How to Move On, Let Go of Past Mistakes, and Create a Better Future

Mel Robbins (00:00:39):

Oh, hold on. Say it a little louder for the person in the back please. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I'm absolutely thrilled that you're here and it is always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together. And if you're a new listener, I also wanted to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family because you made time to listen to this particular episode. I know you're the kind of person who truly values real deep conversations that make you think differently about yourself, about your life and the conversation we're about to have today. Oh my gosh, it is going to be incredible because we're going to be talking about what do you do after you truly royally screw things up? Is forgiveness even possible? See in our Boston Studios today, I have the perfect person to help you and me think about forgiveness and how you rebuild after making so many mistakes.

 

(00:01:44):

And the reason why he's the perfect person is because he's had to do this himself. I'm going to introduce you to a very good friend of mine, and when you hear who this person is, it may even surprise you. Wait. Mel Robbins is good friends with this guy I am. And by the time you're done listening to the conversation today, you'll understand why it takes a lot of courage to be the kind of person who can admit to what you've done wrong and take accountability for making it right to face yourself in the mirror, to go out in public or show up at school or work or with your friends or your family when you've done something really wrong or you've ruined your reputation or you hurt the people that you care about most. And that's exactly what my friend Carl Lz has had to do after destroying the life he had built just five years ago.

 

(00:02:35):

Now, I didn't know him back then. I only met him a few years ago. But let me tell you a little bit about who he was then. Carl was one of the most recognizable megachurch pastors in the world. He co-founded the church Hillsong in New York City, and then he built it from scratch to be almost 150,000 members strong. I mean, in 20 17, 20 18, 20 19, Carl was a cultural icon. He was in the news all the time because he was disrupting what everybody thought a Christian Church should be like. I mean, he was up in front of the pews dressed in leather and skinny jeans, and he's all tatted up and rock and roll music as blaring. And from the outside, boy did it look like he was on top of the world. I mean, he couldn't be more blessed. And then in 2020 it all fell apart in a spectacular train wreck of his own making.

 

(00:03:30):

He was publicly fired from the church he built. And according to the press release, it was due to quote leadership issues and breaches of trust. It was all over the tabloids. This married mega church pastor and father of three beloved by so many had been having an affair with someone in the church. He lost his job, his reputation. Almost every single friend he had, his family lost their housing and he lost the life he had built because of the choices he had made. And he couldn't outrun this. I mean, there were docuseries made about this thing. He was trending all over the news. Carl owns the mistakes he made. He takes full accountability for what he's done wrong. And today he'll tell you what it feels like to feel like you're driving a locomotive and it's about to hit the wall and you can't stop it.

 

(00:04:20):

The dread, the weight of it, the anxiety, the secrecy, the arrogance, the lies that you tell yourself and everyone around you. But the reason that I invited him to be here today with you and me is because of what he did after the wreckage. I love that he owns what he did and that he's leaned into the worst things that he's done to extract some of the biggest lessons anyone could learn about life. I love the way that he and his wife and his three children lean toward each other because it's so easy, isn't it, to lean away from people when things get hard. And I also love what they've taken from it as a family and how the entire experience in the past five years have changed him for the better. If you've ever screwed up and gotten fired or lied or cheated on somebody or had a relationship end or done something that you regret, I'm going to tell you something.

 

(00:05:11):

It's not the mistake that you made that defines you. It's what you do next. And today we're going to flip the way that you think about it on its head. We're going to teach you how to look at it all differently and forgive yourself. And you're going to learn how to turn the page, take accountability for what went wrong, learn what you need to learn, forgive yourself and move on.

Carl Lentz (00:05:50):

It's an honor. You know I love you and Chris a lot, and it's a special place to be.

 

Mel Robbins (00:05:55):

Carl. We have been friends for a couple years and since knowing you, you are the kind of person that has really opened up my heart and opened up my mind. And I'm so excited for the person who is here with us right now who's hit play, who's watching, who's listening. And I know that by the time we're done, they're going to say to themselves, this is exactly what I was meant to hear.

 

(00:06:21):

This is exactly what somebody that I care about needs to hear right now. And so I'd love to have you start by speaking directly to the person that's with us. And if you could share with them, Carl, what they might experience that could be different about their life, if they take to heart everything that you are about to share about your own life and lessons learned and the wisdom that you've gained and they apply it to their life, what could change?

 

Carl Lentz (00:06:51):

What you're going to find on this episode with Mel and I, if you need more peace and you need more presence, you're going to find that here. I feel like I don't know a lot, but I know a little if you've ever faced something in your life that has just been hectic and heavy and hard and you're like, is it going to get better? We're going to share some thoughts on how you can create peace, avoid the wrong kind of pressure and step into power maybe you've never known. And it's a privilege to be able to talk about it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:07:24):

Well, Carl, you're the perfect person to talk about it when you talk about turmoil or a season of your life where just it's a disaster and there's not a human being that goes through life that doesn't have a chapter that you wish would end or never happened. And one of the things that's interesting about you is that after everything that's happened in your life, and we're going to get into that in just a minute, nobody would've blamed you if you're just like, okay, I'm just going to disappear. I'm just going to take my things and quietly sneak out the back door. And I'm never going to show my face in public again. I'm not going to talk about what happened. But you and your wife and your family made a different choice. And I would love to have you talk a little bit about why did you decide to start to be so open and honest about probably the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

 

Carl Lentz (00:08:29):

People relate more to our losses than our wins. And because that's true, I had a moment of clarity where I thought, I'm faced with these options of hiding, which is a great option. And I did for a little bit and it felt okay for a season. And then you realize, what am I going to do with all this? And for me, I felt like a, I had a responsibility because the platform I had in people's lives, one of trust, an example in preaching to other people how they should proceed in life. And so that's a deeply vulnerable place to be when you've broken people's trust in that way. And I felt like I had a responsibility to prove in a way what I've been preaching all along, which is your worst chapter is not your last chapter. I preached it my whole life. I never had to live it in this way.

 

(00:09:22):

But for me to not show people more of the story to me would've been unkind to just leave it there. Not the whole story. We're alive, our eyes are bright, our family's better. I'm better. I've realized things I never could have realized had we not walked through that fire. And the option to hide is tempting until you realize what if what I've gone through is exactly what somebody else is going through. And if I can help somebody else build a bridge, then why not give it a shot? And I think for me, someone once said to me, to my face, the moment you can take the hardest thing in your life and take more from it than it took from you, your life will change forever. And I thought, that's what I'm going to do. So this chapter, which took everything, so I thought I'm going to take more from it.

 

(00:10:19):

And we're on that side of it now for a while. It took everything, my dignity, my reputation, my life's work, the trust of my family took everything. And you're sitting there going, what am I going to do with this? And then you hear something like that and you said, you're telling me I can get to a place in my life where the worst thing that ever happened to me, I can take more from it. Lemme see if that's possible. And I am here to testify that it is possible to take the worst thing that's ever happened to you and spend that thing and start to take from it. So what I've taken from the season where I broke my wife's trust, where I broke my kids' trust, where I destroyed rightfully so the reputation that I worked hard to build, now I've taken from it peace, power, presence, margin, safety, honor, vulnerability, consistency.

 

(00:11:13):

I didn't have some of those things before that. So now I look at that chapter and it's not what other people might deem it. Is that the hardest chapter in your life Now? It's like, of course I carry it with reverence because there's pain and there's carnage, but it might be the most pivotal in my life. I wouldn't be sitting here, I wouldn't be talking to you. I wouldn't have my Australian bride outside hanging out with me. Still wants to be around me. So that's, that's your opportunity. And when you look at a situation that has robbed you, you're going to be faced with this whether it's a trauma, maybe someone's hurt you, maybe someone's betrayed you, maybe somebody's let you down. That can be what they took stuff from you. Do you want to accept that? I didn't want to accept that. I didn't want to accept that this chapter is going to take all this from me. I'm going to figure out a way to take some of that back with some interest.

 

Mel Robbins (00:12:05):

I love that statement that you can figure out how to take the hardest thing that's ever happened to you and take more from it than it takes from you. Could you speak directly to the person that feels that they are in that right now? Because when you're in the eye of that storm and you've blown up your whole life or you've blown up your career or someone else has and you hear that, you're like, that is not true. But if you could just speak to that person about what is possible and what does that actually mean to take more from it than it takes from you,

 

Carl Lentz (00:12:55):

It's a great question. If you're in that spot where maybe you're in the backside of it, where it is taking stuff from you, now you're sitting there holding the bag. For instance, I was abused, sexually abused. That's something that can take from you forever if you make the choice to let it. Now I'm able to take from that situation. You can rewire your brain pathways. You can sit down with anybody and say, I can relate to what it feels like to be betrayed on that level. You can do a whole curriculum on how to recover. You can be a support to people who have been through that. Otherwise, it's one thing to talk to somebody who's encouraging you that hadn't walked through it. It's a whole nother ball game when you're sitting across from somebody that has understood what that feels like. So here's what I would say to you. If you haven't seen some of the fruit yet, keep watering and keep planting seeds and you will look up at one point and you're going to see a garden of things that you didn't even dream. It's possible. A lot of people get tired when they're planting. So I'm not seeing it. I'm still broken and I'm still hurt, and I'm still going backwards. A, I'm not sure that's even true. You're healing. You're better than you were yesterday. You're still here, you're listening to this. You're still trying. Those are seeds and you plant enough seeds, eventually God is faithful to water. That's a fact. You cannot stop the rain from falling. Only question is what have you put in the ground?

 

(00:14:32):

And so when it came to my life, I looked at a desert basically, and I'm like, I got no choice but to just get busy planting. That's what I did. And now I'm starting to see some things blossom that it makes me, it makes me well up with emotion of gratitude because I was just happy to survive. And I don't think that's God's will for anybody to just survive. So if you've ever said that, if you've ever said, I'm just happy just to make it through the day, that's okay. What if there's a day where you say, not only am I going to make it through this day, I'm going to crush this day and I'm going to brighten up this day for somebody else. That's where you can go. So if it's dark right now, as sure as the sun will rise, there's a better day coming. And that's a fact. It's just as true as you sitting in that moment going out, everything's been taken.

 

Mel Robbins (00:15:27):

Carl, you said that one of the things that happens when you go through something horrible or painful is you have the ability to help someone else go through it. And the conversation that we're having today is ultimately about forgiveness of self. Mostly it's about giving yourself permission to rebuild. It's about allowing yourself to be seen when you want to hide. It's making yourself whole when you feel very broken and you are the perfect person. Perfect. To hold our hand and walk us through this because you have been there. And so before we go forward, I would love to have you just go back and tell the person who's listening a little bit about what your life looked like. I don't even know when this all happened. You and I have been friends, I met you after, so I didn't know anything about you.

Carl Lentz (00:16:49):

My life had areas that were on fire and other areas that were really fruitful. And that's a dangerous place to be because you can function because of the fruit and you could ignore the fire. And if you do that long enough, everything will burn eventually.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:08):

So you mean on fire, you have parts of your life that are working amazingly well, amazingly well, and then you've got stuff that's burning to the ground in the background. Oh yeah. As it's working amazingly well.

 

Carl Lentz (00:17:19):

Correct.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:19):

Okay, so put us at the scene.

 

Carl Lentz (00:17:21):

Okay.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:21):

What was happening in your life? Because just assume that the person who is listening has no idea who you are, has no idea about this story. And I think that's another important thing. When you're in the middle of it, you actually think everybody on the planet knows.

 

Carl Lentz (00:17:34):

Sure, yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:17:36):

And this was a huge public story, but I didn't know what was happening.

 

Carl Lentz (00:17:42):

If you don't know anything about my story, my wife and I planted a church in New York City and it was incredible and we loved every second of it. And with that comes a lot of platform. It comes with criticism, it comes with a claim, the whole nine yards. And we were very visible. We had a big platform.

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:00):

But explain though, Carl, because it was record breaking. What was the church? How big was it? We

 

Carl Lentz (00:18:07):

Had thousands of people worldwide. Impact it was a part. So the Hillsong Church in general is a worldwide organization, and we were the first church from Hillsong in America. So we were able to really hit the ground and our goal was to serve the city of New York like our hair was on fire. And we did. And it was amazing and there was a lot of it that we really loved. And meanwhile, throughout that time, as you find out in life, your problems don't go anywhere. You either fix them or they destroy you. And the only difference sometimes is what your life will look like when they crack. So it's like a fracture. And I don't know if you've ever spoken to an athlete that has a fracture. You can play on a fracture for a while and even function pretty good, but other parts of your body start to overcompensate for what you should have fixed.

 

(00:18:56):

If you fracture your ankle, there's a guy who might gut it out for a year, maybe two, put some toradol in it, numb it out, and you might get through a couple games. It's the next year. It's the year after his career shortened because he played through a fracture. That's kind of how I describe my life. I had some fractures. We all do. We all have fractures in our soul brokenness. And I was think under the impression that if I run fast enough, I can outrun this pain. I can outrun these addictions, I can outrun these propensities. I had things in my private life that were really inconsistent with who I wanted to be. And including I cheated on my wife and broke our marriage vows and hid it from her, hid it from anybody that I could, and started to rationalize why it was okay for me not to come clean.

 

(00:19:51):

What you learn as you recover is the first person you lied to is yourself. As an addict, I'm telling myself the whole time, okay, I've cheated on my wife, I'm going to bury this because the best thing for me to do, because there's so many people that are attached to me that if I come clean, probably have to step down and then everything crumbles. Now I'm responsible. So you start to become the hero in your own broken story. Think about that. So it goes from me being accountable to me going, the best thing for me to do is just to gut this out. And it's easy to lie. It's not easy to live with lies.

 

Mel Robbins (00:20:30):

Say that again. Hold on a second. It is easy to lie,

 

Carl Lentz (00:20:33):

But it's not easy to live with lies because we're not designed to be dishonest. So lying that's human to live with, it is destructive. And when you start compiling lies, then you start losing who you are and then you start forgetting what's real. And then if you have a public life, you have to deal with the dichotomy in the duality of preaching to people about honesty while knowing in your own soul, there's areas that do not match up. And there was not an unrealistic standard. People are like, yeah, but you're human. If you are a preacher, you are held to a different standard as you should be. So it's not like preachers can't be human. No one's saying that preachers cannot be living on lies. And there's plenty still doing it, Mel, please believe that. But for me, it was rotting my soul and it began a spiral that led me into a drug addiction that led me into other ways to cope with my own duality that I never thought I would come face to face with. It came crashing down hard.

Carl Lentz (00:22:08):

Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:22:09):

And yet you are still playing the hero in your own story that you can live with this.

 

Carl Lentz (00:22:14):

If you hear this and you're like, I might have some fractures, great way to find out what could be deadly is what are you afraid to get checked out? Have you ever been sick and you're like, I don't want to go to the doctor. If they tell me that I have mother fing COVID again, I'm going to lose my mind. It could just be a cold.

 

(00:22:29):

And then you just kind of deal with this discomfort and dysfunction. Everybody's got to deal with some sort of dysfunction, right? Men say that all the time. You'll hear them tell their story and you're like, that's a major trauma. And they're like, nah, that's just being a man. I'm like, no, bro, that's not being a man. You can get that fixed. There's help for you. So there is an element of understanding a fracture that it's like if you don't think you have any fractures, if you have something in your life that you're afraid to bring out, that's the thing that's going to kill you. So bring it out. What that would've looked like for me is I don't know how to get peace. I can't slow down, and somebody probably could have helped me. And by the time I did, I went to go see a brain doctor with a friend of mine who was in trouble, and he did a brain scan on me. And he called me a couple of days later, he said, Hey, you need to come in here and talk to me. And I sat down with Dr. Amen.

 

(00:23:23):

And he said, Carl, you need to resign and you need to go get help because your brain is not functioning correctly and if you haven't made bad decisions yet, you will. It's a matter of time, you need to step down. And I looked at him and I thought, that's never going to happen. There's no hope for me. No, I just got to keep, I'm going to run as fast as I can on this fracture and see how far I can go. And that was a big deal for me. And on this side of the tracks, that's why I'm really quick to ask people, I appreciate all the stuff that you're telling me. What are you not telling me? What are you not telling me about? All the stuff that you really quick, Hey, help me with this and cool, what's the thing you don't want to share?

 

(00:24:00):

That's where your power is. So whatever you're hiding is taking the place of what could be power. So you might want to bring it out. So for me, it was, if I go back to our story, we had a lot of areas that were great as a family. Even our marriage, there was a myth that when you see infidelity like you did in our relationship, that the marriage was bad. And it's just not true all the time. I love my wife and she loves me, and we have a phenomenal family. I just was extraordinarily broken. There were times where Laura would catch something, feel something, sense something, and I would lie to her one way or the other, whether it was by omission or whether it was by painting another picture or whether it was just overpowering her conviction and making her think that she didn't see what she saw. And that began a hesitancy in her to trust me. And when you have that in a marriage, you're in trouble. And she did what a strong woman would do, which is challenge me over and over again and I would just go further and further back. So it went from, I don't want to lie to my wife, so I'm just going to distance myself from her. It's hard to think back on because I can't imagine that now, which is again a testament to taking more from it from that chapter. Now I have an intimate relationship with the woman in my dreams that I probably never could have known, but that's what happens with fractures. So my story is filled with that. And then I got to a place at the end where the spiral was such where, I mean, I had trouble sleeping and I had trouble communicating with people that I loved and I was just really good at what I was doing. And that'll get you into a place where people are like, well, I'm not sure you're okay, but some of the stuff's still working and that can be a problem. So sometimes your strength can be the greatest cover for what you need help with in the secret places of your life. So when the day that it all happened, I had been ruminating on that for a while,

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:08):

Literally thinking at some point this gonna blow

 

Carl Lentz (00:26:09):

Is going to crumble, and when it does, it's going to be this bad. In my mind I had, it's going to go really bad. It was a hundred times worse,

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:20):

A hundred times worse.

 

Carl Lentz (00:26:21):

And that's important for people to know because often people will think if you have a secret, if you have something, you think it's not going to be that bad. I can just keep this going. If you are digging a hole for yourself right now, the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Put the shovel down. Because what we do is just like, well, this is going to go really bad. Lemme just keep digging, put shovel down. That's what I always tell people. I'm in a bad spot. What should I do? What's the first thing you should do? Stop digging. Just stop. And then put your hand up and tell somebody you've been digging and allow them to pull you out of this thing you have created for yourself.

 

Mel Robbins (00:26:57):

You have gotten people to put the shovel down. And there is somebody listening right now that's like, Carl, how do I get them to put the shovel down before they take it and just throttle themselves in the head with it?

 

Carl Lentz (00:27:09):

It's tough. It's a little bit, I mean, because of my faith that runs pretty deep with me. God's grace is something, it's unmerited mercy in favor. And sometimes there'll be a graceful revelation where God will give you a gap for you to go, I got to do this. You can't even explain it.

 

(00:27:30):

Even though I got caught, I still didn't have to change. That's what people don't understand. What do you mean? Someone asked me one time, did you only change because you got caught? And I'm like, no. Getting caught is actually a word that can be a little bit fluid. Normally when you get caught, and I experienced this, the first thing you do is how much do you know? My assistant had seen messages, and then I was confronted on it, and my first instinct was not, let me be honest. It was, I wonder how much, I'm glad this is over, but how much do you know? And you don't have to change. Only you can make that decision because there's not enough consequences in the world. Rehabs are filled with people that you cannot understand logically. Why are you doing this? If you sat there with someone, I've spent a lot of time with drug addicts in my life and I've sat there with people who they've lost everything.

 

(00:28:25):

And you go, do you want to change? And they go, no, no, I don't want to change. So now you realize this isn't normal logic you're dealing with. It has to be something deeper. And if you are in a spot, it might not be drug addiction, it might not be something that you think is catastrophic, but if you're in a spot right now and it could hurt you, this could be the moment where after you're done watching this, you just call someone and say, I'm going to be honest and I need it to be a safe space. I don't want to do anything with it. But somebody needs to know. If that could save not just your life, but your family's life, your legacy, the lines down of generations, it might be worth a shot just to tell somebody, this is what I'm dealing with. Because if I look, it's not worth holding. It's not worth holding in your heart. We're not designed to do that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:29:10):

So if you ever read a book where you just know this is going to end horribly, I don't even know if I want to keep on reading, I feel the pit in my stomach. Or they start to reflect back on a character's past and you're like, oh my God. And then they reflect again. You're like, it's worse. That's what it was like to be you, to know that. What's that like? And I want you to speak to that

 

Carl Lentz (00:29:35):

Dread, horror, pressure. I can't even articulate the feeling every day that you have to swallow just to function. It's a weight that is, it's unbearable and it drives people crazy. I mean, I was probably on the doorstep of losing my mind. And I mean that wholeheartedly. There were days and when you ask how long, I mean, there would've been at least a couple years.

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:04):

A couple years,

 

Carl Lentz (00:30:05):

Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:07):

Wow. But if I want to widen this out, I want to widen this out real quick because that feeling of dread and knowing and the fracture, you may be listening right now and you're in a relationship that needs to end,

 

Carl Lentz (00:30:24):

That's good,

 

Mel Robbins (00:30:25):

But you don't say it. I was on the phone with somebody the other night and they were really upset because they know they need to break up with this person who's a really good person. And it's the dread, it's the, I don't want to, maybe if I just push it off a little bit longer. So there are lots of moments in our life where we live with that pit and that dread, you had it at a million x, but it's a very common thing to do.

 

Carl Lentz (00:30:56):

Whatever's causing dread demands an immediate confrontation. Immediate because dread compounds and we feed dread every time we spend another day not confronting it. So if that thing is dreadful today, it's going to be twice as dreadful tomorrow, two, three years. Now your life is just suffocated because you chose that route. I put myself in that position. I'm dreading the day that this is going to crumble. It's the most selfish thing we can do.

 

Mel Robbins (00:31:30):

Why is it the most selfish thing

 

Carl Lentz (00:31:33):

To go back to the hero of our own story? When I did get help, finally I sat with a really incredible therapist and she said, Carl, why didn't you come clean quicker? And I said, I didn't want to let people down. I didn't want to hurt people. And she goes, oh, isn't that sweet? So you've made yourself the hero. So you've told yourself that the reason why you continually lied is to help other people. And I was like, I see where you're going with this. That's what I mean by selfish. So by putting stuff off, ultimately you're not just robbing yourself, but you're robbing other people that need the best of you. And most of you is filled with dread. So I look back at that season of my life and I'm like, I did the best I could. And there was a lot of me that was consumed with the maintenance of dread and things I didn't need to be carrying.

 

Mel Robbins (00:32:25):

So there came a point where this all blows up. You said it was a hundred times worse, and can you just put the person right, what happened?

 

Carl Lentz (00:32:37):

Yeah. I mean,

Mel Robbins (00:33:30):

Why do you not want to forget that?

 

Carl Lentz (00:33:31):

Because I'm never going to be there again. And so then we went back and we told my kids, Ava,

 

Mel Robbins (00:33:39):

Now why did you tell your kids? How old were your kids at this point?

 

Carl Lentz (00:33:42):

Ava was, I want to say maybe 16, and Charlie's 14, Romans, I think at that time, 12, 11 young. They're in the prime of their adolescence right now. We told them because we knew stuff was going to come out. It was a very public life we lived. And so I told my daughter, Charlie at the time was in a place getting help for her own mental health. I had to tell her over Zoom. That was hard. And I told my son, I really didn't get it. And then we had just sold our house in New Jersey for this fun adventure, and we hadn't picked a place yet. So we were staying at my friend's apartment in Brooklyn, beautiful apartment. When all the news broke, that person texted me and said, I want you out of my house. I want you out by the end of the night.

 

(00:34:34):

And I said to my friend, I'm sorry, okay, we don't have anywhere to go. And he said, I want you out. And so within these hours span, we got two U-Haul and there's paparazzi outside. And it was like a swirl of, I just felt like I was in a different world and we had to load up everything we had in these two U-Haul. And we just started driving. And Laura said, where were we going? I said, I really don't know because I didn't know who to call. And some people wouldn't return my calls and other people would, and we just didn't know where to go. And we had a friend, her name's Kim, she lives in Jersey, got ahold of her. She said, come here, come stay at my house. You guys can stay at my house. And it's tough to go back into some of these places, but it matters because people need to know that you can make it out of these moments.

 

(00:35:19):

But it runs deep. And I'm in a U-Haul, Romans this little guy. He said, dad, where are we going? I said, I don't know, man, I don't know. And I remember thinking, I'm in a car and a U-Haul headed to Connecticut. My life is on fire and I don't know if I'm going to get out of this. I don't know if we're going to make it. And I remember looking at my son who's just petrified, doesn't know what's going on. You don't give a kid more than he can bear at that point. So I'm not going to sit there and say, buddy, I did A, B, and C. It's just we're making some changes these big, you're just doing your best. But that was a pivotal, when people ask me about a rock bottom moment, I'm like, well, I moved to rock bottom ville rock bottom is not a moment. I moved into a rock bottom ville, and that was a night that is etched in my mind as well because I don't want to forget that either. And it was the beginning of this slow unraveling. And so if you're watching this, my church is connected to so many other churches and it began a domino effect

 

(00:36:21):

Where my issues exposed other issues. And next thing you know, everybody's on front street. And to a degree, I was the impetus to some of that. It was a really hard time. But that's for those of you who really wanted to go to the moment. If you've ever had one of those nights where you never think you're going to get out of it, maybe you're even in that season right now, just do not give up. That's one thing I can say about my wife and myself that I am proud of, is that we didn't give up. A lot of people stop right there. And somehow by the grace of God, we found the fortitude to keep trying to figure this out. But those are some tough memories to pull up, but they matter.

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:05):

I love that you keep reminding us that you don't want to push those memories away.

 

Carl Lentz (00:37:11):

No.

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:13):

If you have had an experience in your life where you've gone through something horrific, it really can shape and make you in ways that are so important because when you really get just absolutely burnt to the ground in those moments, it does give you this level of convention to go, I'm not going back there ever. I will never be in a position again with my spouse where I will ever have anything but transparency. There is no way I will never get myself in a position where I will not have peace or I will not have. And so the other thing that I think that's very interesting, and this may be an odd thing to reflect back to you, that on some level there's something beautiful also in the memory of you find out in those moments immediately who was with you and who's actually never been with you?

 

Carl Lentz (00:38:23):

Well said. I had to do some serious work here, Mel, because I love my friends. I had great relationships. So I thought, and when you go through something like this, if you do it, what I think is the most healthy way, you focus on what's on your side of the tracks. So when you have a relational breakdown, it is extremely easy and convenient to look across the tracks. And it's not that there's not stuff there, the question is what's best for you right now? So I had that choice of am I going to look in the mirror or out the window when it comes to my friendships in the mirror is where's my role out the window is your role. And I stuck to this mirror, and thank God I did. If I even glanced at the window, I thought I'd lose my mind. I was so hurt, so betrayed, even though I was the one who broke the integrity of my life in some ways with my friends.

 

(00:39:20):

And what a tragedy will sometimes do is give you, it's called, it's tragedy amnesia, where it's like you only remember the part that suits your narrative right then. Everybody left me. Everybody did not leave me. In fact, amazing people helped me and more came. But when you're in it, you just see what hurts the most. So if you are in a spot just like that and you feel like everybody's abandoned you, I wonder if that's totally true. Not only do I think there's probably room for you to look around and maybe see there's other doors opening. You haven't abandoned you. And when you deal with relational breakdown, that's the most empowering thing to know. Even if let's just say everybody did leave you, you still have you and you're the only one that could control you, and you can't control anybody else. So there's hope there. So even if I did lose everybody, I still stuck with this broken man in the mirror. Lemme work on this guy

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:18):

Carl, for somebody who is waking up right now, and they are just in the shame spiral. It's not I did this bad thing. It's I'm a horrible person. They have regrets hanging over them. Would you speak directly to them about how they can start to loosen the grip?

 

Carl Lentz (00:40:36):

If you woke up today and you genuinely are ready for the shame shower to cover you like it does every day, I want you to imagine grabbing shackles and putting them around your feet because that's what shame is. Shame. They are shackles of our own creation and we attach them to our legs. And you can move kind of fast, but you're never going to be able to know what it feels like to run. When it comes to shame. Understand this, this is a hard reality that I am just submitting for you to think about. There are other people have other definitions. I was told that shame is inherently selfish because my eyes are still on myself. When I heard that, it immediately made me a better dad. It made me a better husband because for me to spend time in shame, it ultimately means I don't like what people think about me.

 

(00:41:32):

I'm embarrassed me. I can't believe what I've done. So not only have you made a mistake, not only have you hurt people, but your response to it is to think about yourself again. And if you see it from that angle, because I get shame, I understand the pain of it and the prison that it can become. And I also understand what it means to be free of shame. As I sit here with you today, I'm telling you, shame has no hold on my life because only I can put shame shackles on my feet. And if you look at it like that today in your own life, rather than put those shame shackles on, what else might be true about you? Can you grow? Can you change? Can you get better? Can you love people more? Can you give people evidence that you're a new person?

 

(00:42:20):

Yes. Shame is all about stuff you cannot control. You cannot control what people think about you. You cannot control what their commentary will be about your change or lack thereof. So why then would you spend any time shackling yourself? So if you want to live free of shame, understand that nobody else has the key to those shackles but you. And they're in your hand right now. This could be the last day you ever feel the pain of being shame shackled or you're functioning, but it's not all of you. It's not the best of you. You don't have to live like that. There's a better way and that's what hope will do. It's what passion will do, but only you can make that choice.

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:01):

Carl, I love that you said it was selfish because the focus is on you. And I just want to unpack this because when you look at regret, I did this bad thing and the focus is on the thing that you did. When you feel shame, you say, I am a bad thing,

 

Carl Lentz (00:43:20):

Right? It's about me again. I'm bad.

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:22):

Yeah. I've never thought about it as like it's such a selfish, you once again are pulling the focus to you.

 

Carl Lentz (00:43:30):

I'm ashamed. Oh, sorry. You're ashamed. Now what? In rehab is where I got this headbutt because we say a prayer after every single session, which is as we lift our eyes from shame, there was a day I could not do that well,

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:53):

But eventually you did.

 

Carl Lentz (00:43:54):

Oh my gosh. And then you can't unsee it as I lift my eyes from shame to grace. It's different view, shame, grace. Condemnation is shame. Conviction is change.

 

(00:44:09):

And I've always been a proponent of that's what my faith leads me to teach people. God's not trying to condemn you. He might be trying to convict you because there's something better conviction will get you out of the bed anymore. I'm convicted to do this better. But shame. I mean for me, I'm ashamed that I wasn't there for my kids for a chapter. I was mentally unwell. I'm ashamed now. That's what I think about. So at least 30% of my mental energy is going to me being bad. So my son still gets that part of me. It's not fair to him. If I'm really Regret is very different than remorse. Remorse is an engine. Turn that thing on and it'll change you. So I'm remorseful about the mistakes I've made. I'm remorseful that I wasn't there for my daughter in the way she needed me at one point in her life. And it's convicted me to change. But to be in shame is a hard word for people, Mel. But sometimes people need to hear it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:45:07):

I think you need the headbutt because I've never heard anybody say it. The focus is on you. And the only way that I've ever been able to move through those periods, and I didn't even have this powerful distinction, is by looking at the thing and going, okay, so I did a bad thing. That doesn't mean I'm a bad person and the only way I can prove I'm not a bad person is if I can learn from this bad thing, the lesson I need to do a little better. And if I can do that, then that for me is the key. But that headbutt that you just gave is the focus on you. How's that help anybody? It doesn't.

 

Carl Lentz (00:45:47):

Well, think about what people say in a mean way. You should be ashamed of yourself. It's even a selfish insult you back to you. It's a party for you. You should be ashamed of yourself. So you want me to take my eyes now and go back and look at the horrible things I've done so I can feel shame about them. That's what you want me to do and that's what I'm going to. So all the people living in shame today, they bought that lie. Now everybody loses. There's a better way. It's called healing. It's called grace. It's called mercy, it's called change. I got to a really clear revelatory moment with God where I was like, if the God that I believe exists that loves me and saved me, God has forgiven me. It's ridiculous for me not to forgive myself. And so I began to live in that reality of I forgive myself. I'm going to let that go. And if you want to know tools when it comes to how to forgive yourself, oh my God,

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:51):

Yeah because saying that sentence is one thing.

Carl Lentz (00:46:56):

Here's how somebody has forgiven themselves. They start to invest in the new version of who they are now.

 

(00:47:03):

That's how you know. So if you are struggling to forgive yourself, number one, let's make that leap. I forgive myself. If you do that, the only way you can prove that is by investing in this new better version of who you're becoming. And that's the evidence on the board. So when people struggle to do that, you know it because there's so much about what they were and what they didn't want to be. There's no evidence of who they are now. So if you look at me, hope I've forgiven myself because there's no way you can walk around with bright eyes in any sort of confidence knowing the wreckage of my life. Yeah, no, it's not that. I don't know that a lot of people get thrown off by that. They want you to be sad. They want you to be broken. And that says more about them than it does you anyway. But for me, it's like I've forgiven myself. How can you even show your face in public? I forgave myself. God forgave me. My wife forgave me. My kids forgave me. I forgave myself. What would you like me to do? Think about what shame does. Shame is the opposite of your chest out shame is your shoulders down and your head down. Even the body language of shame is demeaning. And I just don't have time for that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:08):

And how long did it take though? Because you know what I mean

 

Carl Lentz (00:48:10):

Overnight, Mel, I just nailed it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:12):

Just stop.

 

Carl Lentz (00:48:14):

I just figured this out an hour ago,

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:17):

Because this was how many years ago? When did this happen?

 

Carl Lentz (00:48:20):

Almost five years.

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:21):

Okay, so five years.

 

Carl Lentz (00:48:22):

Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:22):

How long after the complete implosion and the scene in the U-Haul

 

Carl Lentz (00:48:28):

Did I start to see a little bit of light?

 

Mel Robbins (00:48:29):

Yeah, because look, it's easy to say I forgive myself. It's easy to say I got to invest in the new me, but we all look backwards.

 

Carl Lentz (00:48:42):

It took a long time to get there. And I think it's important to know that some of that stuff you have to feed every single day because there is a chapter where it's completely normal. If you're in the middle of a humiliating thing, you got to accept the bad days where you just feel ashamed and you feel bad. That's part of the growth process. There's this mythical thing. It's like, no, I forgave myself. But there are still times now where I have to catch myself wondering, is that person wondering what kind of person I'm now does that person think? Every person I meet, I have to go over that hurdle of how are they meeting me? What do they think they know about me? And that can either make you never come outside and just shut yourself off to people. You don't want to deal with that. Or you can get stronger internally and say, there's a good chance that this person may or may not know what they think they know about me. And I'm okay either way. I accept me. If you accept you, it takes the weight off other people accepting you.

 

Mel Robbins (00:49:44):

What I just got from this is that a lot of us do look at the relationship as evidence for the forgiveness. If this person continues to be my friend, it's evidence that they've forgiven me. If this person continues to be my spouse, it is evidence that they have forgiven me. What you're actually saying is forgiveness is something way deeper,

 

Carl Lentz (00:50:10):

Way deeper,

 

Mel Robbins (00:50:11):

Because it is the freedom that you give yourself to no longer allow any of it to have power over you. And in that freedom and space, there is choice to create something new. Whether that means a new version of your marriage or a new version of a friendship, or there is space to create something new, which means this next chapter, we are not actually friends. No, we are not married. But I am not carrying that.

 

Carl Lentz (00:50:44):

Absolutely not. I'm healing. And if you are hesitant to forgive somebody, this is a beautiful way to look at it. There has to come a moment where you realize, I no longer want this person. So if you haven't forgiven someone, maybe it'll be helpful for you to consider this thought they're still in your life. That got me changing quick. And that's not definition doesn't have to suit everybody, but think about it like that. So if there's people in your life right now that you're bitter against and you resent them and you've never forgiven them, what if the truth is also they're still actively involved in your life? Do you want that? Because that's a tough thing to accept. Once I don't, there's people who have hurt me in my life. If I don't forgive them, they're with me forever. I'm not okay with that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:51:28):

How do you do that though? Because I think it's this thing where if you have the bitterness and the anger, and I want you to as is, we're about to hear what Carl's going to tell us. I want you to think of somebody that you are bitter tour. I want you to think of somebody that you think wronged you. I want you to think of somebody that you're angry at. Maybe it's one of your parents, maybe it's an ex. Maybe it's a business partner that screwed you out of something. That there's some aspect of your life where that's not fair and it's that person's fault and you may think you've forgiven them. But the fact that you still have that tension and anger and animosity is evidence that you haven't because they still have power in you and they're still in your life.

 

Carl Lentz (00:52:12):

So I would say if you are struggling to forgive somebody, make the decision. I believe forgiveness is a decision. The follow through is daily. So don't get fooled by your feelings. A lot of people, I thought I forgave this person, but I still feel that's a feeling like you're not going to feel. I don't think forgiveness is like fairy dust where it's like, oh, this person who abused me for 10 years, 15 years, I forgive you. Let's have dinner. No, you might still feel at times that that person is God should smite them from the earth. Got to accept that you know what? I have forgiven you and there are some aftershocks and there are some after effects. That's on me. I got to work through those. And again, rather than push 'em off, which creates dread, face 'em down. Today is a day where I'm struggling to follow through with the forgiveness I've given. Say that that's more true. It's not that I struggle to forgive. No, I have forgiven. And the follow through is challenging. Today, especially that person continually does stupid things. It's like I got to re-up every day to forgive you. No, I think that forgiveness is a choice for sure. The follow through requires support, maintenance, therapy, prayer, meditation, soul work. Because it's one thing to say it and you must, it's another thing to live it out. But again, how much is your freedom worth?

 

Mel Robbins (00:53:34):

If the person who's listening right now is wondering if they're ever going to be proud of themselves again, what's your message to them?

 

Carl Lentz (00:53:44):

If you are ever wondering, if you're going to be proud of yourself again, I believe the answer is yes, and you have every opportunity to fill your life with new experiences and new change and new process to ensure that that happens. But you can be proud of yourself today because you didn't give up. So we can handle that right now. So if there's somebody out there going, I don't know. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know what I've done. I'm never going to be proud of myself again. You can be proud of yourself right now. You made it through. You're here, you made it. That's something to be acknowledged. I don't take it for granted. We've lost people in the blink of an eye,

 

(00:54:29):

And if you do that enough, if you're experiencing that enough, you don't ever take life for granted. So the fact that you made it today is worthy of being proud. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for making it to this point. It's okay to say that. Look in the mirror and say, I'm proud of myself. What did you achieve today? I achieved another day. I didn't give up. That's worthy. It's worthy of giving yourself some real significant esteem. It matters. Sometimes that's the best you can do is survive that day. I've had a bunch of those, Mel. I was like, what's your big achievement today? Is that I didn't give up.

 

Mel Robbins (00:55:05):

That's one of the most courageous things in the world to do when you feel like giving up. And I think that it can be really hard because when you're in that mode where it's day by day and the progress is coming slow. Yeah. The thing about changing your life and moving through this chapter when you're in a pivot chapter, oh my God, there's nothing glamorous about it. It's grueling. It's boring. It's tedious. So if somebody's in that chapter and the progress is not coming and they're listening to Carl and Mel Tone to keep, is there something to say other than this part sucks.

 

Carl Lentz (00:55:50):

First of all, pivot should be spelled with like 14 v's. Because pivot, it sounds like such a strong word. It's like, no way man. It's a rounder word. It's like a circular word. You cannot get away from farming word pictures. When you talk about growth and change, you cannot do it. And so if you can accept that, here's something to accept today. If you don't see a lot of growth, I accept that I'm playing the long game and in time I will reap a harvest if I keep planting the things I know I need to plant. I've never seen a farmer plant something and go out there the next day and be like, damn it. Where are these crops at? We would say that farmer's nuts. Yet we can spend decades making destructive decisions, pivot. And then we spend a couple months showing up to some therapy and lock into some good pods. Maybe even showing up to church once or twice a month and be like, this shit doesn't work. Well, maybe you had a faulty expectation. This is going to take, I always tell people, at least give your best self as much time as you gave your worst self.

 

Mel Robbins (00:57:08):

Oh, hold on, say it a little louder for the person in the back. Please

 

Carl Lentz (00:57:13):

At least give your best self the same amount of time to build your life that you gave your worst self, the time to destroy your life. And then we can talk because you could spend decades thinking terribly and try to shift it and go through a challenge and be like, man, this isn't working. It's not working. You gave the club 20 years and you've given this two months. Doesn't even seem logical. At least give yourself a little bit of margin to understand this is a new way to live. Like rewiring your, I mean for me, I had to go all the way back to my sexual wiring as a young kid that was sexually abused. That damages you. I'm not going to fix that in a day. Me and Laura, we have ups and downs and peaks and valleys, but we're both fully cognizant of we're not rebuilding our marriage by the way we are on a fresh one.

 

Mel Robbins (00:58:13):

Well, you know what they say second marriages are amazing, particularly when it's with the first person.

 

Carl Lentz (00:58:18):

I'll take it.

 

Mel Robbins (00:58:19):

And I do think that you're leading and preaching and guiding. I do.

 

Carl Lentz (00:58:28):

I am

 

Mel Robbins (00:58:29):

Correct. And so I also think there's a level of trust that people will have with you because they know that you're not perfect and now you're actually guiding from experience.

 

Carl Lentz (00:58:43):

I've heard that a lot actually. There is an element of culture of people that I know that have said, I love you more. I trust you more. Not because you did stuff that was wrong, but because I see your humanity and I see what you did with it. And when I hear that, I appreciate it. I hear the other stuff too, which is I don't trust you, I can't trust, and I have grace for that. Can't control it either.

 

Mel Robbins (00:59:08):

I am a person who will forever believe in the ability for any human being to change and get better. And if we as a society, as friends, as family members cannot create the space and the grace for people to learn from their mistakes, for people to grow and get better, then what hope do we have? So for the person that's listening, Carl that is struggling and there are truly just can so relate to everything that you've shared and you have shared so much and you have been so generous and life-changing, what do you think the most important thing is to take away from everything that you've shared with us today?

 

Carl Lentz (01:00:04):

The most important thing that I would tell anybody that I care about, which is you control your story. Nobody else, even if you've given away your pen and someone else has written some things or maybe you don't even like what you've written in the past, you control this one here. What will you do with it?

 

(01:00:27):

That is where your power is. You can do nothing about the chapters that are behind you, but you have so much opportunity to write the best chapters that are in front of you. The revelation is, I control my pen. I am the greatest narrator of my life. I will control the narrative and the commentary about who I am. People can make of it what they will, but I'm in control. So if you don't like the stories and the chapters that have proceeded, whatever you're dealing with right now, what a great day to maybe start that first sentence of what your new chapter's going to look like. You control that. Nobody else, nobody else can do it for you. Nobody else can write it for you. People can encourage you, but at some point you've got to pick up the pen of ownership and say, this is me. This is my life. This is who I want to be. Who might you become if you invested in that person? It's an exciting proposition.