind killing and eating, with his devoted wife Mary Sue at his side. Along the way, they meet other animals on the same quest, full of adventure, humor and the teachings of A Course in Miracles.
Why forgiveness is so hard
When we think about forgiveness, Marvin says, we usually think the other person has done us wrong. On the physical level, that may appear true. But in truth, no one can harm who we really are. We are eternal beings.
Most of what we call forgiveness is actually false forgiveness. We treat it like pity or charity. We make the other person earn it back. We hold on to guilt because it gives us control. That isn't forgiveness.
Marvin also challenges the idea of "forgive but don't forget." When you don't forget, you hold the past in the present and project it into the future. Instead, he suggests:
Forgive, but stay present.
That doesn't mean being a doormat. True forgiveness means looking past someone's behavior, attitude and craziness (we all have some) to the light within them. Because if you deny the light in another person, you deny it in yourself.
To give is to receive
On the physical level, if I give you half my dollar, I have less. But on the spiritual level, when I give love, I have more love.
It works in reverse too. It's a boomerang. When you give hatred, you don't really give it away. You keep it in your own thought system.
Marvin compares it to a jailer guarding a prisoner. You may be on the other side of the bars, but you're still sitting in the jail, chained to the person you can't release.
That's why he says nobody can really do anything to you until you internalize it. Someone says, "You look terrible," and it means nothing until you build a story around it. Then the story grows into a hurricane. When Marvin reacts, he knows he'll need to look at it later, because it can never really be about them. He can only correct his own inner thoughts.
As I like to say, clean up your side of the street.
Always keep a light on
You don't have to love everyone, and you don't have to keep difficult people in your space. But Marvin's advice is to never fully close the door.
Even if it's just, "I may not agree with you, but I bless you, and I want the best for you," keep that light on. It keeps the light on in you, too.
Connect with Marvin Rolnick
Marvin has also written 17 children's books with spiritual messages, which he hopes to publish. If you know a children's book agent or publisher, send them his way.
Website: marvinrolnick.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Erasmus Joseph Lion, available on Amazon
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Sending love, remembrance, faith, and creativity,
