180: New Life Perspectives with Liz Larson and Bill McKenna - Episode 180

180: New Life Perspectives with Liz Larson and Bill McKenna - Episode 180

Interested in the personal battles against addiction? Here, Bill McKenna and Liz Larson bring a fresh angle by linking emotional baggage — especially resentment — with physical health and wellbeing. Bill shares a striking story of a client whose painful dental abscess eased dramatically after a brief forgiveness exercise.

With her tongue on the sore tooth and hand on the abscess, he asked her to silently pose one question: "Who's here that I've yet to forgive?" As she forgave several people over about ten minutes, the swelling cooled and the pain dropped from "an eight, nine, 10, right down to a zero". Bill calls this an example of how "our body will express for us the emotion that we can't process".

The conversation widens out into research on radical remission from stage four cancer, where common themes include releasing suppressed emotions, cultivating positive feelings, deepening spiritual connection, embracing social support, changing diet, following intuition, using herbs and supplements, exercising more, and having a strong reason to live. Forgiveness sits right in the middle of these changes as a practical way to release emotional pressure.

Bill walks through multiple studies showing links between forgiveness and reduced depression, anxiety, stress, anger, hostility, cardiovascular strain, poor sleep and PTSD symptoms. There’s also a memorable case where a woman’s intense resentment towards her husband showed up as imbalance across almost all her organs on an energy scan; after Cogno Movement exercises focused on her resentment, her anger dissolved and the readings shifted towards balance.

For anyone in sobriety or healing from addiction, the episode offers a simple, body-based forgiveness practice: notice where resentment shows up as tension, consciously relax each point, and then check whether forgiveness feels possible. The tone stays practical and gently humorous, especially when Bill admits he used to think holding onto resentment would protect him. If you’re carrying old hurts that seem to echo through your health or recovery, could experimenting with forgiveness be worth a try?