101 stories from the therapy room

(A non-clinical approach to psychotherapy and counselling)

A client who had terminated her sessions with me a long time ago called to share the sad news about the death of her ex-husband.  She was gravely affected by the loss so I decided to facilitate a session for grief work. She had been separated from him for 20 years and was living in another city. They had a daughter together who is now 20 years old and was estranged from her father for most of her life and hated the man. She herself was surprised about her emotions – for a man who had hurt her badly enough for her to end the marriage. She was confused about what she was going through. 

Grief work

The client was narrating how she felt hearing about his death – guilt about leaving him and her worry about what his family thought about her. As she was talking about her ex-husband I was attuning to her grief and I suddenly felt a strange energy between us. I decided to trust my intuition, especially after watching a docu-series on Netflix called “Surviving Death”. I started giving words to the energy and sharing the images in my mind with the client.

I started asking my client questions …

“Did your ex-husband have a lot of hair?”

She said, “yes he had lot of hair”

“Did your ex-husband wear a cut vest (undershirt) and a lungi? 

She said “yes, that was the usual attire when he was home”. 

(The vest and lungi is a leisure wear worn by men in parts of south India) 

“Does your ex-husband have strong legs? I see him doing something with his legs?”

Surprised, the client said, “Geethan, how are you able to see this? He generally kicked me with his legs. One day  he pushed me to the floor and kicked me in my stomach and he stamped his foot down on my throat and that was the last day. I left him forever after that incident.”

I still felt a strong energy and I was able to derive a few words again but this time I requested the client to repeat the following sentences after me.

“You were my husband, you are dead and I set you free.”

“You were cruel to me, I am hurt that things did not work between us and I set you free.”

“You were my husband, we have a daughter, now you are dead and I set you free.”

I had no idea where I was getting these sentences from, but repeating these sentences after me was giving some relief to the client. 

There was one more sentence, which came up for me – it was a request to the client in that space. “Ask  my daughter to acknowledge that I am her father.”

I shared this with the client and she agreed to talk to her daughter about it. After that, the energy disappeared and there was only silence between us.

I asked the client if there’s anything she owns which can become a symbolic representation of her ex-husband for her to direct her thoughts towards. She said she has a small figurine of the Pope that he had given her, a long time ago. She said she could use that to send her thoughts and prayers for him to find some kind of peace. 

This was the complete process she went through for her to let go of her hurt and her ex-husband.

This grief work was unique because I felt the soul of this man was communicating in our session. I myself couldn’t rationalize this assumption but would like to believe there are possibilities between humans where miraculous communications could happen.