About two months ago I lost what I can understand and appreciate now as the most important thing in my life (after my life itself). To my great surprise, I hadn't felt any pain, until I suddenly started feeling it this Sunday morning. Now it seems to me that this loss for which myself, including my stupidity, am responsible, has left some deep emotional scar in me. Even before I lost this precious thing, I foresaw the pain of losing it and bought one workbook. During these two months I even forgot this fact, but this acute pain has reminded me of it.
It didn't take me long to realize through this workbook meant specifically for this special type of loss that my pain derived mostly from my own shame and guilt, and I have to forgive and accept myself, which doesn't mean, of course, justifying myself.
I've followed the following six steps explained in detail in this workbook as a kind of psychological self-(re)evaluation:
- Cultivating a willingness to move forward
- Rate yourself on how stuck you feel on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means you're able to easily move through the difficult emotions related to your divorce and 10 means you're completely unable to let go and move forward.
- Write down the emotions you're experiencing that may be keeping you stuck.
- Are there any benefits to being stuck emotionally?
- What do you stand to gain if you move toward becoming unstuck and healing emotionally?
- Identifying your hurtful mistakes
- Taking responsibility
- Hurt experienced by the person who was affected by your actions.
- What aspects of this person's pain directly resulted from what you did?
- What aspects of this person's pain may be less connected to your actions?
- Write down some words that describe your emotional state.
- Becoming an owner of your difficult emotions
- When you experience these feelings, what is your typical response?
- Identifying and letting go of negative attitudes and behavior patterns
- Name an attitude or behavioral pattern that contributed to your
hurtful actions. - When and how has this attitude or behavioral pattern been beneficial to you?
- When has it harmed you or others?
- Do you know others who exhibit this pattern? How have their behaviors or attitudes affected you?
- How might letting go of this negative pattern benefit you and
others?
- Name an attitude or behavioral pattern that contributed to your
- Making amends
- For the hurtful behavior on which you have previously focused, is a direct apology possible or appropriate? Why or why not?
- If it is possible, how will the benefits of a direct apology outweigh the costs associated of not directly apologizing?
- Describe your plan to make amends (either with or without a direct apology). Then act on it.
The sixth step has been the most difficult one as unlike the first five steps it's solution-focused but I haven't been convinced if it can help make amends at all. In spite of this feeling I've taken this action step with a direct apology. Quite expectedly, I haven't received any reaction, which must show that what I have done is far worse than I've tried to (re)evaluated through the first five steps mentioned above. Now I wonder what specific alternative actions I can take without a direct apology. My full recovery from this loss still seems very far away...