Forgiveness

Saw my CBT therapist yesterday. Although, he’s not really my therapist anymore and more of a friend (I used to see him once a week but I ran out of money - it costs £65 an hour - so this was the first time in a month). 

He broke me. That was the first time he has really broken me down. The barriers just faded away and I cried and he held me and I cried some more.

He said: Sarah, why do you keep tormenting yourself? Why do you keep holding onto everything and punishing yourself for yours and other people’s mistakes? 

Me: I don’t know. I can’t let go. I am a sponge, absorbing every emotion from everyone, ever.

Him: You must forgive yourself. Think about this: what can you benefit from forgiveness?

He then leaves to get a glass of water and expects me to have listed those things down.

I find it difficult and squeeze this out of me: To move on; less tormenting of self; less chaos in head; freedom to live more in the present; make room for love.

He returns.

Him: Would you forgive your daughter if she did something bad?

Me: Yes, of course.

Him: Why?

Me: Because she is human and she is allowed to make mistakes.

Him: Apart from the fact that she is human… why?

Me: ……because I love her.

There is a silence

Me: They don’t deserve my love and they don’t deserve my forgiveness.

Him: So you have to love them to forgive them?

Me: No… yes… no. I hate them for what they did and what they do, they deserve to suffer.

Him: But are they suffering? How are they suffering by you not forgiving?

Me: ……………. 

Him: Ok, you hate them and you want them to suffer, so let’s go and buy some guns and shoot their heads off.

Me: I could never do that.

Him: And why not?

Me: Because I could never hurt somebody, not intentionally anyway. I’m just not like that. I could never make somebody suffer.

Him: Ok, so you don’t have the balls to shoot some heads off but they don’t deserve your forgiveness, so who is actually suffering?

Me: ………………… me.

Him: Precisely. You cannot go back in time. No matter how hard you try, you can not change what is already done. There is no purpose in holding onto everything. 

Me: I don’t deserve forgiveness. 

Him: Why?

Me: There is too much chaos in my head.

Him: There is only chaos in your head if you feel the need to hold onto it for a purpose. What purpose? Self hate? Why don’t you deserve forgiveness?

Me: ………..because I am bad. I am not worthy of anything. 

Him: You punish yourself day in, day out, it feeds the chaos in your head. Every bad thing that somebody does against you, you see as a reflection of you because you’ve already decided by not forgiving yourself that you’re on the road to self torture; you filter out the good. You take what people say or do as fact because you are not forgiving of yourself. You have no compassion for yourself.

Me: I don’t know how to have compassion for myself.

Him: (At this point he has come to sit down next to me on the carpet) Sarah, you have to let it go. Enough is enough. You have to let it go. Who is suffering? Who is benefiting from all this anger and hatred? It’s not even about anyone else, forget everyone else, it is about you forgiving yourself. It’s about saying that you didn’t know better then but you do now. It’s accepting that you cannot change the past. You have been punished enough, Sarah. It’s time to let it all go.

And I start to cry and he hugs me tight.

Him: Don’t punish yourself for other people’s choices. You have been punished enough. 

I hug him tighter: I’m tired of fighting.

Him: The only person you are fighting is you. It’s time to let it go, It’s time to forgive yourself.

After a while, the session came to an end and he drove me to the bus stop. Before I got out, he took my hand:

Sarah, it’s going to be ok. 

The Bernard Bert