Is Forgiveness Real?
You are welcome to join me in February for a short series of blog posts where I will share my path of eclectic healing. Healing modalities, rituals and gifts I found for myself, that helped me begin to reclaim my true self, freeing me to create a bright, joyous and peaceful life.
I’ll begin with an extract from Chapter Six Awakening, sub-section Is forgiveness real? (pages 126 to 127). I was curious whether forgiveness was possible for something like sibling sexual abuse. I felt safe in the company of a clinical hypnotherapist to explore that question in one of our sessions.
Here we go!
Reading from Resolve by Alice Perle:
Transcript:
Helene soon retired from her practice. Feeling buoyed by the experience I’d had with Helene, of opening up without cracking down the seams, I thought I would continue to explore options to heal myself.
I was told about a local clinical hypnotherapist who had helped a friend lose weight. Despite the fundamental idea of it being helping me lose weight, very soon the sexual abuse came to the surface for attention.
I had read and heard from other sources that weight problems can be related to trauma. That could involve holding onto weight to keep ourselves comforted and safe, self-harm or subconscious attempts to not attract attention. Also, I knew many people had issues surrounding body image, caused by the diet-driven, calorie counting years we grew up in. What I felt instinctively though was that weight is never the problem. Therefore, it didn’t surprise me when the issue of my abuse came up.
I asked the hypnotherapist if it was possible to forgive someone who had abused me. Can hypnosis help me do that?
She said it wouldn’t hurt to try if I’d like to focus on that, and we scheduled to work on forgiveness in the next week’s session.
I remember one moment under hypnosis that I visualised both Mum and Darryl attached to cords tied around their waists. I was holding the other end of each cord. They were sent floating up into the sky like helium balloons. Mum was in full colour, wearing a flowery nightie, and a shiny red silk cord around her waist. Darryl was grey-skinned and in grey clothes, with a barbed wire belt for his cord. I was attempting a practice aimed at forgiving both of them, which I wasn’t sure was possible at that stage, but it felt good to try.
I visualised Mum as soft, pale and clay-like. She was wearing her nightie as she so often did when we all lived at home. Mum floated back to Earth: she could be loved as she was. She was who she was back then, and now. I couldn’t expect anything from her or change what had happened between us. The red cord dropped away from her waist, and I dropped my end of the cord to the ground. Free. Darryl came back to Earth, remaining grey, sour-faced, and stone-like.
The hypnotherapist suggested I cut the barbed-wire cord, which, considering what it was made of, would need a chainsaw.
The most significant realisation I got from this exercise was that forgiving Darryl didn’t have to look like what I had imagined forgiveness to be. I could feel inside me that it wasn’t actually about excusing or absolving his actions. Forgiving Darryl was more about seeing the reality of something damaged about him, which made him sexually deviant towards his little sister.
Cutting through that barbed wire required focus and strength to keep me safe. But I did it.
The process was not sunshine and rainbows.
I didn’t rejoice and welcome him with open arms as if nothing had ever happened, but I knew that any bonds Darryl ever held over my heart were cut loose. Deep down in my soul, I knew he would never be someone I would trust. Through his actions, Darryl had forfeited a place in my life forever.
At the time, that gave me a sense of peace.
In Resolve I also share the words of psychologist and author, Dr Scott Eilers, to forgive by repairing. I could do that. I’ve shared a reading from Resolve on this on my Youtube channel. This link takes you directly to that short audioclip.
Alice, healing is a long journey, you know that, right? No, I did not know that.
I had to have that message spoken to me many times before I began to accept that healing wasn’t a set of six appointments with a therapist and Voila! Fixed! Healed! Off I go to a new life. No.
It finally sunk in.
I’m still healing.
I know there are repressed memories I haven’t yet addressed. I have a stolen childhood that I am grieving. My mind sometimes spins like a whirly-gig at night with thoughts that go over and over: Mostly, the feel of those visions and thoughts are about being responsible, there are things to be done, or having to be somewhere on time; taking care of things (cooking – serving – tidying up) whilst the rest of the family (of origin, Darryl included) enjoy a meal or time together; that kind of thought. It’s exhausting! I used to think of them as bad dreams, but not nightmares. There are nightmares – I know how they feel, and thankfully, they’re rare now. So there is always progress and something to be grateful for in this healing journey.
I’m just glad that I began finding one thing, like hypnotherapy. Then I tried some other thing. It takes time to feel the benefit and the peace and joy of releasing the burden of it from my mind, body and soul.
Sometimes afterward, it would be a long time before I approached healing again. Sometimes I was so busy that healing didn’t come onto my radar.
What wasn’t being addressed, the cPTSD, for instance, was like I had a low humming noise accompanying me no matter where I was. It was there, waiting for me to stop, listen fully and take the next step I could choose towards recovery. Sometimes… it had Troy that fed up with me, he’d say ‘you need to go talk to someone! It’s okay to ask for help!’ and that made me look up and agree with him.
I don’t yet know what the post will be next week. There are a few ways I could go with it.
Let’s just say that February 2024 will be a box of treasures or a box of eclectic approaches to healing.
It has been healing that suited me and the person I am. It may not be appropriate nor something other survivors are suited to nor should try.
Shared with love,
Alice Perle
Resolve: A Story of Courage, Healthy Inquiry and Recovery from Sibling Sexual Abuse is now available globally. Libraries and bookstores can order copies. Please follow me on Instagram and Facebook. The audiobook is now also available via over 50 audiobook sites. If you live in Australia, I’m a self-published author, so please don’t hesitate to order a copy or copies of Resolve directly through my website. Here is the link: Buy Direct from Alice
