The exercise I'm about to share with you came to me in the middle of an intense conversation.

I haven't ever researched if anyone has thought of this before, so I may be offering something unoriginal. I just know that what I'm sharing today hadn't been in my conscious thoughts until I saw it in my mind’s eye during a Zoom conversation 18 months ago.

A close friend was wrestling with something deep. He wanted to write a letter to his mom. A letter expressing everything she'd done wrong. Every wound. Every disappointment. Every way she'd failed him.

He needed to get it out. And I understood that.

But something in me paused.

In that moment, I saw the word differently. Like it broke apart right in front of me.

Forgive.

For-give.

For giving.

And I offered him a different path.

"What if instead of writing about what she took from you, you wrote about what she gave you? Even through the pain. Even through the dysfunction. What did that experience give you?"

He sat with it.

And then he wrote a completely different letter.

Not a letter of grievance. A letter of gratitude.

Thank you for giving me...

He listed everything that came through those hard years. The resilience. The independence. The drive to build something different. The tenderness he now brings to his own family.

He gave her the letter.
It melted her heart.

Here's what most people don't realize.

Resentment isn't just an emotional experience. It's a physical one.

Trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk spent decades studying how overwhelming experiences affect the body. His conclusion? Trauma is stored in somatic memory and expressed as changes in the biological stress response.

Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget.

The landmark ACE Study conducted by Kaiser Health followed 17,000 participants and found something striking: the more adverse childhood experiences a person endured, the higher their likelihood of physical health problems later in life. Heart disease. Diabetes. Cancer. Autoimmune conditions like fibromyalgia and arthritis.

Trauma survivors are three times more likely to deal with chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

That tension in your shoulders? The knot in your stomach? The headaches that won't quit?

They might not be random. They might be stored.

Unforgiveness is an open tab in your nervous system. Leaking energy, attention, and power. And over time, that leak becomes a flood that affects everything from your immune system to your heart.

When you flip the field. When you thank someone for what they gave you, not for the hurt, but for the gift that came through the hurt. Something shifts.

It's like changing the current on a battery. Negative to positive. In an instant.

You're not erasing what happened. You're reclaiming the way it lives in your body.

You're sending positive energy back. Not to fix them. To free yourself.

I shared this exercise recently with a woman whose business partnership had blown up back in July. Accusations. Attacks. Silence.

Five months later, when she told me the story, I thought it had happened two weeks ago. The energy was that fresh. Still lodged in her body. Still coloring every decision.

I invited her to try the exercise. To write: "[Name], thank you for giving me..."

The tears came immediately.

She realized she'd been carrying this woman's energy in her body for months. And in one reframe, she could release it.

I know this sounds mystical. Stay with me.

When you do this exercise, I believe you're actually changing the past. Not the facts of what happened. But the energy of it. The way it lives in your nervous system. The charge it still carries.

One client recently shared a metaphor that stopped me cold.

She told me about an old sci-fi story. Time travelers go back to the age of dinosaurs. They're supposed to stay on a separate plane so they don't disturb anything. But one traveler steps off the path. Just one step. When they return to the present, everything has changed.

He looks at the bottom of his shoe.

There's a butterfly.

That's the butterfly effect.

Here's what hit me: When you do this forgiveness work, you're going back to that moment. You can't change what really happened. You're on a different plane. But you're finding the butterfly that's been stuck to the bottom of your shoe. The one that's been silently shaping your present without you knowing it.

You release it. And your trajectory shifts.

On another call, a man shared about his own family. His mother, sick with fibromyalgia. Roots of abuse from her childhood. A family fractured by unforgiveness passed down through generations.

He said something that landed: "Forgiveness is an everyday thing. It becomes a habit."

Not a single dramatic moment. A daily practice of releasing what no longer serves you.

Because here's what the research confirms: when you hold onto resentment, your body stays in a chronic stress state. Cortisol keeps pumping. Inflammation builds. Your immune system weakens. The body can't tell the difference between physical danger and emotional danger. It just knows something is still threatening you.

Release the energy, and you give your body permission to heal.

Let's be honest about what's coming.

The holiday season is here. And for some of you, that means warmth and connection and joy.

But for others. Maybe for you. It means walking into homes that are complicated. Sitting across from people who are complicated. Navigating dynamics that go back decades. Feeling things that are so deeply ingrained you don't even know where they started.

The holidays have a way of compressing everything. Old wounds. Unspoken resentments. The ghosts of relationships past. The version of you that you thought you'd outgrown suddenly showing up at the dinner table.

And all that energy you've been storing? It doesn't stay quiet when you're in that room. It rises. It tightens your chest. It shortens your patience. It whispers old stories in your ear.

So here's my invitation:

Before you gather with family. Before you walk into that room. Before the holidays wrap you in all the complicated feelings they bring.

Write the letter.

Pick someone who still has a hook in you.

And write:

"Thank you for giving me the experience that taught me to honor my voice."

"Thank you for giving me the challenge that revealed my strength."

"Thank you for giving me the wound that showed me how to heal."

"Thank you for giving me the distance I needed to come home to myself."

It doesn't have to be sent. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be felt.

But if you do send it? It might just melt a heart.

Flip the field.
Write the letter.
Find your butterfly.
And watch your present change.

Until next week,

-Coach Reg

As a celebration and a gift to you all, I’m hosting something special called the SPARK 360/5™ Experience.

This will be a 90-minute guided reflection where you’ll look at your year through four simple lenses: the Mountain, the SPARK Wheel, the Four Currencies, and your own lived experience.

Here’s the flow:

This is quiet, honest, introspective work. You’ll journal more than you listen.
Bring a notebook and 90 minutes without interruption.

Two live sessions on Monday, December 22. Registration is Required. Choose the one time that fits.

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