In cases of grief, guided imagery requires opening the door that leads into a living room, into a favorite cabin in the woods, or into the kitchen where the person grew up, and so on. Here, a conversation is created between you and the person for whom you are grieving, perhaps someone lost in an accident, an estranged child who died without reconciliation, a spouse who died suddenly, or anyone with whom you have unfinished business. I speak for the deceased individual in order to provide some sense of closure. This always involves putting things that are still hurtful in a better place. Examples include apologies for abuse or betrayal and expressions of love to you from someone who could not communicate it well. It may also include you expressing your own hurt, anger, or rage toward someone who in some way mistreated or abandoned you, as well as acknowledgment from the perpetrator of the trauma. Finally, you may also use this technique to express appreciation and gratitude to a loved one that was not fully expressed while the person was alive.
Why Does Guided Imagery Work?
All human relationships are naturally unfinished works-in-progress. Parents are expected to nurture. Children are expected to grow up. When a relationship is complete, expectations are satisfied. A good son transitions from being a good man to being a good father. Traumatic events, though, interrupt the natural flow of your life events and produce experiences of loss. These events are then consciously or unconsciously avoided and often sealed off from your conscious experience. As such, their treatment involves: (1) making the traumatic event accessible to conscious awareness through guided imagery, and (2) modifying the context or adding something that completes the relationship or finishes the trauma, thus helping you move to a better place. Once again, what is experienced in imagery is processed as reality by the nervous system and feels real to you.
Other Assorted Techniques
While guided imagery and letter writing are by far my two favorite closure exercises, other ways exist to let go of and finish something painful from the past.
For instance, one young man, after realizing that his father was gone and most likely not returning, decided he needed to grieve his loss. I offered him the opportunity to participate in either letter writing or guided imagery. The client wanted neither. Instead, he suggested he could sit in the woods banging on his bongos until he was able to release his biological father. Bongo therapy? I didn’t see why not. The client took care of saying goodbye to his father as if it were some primitive ritual near a campfire in the clearing of the forest. Who would argue with the results? It was a one-time deal for my client, and I was schooled in the importance of allowing clients to take the lead in their treatment even when they choose a technique that may be outside of my experience.
My point isn’t that everyone should try Bongo therapy, but that people often have methods that are uniquely viable for themselves. Jeremy grew up in a rough, inner-city neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. He didn’t have a father to look up to, but he did have an older cousin, Leroy, who was his unofficial mentor. Leroy had no relationship with drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. As a result, Jeremy was also clean when it came to dangerous chemicals—not bad for an adolescent on the wrong side of the city tracks.
But one day some gangbangers drove up to the boys on a city side street, and someone yelled, “Just f***ing do it!” Seconds later, the gun-toting guy blew Leroy away with a series of shots. Jeremy sat on the curb yelling, “No, Leroy, nooooo! Don’t die, Leroy! Please don’t die! Somebody help!”
Within minutes, Leroy was dead, the victim of a drive-by shooting. And sixteen-year-old Jeremy was forced to face his future without the person he most looked up to. Ironically, this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and he was forced to deal with it without his mentor. His mother, horrified by her nephew’s death and concerned about Jeremy’s future, decided to move to Florida to get away from the inner city and gain a fresh start on things. She thought therapy might help him.
Rapping Up the Loss
By the time I met Jeremy, he had already written two notebooks full of rap songs about his life, many of them about or dedicated to cousin Leroy. Though I’m not knowledgeable about rap music (as I prefer M&M’s to Eminem), Jeremy’s lyrics were powerful, moving, and well-written. Jeremy didn’t want to say goodbye to Leroy but was tired of hurting so much from reliving the tragedy.
So in keeping with his love for his mentor, his passion for rapping, and the power of the Fritz, I asked him to write (at least) one more rap song that would memorialize Leroy’s life, keeping his positive legacy intact, but allowing him to pass on to the next world. I asked Jeremy to retain the positive gifts from his cousin and use them to make a difference as a way to honor Leroy. I also asked that he live his life in victory, not resentment and defeat, because although Leroy’s life was too short, his contributions would remain as long as Jeremy did. The result of my request was a beautiful poem, one that brought tears to my otherwise stoic eyes, that praised Leroy for his love and then blessed him on his continued journey to the hereafter. As he read that rap to me, I could tell there was something very different—Jeremy had hope for the first time since I had met him. How? He had figured out a way to honor his fallen cousin, hold on to his goodness, and yet let go of the need to dwell in chronic rage and hopelessness. And his method of gaining closure? Inner-city rap.
Other Techniques to Express and Release
All faiths espouse teachings on the afterlife, whether the promise is reincarnation, resting in peace, or “many mansions,” accompanied by rituals that are designed to aid in grieving and accepting the loss of the departed.
In the Jewish faith, for instance, people are celebrated at their death with “a beautiful, structured approach to mourning that involves three stages… The loss is forever, but the psychological, emotional, and spiritual healing that takes place at every stage is necessary and healthy.”43
The goal is to afford the opportunity for the survivors to deeply honor the departed, sufficiently grieve the loss (say goodbye), and return to life with the capacity to experience peace and joy once again, finally gaining some closure on the life and death of the departed.
And isn’t closure one of the purposes of funerals? Celebrations of life? Memorial services? The Vietnam Memorial? The Holocaust Museum? The Civil War Memorial? Cemeteries?
Healing from trauma or loss requires feeling the pain of the experiences and then expressing the pain in some form or another in an effort to release the person or trauma to a place where it is now acceptable to continue peacefully, hopefully, and positively with life. This is the purpose of employing the Fritz.
The importance of expression cannot be overstated; it allows your healing to begin. Expression is the removing of the splinter, which allows the process to progress. Without it, of course, you are stuck in your pain in the past. However, once your pain is fully remembered, felt, and expressed, the process of releasing and reframing can begin.
Chapter Six
Release: Release for Peace
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Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, I’m afraid it’s time for goodbye again.
—Billy Joel
Let It Go: Release for Peace
As long as you’re still breathing, there remains hope for healing. This doesn’t mean time heals all wounds. All time does is pass; healing requires the volitional act of letting go. Of course, people often do gradually let go over time—as in most divorces, for instance—and so time erroneously receives credit.
You’ve read about people who needed to let go of molestation, rape, betrayals, and combat atrocities. These people sought to remove one or more horrible incident(s) from their minds but could not because the horror had not been digested successfully (remembered, felt, expressed, released).
Letting go is tough. Awareness of this difficulty is useful, providing insight into how deep the hold of a given trauma can be. As I’ve emphasized, people refuse to let go
because to do so constitutes an acceptance of the death of a loved one or the acceptance of a situation that is deemed to be unacceptable.
Randi’s Story
Unlike a lot of trauma survivors, Randi could easily tell her story from start to finish; she relished the telling. Randi had been married to Dr. Dave for twenty-one years, had helped put him through medical school, had raised his four boys, and had endured an affair he’d had with a pretty young “Miss Bimbo,” then forgave him and welcomed him back, no questions asked. Shortly thereafter, Randi watched Dave walk out of her life for good. Eventually, he divorced Randi and ultimately married “Miss Bimbo.”
It’s a familiar story especially among affluent men like doctors: the first wife is dumped along the way and replaced with a younger second wife. Once the doctor is successful at his craft and capable of wooing the younger lady with his prestige, his money, and his paternal concern and guidance, he takes action. The first wife is left holding the bag (the kids, the first house, and its memories). She’s also mired in the painful questions, “Did he ever love me? Was it all a lie? What could I have done differently? Was it my fault? How could he do this to his children? Doesn’t he know divorce ruins lives? Is he so narcissistic that he can’t think about anyone else but himself and Miss Bimbo’s fake boobies?”
The hurt, the betrayal, the destruction of plans, the rejection and replacement, the fear of starting over—Randi had an endless supply of feelings to express. She could remember the details of the betrayal and abandonment, as well as the myriad broken promises. She could feel and express her feelings and did so time and again, to no avail. There was no healing for Randi.
Why not? Because the mere expression of emotional pain is not always curative; in fact, for Randi, it required not only expression of her pain, but ultimately its release. But to release pain is ultimately to let go, and letting go equals forgiving. Simply put, in order to recover herself and the compassionate, caring person she had once been, Randi would have to choose to let go of what Dr. Dave and Miss Bimbo had done. She couldn’t hold onto the pain if she ever hoped to feel good again. This is what I told her.
“Well, that makes no sense,” she said, flabbergasted that as a psychologist, I failed to “understand that I can never let go of my hatred for them because that would condone the betrayal. Betrayal is never okay, Dr. Cortman, can’t you see that? If I forgave them—and I never, ever will—then I’d be saying that betrayal is okay with me. Of course, I can’t do that! I won’t do that.”
But Randi’s stance, as convincing as it sounded, was deeply flawed.
Forgiveness, which is best defined as letting go, never condones the bad behavior of the offending party. Forgiveness is not revenge, nor aiming to get even. Nor is it forgetting. It is merely releasing the pain, so it loses its power to dominate your life with its seething animosity. Most accurately, forgiveness allows you the freedom to live again and to exist without the sting of the trauma dominating your every waking moment. The offending party may also benefit from your forgiveness, but ultimately forgiving someone else, first and foremost, is a gift for yourself.
Randi needed to release her contempt if she were to ever reclaim her life and recapture her purpose. What Dave did may always be wrong in her eyes, but hating him would never correct that wrong. All Randi would accomplish by draping herself in hatred would be to guarantee that she would never find happiness again. Ironically, Dave and Miss Bimbo might never feel any adverse effects from her negativity. In fact, by remaining mired in negativity, Randi was only hurting her children and herself. Hence, the destruction that always seems to follow chronic hatred is self-destruction.
But Randi’s hatred was covering more than just hurt, rejection, and abandonment. By hating him, she wouldn’t have to address her fear. If she were to let go of her resentment for her two adversaries, she would have to address her fear of starting her life over again. There would be much less money, so there was a need to get a job for the first time in two plus decades. She would be saddled with the responsibility of raising the four boys as a single mother.
When Randi finally faced these truths, she told me, “I am fifty-seven pounds heavier than when I met Dave. I have four kids and no money—who will ever want me?” Tearfully, she continued, “Will I spend the rest of my life alone?” The accompanying tears this time were expressions of deep sadness and the fear of never being loved again.
At this point, therapy took a decided turn. It was no longer helpful for Randi to waste her energy supply on hating her husband and his lover—it was counterproductive. While she was stewing in her rage, Randi was a miserable, self-pitying ogre that even her boys were beginning to avoid. To recapture any semblance of a life, Randi would need to accept that Dave had moved on and more than likely, was never coming back. She would need to tell herself things that were hurtful and truly hard to accept—he had withdrawn his affection from her account, like a financial transaction, and redeposited those same affections in another woman’s account.
She also confessed that in fact, she hadn’t been there for him and was no longer impressed by his doctor/hero stories anymore; also, the sex was bad.
Still, Randi needed to process some difficult truths: “Don’t I deserve any credit for my years of looking after him and his kids? Is there nothing to be said for our marital vows, you know, sickness and health, richer and poorer, forsaking all others…doesn’t that count for anything? I know plenty of other men who never strayed when the marriage wasn’t wonderful anymore. They didn’t sleep with the first available young thing who showed interest. I guess I just don’t get it.”
Essentially, both she and Dave had admittedly grown tired of one another and stopped investing energy into the marriage. They were living a very lonely existence, but they had stayed together due to the children until Dave was caught cheating on Randi. As embarrassing as his affair may have been for Dave when Randi found out, in another way, it was a truthful beacon of light cast onto the sham marriage that existed behind closed doors. They had the option of repairing their broken marriage, but Dave wanted none of it. He was ready to move on to something that was fresh, new, and validating for him. This pretty young lady really seemed to like him and found him fascinating, knowledgeable, and even sexy. His goal was not to punish Randi, but it had been years since he had enjoyed her company.
Randi admitted she wouldn’t miss the marriage they’d had for the last eight to ten years, it was just unfair that she had been the one to help to launch Dave’s career and now some other woman would be reaping the benefits of his success. Sure, there’d be a settlement, and probably some alimony, but her attorney warned her against thinking that she could rely on that to make ends meet. If there were to be exotic vacations, the cruise to Italy they’d talked about for years—all that would be enjoyed by Dave and his new woman, not Randi.
But the toughest task for Randi was mustering the courage to reinvent herself as a single mother, with a new job, new friends, and new activities. It was about rediscovering who she was apart from Dave and blossoming as the intelligent woman she had stopped believing in a long time ago.
Eventually, I asked Randi to write a goodbye letter to Dave—one she’d never mail—detailing her inner experience from the day they’d met until now. I asked her to include the ups and downs of child-rearing, from their most joyous moments together to the darkest hours of loneliness and despair. I also asked her to own whatever was hers, including dropping out of the marriage as she had and her lack of interest in him as a person and a professional. “Be as angry as you need to be,” I advised her, “say whatever you need to say, but then we’re going to let it all go and send him on his way with Amy—the real person, not a caricature bimbo—and wish them well.” Randi needed to thank him for whatever had been good in their shared time—the boys, for instance—and release all other aspects of their lives together. There would be no more hatred, no bitter name-calling, no blasting Dave in
front of the kids. It was time to gracefully and mindfully pick up the pieces and recreate her life, step by step.
Randi needed about six months of therapy before she realized that in reality, Dave had done her a favor. She was excited to learn that by facing all her fears head-on, she could deal with the aspects of her new life. She loved working out and watching her clothes fall off her body as she lost weight. Most importantly, she liked being able to smile at people genuinely because she had rediscovered that she was a resilient, confident woman who made the world a better place, if only by being her wonderful self.
Randi bravely persevered and forged what any psychologist would consider a happy ending or positive outcome. But notice that I avoided getting into a power struggle with her about the need to forgive (let go). That was deliberate. One of the biggest mistakes a psychologist (or a preacher) can make is to hit the suffering and angry person over the head with the need to forgive. It’s the right message, but when sent at the wrong time, it is offensive, insulting, and very invalidating. In fact, it’s possibly the best way to lose that client for good—and potentially alienate the sufferer from further help and all well-meaning professionals. Students and grieving family members and friends of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018, heard that very same message to forgive delivered by a well-meaning minister less than a week after the shooting. Once again, many were offended and insulted when told that their outrage needed to morph into instant forgiveness. This was an overwhelming suggestion to those intimately affected by the shooting. Again, ultimately forgiveness is the answer, but introducing that less than a week after the shootings is like asking a kindergarten student to forego the ice cream and place the money instead into a trust fund for college. Again, a good message, but inappropriate timing.
If you’ll take a moment, let’s be clear that the “let go” step is the fourth for a reason—you must fully process your pain in the past by first remembering every detail, feeling all the relevant emotions, and expressing them before you are challenged to let go and say goodbye. In the case of the mass shooter, it is ultimately more about accepting the loss of the beloved than about forgiving the shooter. Just as in Randi’s situation, she needed to let go of her marriage to Dave and accept life without him as her husband.
Keep Pain in the Past Page 9