Do you know how to forgive?
“We go to church and we hear, you should forgive. And we hear all of the religious reasons. But nobody really knows how to do it, I think. Or at least in my case, I didn’t ever find somebody,” relates life coach Janeice Garrard. This realization inspired her to create Finding Forgiveness, aimed at supporting and guiding those who are ready to start living their best life now, free from the emotional blocks from the past.
The program offers a path toward real and lasting forgiveness. It helps quiet the ruminations that can keep you stuck, gently helps you move beyond the victim label, and leads you toward stepping into your power with greater peace and clarity. It is an investment in healing with two packages available: five hours and 10 hours. The longer option is recommended for those who want to go deeper, and includes life coaching to encourage continued growth.
Structured approach to forgiveness
Janeice holds a Doctor of Education (EdD) and a Master’s degree in School Administration. She spent more than 20 years teaching in public schools before becoming a college instructor so she’s had lots of practice in mentoring and motivating. Her extensive academic experience is also reflected in the methodical approach of Finding Forgiveness. The multi-step process has a well-defined structure, but it is in no way rigid. Janeice adapts to each person’s pace and what feels most comfortable for them.
Journal for reflection
As part of the program, Janeice created a companion journal, an essential tool for reflection. “When you write it down, and it goes from your head, to your hand, to the paper, I really think that there’s power in that. And then you can read it back. It’s powerful when the client can do that,” she says.
It definitely helps to have carefully crafted prompts to respond to rather than simply writing down random thoughts. Because often, it takes the right questions to uncover the answers that change everything. During one of our sessions, Janeice posed a brilliant thought in front of me, and bam, I instantly knew how to resolve my dilemma. The conclusion was so clear, there was no hesitation, no second-guessing. I knew with complete confidence that it was the right thing to do. And I felt it, I felt my body shift.
The companion journal to Janeice Garrard’s program on forgiveness
An attentive witness
The impact was profound because it was a well-thought-out query born out of Janeice paying attention to everything I was saying. She really made an effort to get to know me. It was a question that was specifically for me, formed after listening to me go on and on, discerning what mattered most to me, and comprehending how I operate. Had that question lacked one word, it wouldn’t have landed the same way. Had that question been thrown at somebody else, it might have been meaningless.
I’ve found myself going back to that question on several occasions, just as I’ve put the forgiveness process she taught me into practice more than once. I’m happy to report that it is applicable to both the big things and the little things. It’s a foundational tool I know I’ll use throughout my life because, unfortunately, there will always be someone or something that leaves us angry, resentful, or hurt.
First step to forgiveness
According to Janeice, the first step toward forgiveness is telling your grievance story and finding validation. “Even if sometimes it’s just telling the story to yourself and writing it down in a journal… I think you can give yourself self-validation to say, ‘I hear you and I understand.’ Because we all want somebody to understand us. ‘Don’t you understand?’ we hear people say that all the time,” she explains.
Feeling unheard and unseen can add to the frustration and pain. Sometimes, it can even have a worse impact than the original issue. I’ve regretted opening up more times than I can count. “Because you can tell your story to somebody, and they’ll say, ‘Well, what did you do to make them act that way?’ We hear that a lot,” relates Janeice. “I think that finding a place where people don’t judge you, that is hard. You might have a good friend and you tell them something, and you think they’re not going to judge you, but then you can tell, oh, they’re judging me,” she adds.
Janeice provides a safe space where you can lay it all out and get some relief from the constant rehashing of distressing experiences. “Playing the narrative over and over shapes their attitudes toward others, toward themselves…we can become bitter and hardened to ourselves. It affects our stress level, how our body reacts to things, and our sleep. It leaves less room for creativity, for joy,” she warns.
Janeice Garrard, certified life coach
Moving beyond the grievance
For some people, it can even get to a point where they are so tied to the grievance story that it becomes part of their identity, and that makes forgiving even harder. “Wanting to stay with that story and saying, ‘Well, how can I forgive those people? They need to suffer because I suffered…’”
Progress becomes evident when there is a shift in how they perceive the person or the situation. “You realize this isn’t about them. It’s about me and the peace that I deserve in my life, the peace of mind that I want. Because it’s like people say, not forgiving somebody is like you drinking a cup of poison and expecting them to die,” points out Janeice.
And then finally, they get to forgiveness. “It doesn’t happen all of a sudden. I think it’s very subtle, it’s very nuanced,” she underscores. “When it happens, there’s a peace that takes over, a calm feeling, it’s indescribable. Let’s attach to the calm, that’s the forgiveness piece of it.”
Does forgiving mean forgetting?
Among the steps in her Finding Forgiveness program, Janeice says that the step that clients struggle with most is forgiving themselves. “A lot of times when I listen to people, they say, ‘Well, I should have known. I should have known. I should have done this.’ But how could you if you didn’t know? Because we don’t know what we don’t know, right?”
If I’m still angry or still hurt, does that mean I haven’t forgiven? “I think it’s a journey, and it’s going to be different for different people. But for myself, I have found that if I feel like I’ve truly forgiven, the hurt is lessened. I remember the hurt, and I can remember what it felt like to be hurt, but do I want to live there? I don’t,” she replies. Forgetting is not really among the goals because remembering helps in setting boundaries for future encounters. Part of the program is a discussion on whether to re-engage or walk away.
The influences behind Finding Forgiveness
Janeice gives credit to Dr. Fred Luskin, his research is the basis of Finding Forgiveness. “I think even before his study, the principles of the book are something that we can find in ancient texts of scripture,” she adds.
She also recognizes the role of Joyi Rhyss who got her into this path. Through Joyi’s training in attitudinal healing and mindful forgiveness, she discovered ways to better herself. “It was so impactful to me and it was life-changing that I said, I want to do it because other people need to have these methods.” She started shifting her mindset about her situation, particularly that of being adopted. “What kept coming up for me was forgiving my past, forgiving adoptive parents who didn’t have a lot of education on adoption. Back then, people were just given a baby. They’ll tell you, ‘It’s your blank slate, it’s yours, raise it as your own,’ and that’s all they got. Parents were not told this child came from a different culture and it’s important for you to teach them about it and to embrace it. So without that, I did grow up with some resentments, and the way I got treated by people and in jobs.” She learned to take her focus off of the hurt and the pain, and look into what she can do to move forward without denying what happened.
Being a Korean adoptee
Janeice was only six months old when she was loaded onto a jet and flown to America from Korea. She grew up as the daughter of an American couple and has no recollection of her roots. She made an attempt to search for her birth family, but nothing ever came of it. She thought maybe she would have had better success if she had taken action earlier but the idea only came later. “I guess it just wasn’t that big of a deal to me because I grew up in this environment, these are my parents now, this is all I’ve ever known, so this is just the way it is, I didn’t question it.”
She only got curious while working on her doctoral dissertation, which was on Korean American and Korean adoptees in higher education. Since then, she has been active in the community. She founded a group of Korean American adoptees on Facebook where people would talk about finding their birth records and their birth families. She is a member of the board of Korean Adoptees Ministry Center, which leads cultural programs in the US and offers spiritual journeys to Korea.
“Sunny Day School – The Book of Shapes” is a children’s book Janeice Garrard wrote for her grandchildren. Published in 2022, it gives young learners their first geometry lesson while introducing English and Korean (Hangeul) through reading, writing, coloring, and drawing. It is sold on Amazon. (Image from Amazon)
Giving voice to the marginalized
Since 2021, she has been hosting a podcast called Claiming Your Voice. “The reason I started that is because not everybody is going to get on a very famous podcast like Joe Rogan’s, but everybody has a story. And within the Korean adoptee community, within populations that feel marginalized, I felt that if they are able to tell their story, that will give voice to them, and validation to their experiences, and let other people who hear that know that they’re not alone.”
The podcast seems to lean mostly toward adoptees, but it has also been open to other guests, such as artists, authors, and entrepreneurs who share about finding themselves, awakening of the soul, and such. “I’ve always been drawn to self-improvement,” Janeice emphasizes. And because she’s always been a teacher at heart, she likes to share what she learns. This genuine desire to learn, grow, and share what she gains along the way is part of what makes her such an effective and relatable coach.
Other coaching programs
Aside from Finding Forgiveness, Janeice offers The Reclaimed Method, a five-stage journey from pain to freedom, and The Second Act, a 90-day transformation experience for high achievers ready to align success, purpose, and legacy. She conducts all her programs online from her base in Iowa.
For more information, go to www.janeicegarrard.com or email jgarrard2019@gmail.com. You may follow her on Facebook @janeice.garrard.
