The Day a Blocked Number Sent Me a Session Request

A few months ago, I found myself sitting opposite someone I never thought I'd willingly see again. I was on a delicious sofa in his lounge while he was lying across the room from me on an identical one by the window. I was there not because I missed him. I wasn’t there because I wanted answers either. And I was not there because I had finally forgiven him and agreed to accept him back in my generous embracing arms. I was there simply because he booked a session with me - through my brand new website.

He said he wanted to work on his emotional discomfort in the form of guilt for treating me the way he did. Most people would have been gobsmacked. Life occasionally has a most peculiar sense of humour. A year earlier, I would have told him to get lost. I would have slammed the door in his face and told him to ‘go unfuck yourself’ - the same way as I once did. I would have also shot a few poisonous arrows and venomous stares at his back.

Instead, I actually went to his house to help him work on his emotional pain which was the result of him being a dick to me.

It struck me afterwards that this was not the part I'd expected to find difficult. The difficult part had happened the day before - in Tesco. I was buying biscuits. There are moments in life when you're forced to confront the really important questions. Chocolate Hobnobs? Or would that look too welcoming? Digestives felt passive-aggressive. Rich Tea looked as though I'd given up on life. Ginger Nuts sounded like I was trying to send a message.

I stood there staring at an aisle full of biscuits for an embarrassingly long time before realising I'd completely lost perspective. Somewhere in the world people were making life-changing decisions. Meanwhile, I was wondering whether bourbons implied emotional availability.

Life can be odd at times.

A year earlier, if someone had told me I would one day be choosing refreshments for a person who had almost broken my heart while he came to me to work on his regrets, I would have suggested they cut down on whatever they were smoking.

Instead...

...there I was.

Choosing biscuits. At some point, the sadistic part of me wanted to bring a bouquet of flowers instead, and an evil grin appeared on my face - only to vanish as suddenly as it made an appearance. Because, strangely, I did not want to inflict any more pain on him. So I ended up buying neither. I was not going over to his house to talk about what had happened or to be friends again - it was a professional visit, and I treated it as such.

People think healing feels sensational. They imagine fireworks and chubby cherubs with peachy bottoms singing. They picture themselves dramatically standing on a cliff at sunset shouting, "I forgive you!". Or, perhaps, burning old love letters in a metal bucket while wearing white linen and suddenly feeling a boulder drop from their shoulders so they can breathe fully again.

It didn't feel like that. At least, for me it didn’t. There was no grand revelation and no dramatic speech. No cinematic closure and no sense of longed-for relief.

I simply realised I could sit in the same room as someone who had once caused me enormous pain… and my nervous system no longer reacted as if it were facing a predator.

That was it. Quietly. Almost disappointingly so.

He was still the same guy. He hadn't transformed into a saint. History hadn't rewritten itself. Nothing had been undone. The only thing that had changed was the person sitting opposite him.

For years, I thought healing meant reaching a place where I no longer remembered - or no longer cared. Or, at least, where I could finally say, with complete sincerity, "I forgive you."

It turns out none of those things were necessary.

Forgiveness is an interesting concept. We admire it enormously because it sounds ever so noble and mature. So spiritual and so generous. And yet, I have started to wonder whether forgiveness is sometimes given more credit than it really deserves. What if the real milestone isn't forgiving someone at all? What if healing is simply reaching the point where you don't need anything from that person anymore?

You do not need their apologies or explanations. You do not even want justice. You don’t want to make them realise how much of a bastard they had been to you while you were all so fluffy and angelic to them and never deserved such treatment. You don’t want them to wallow in the quicksand misery of their own remorse, while you watch them suffer with a sweet feeling of satisfaction. Nothing. Nothing but a quick glimpse of melancholic nostalgia about the good times you once had and a sincere desire to help them get out of the swamp they had climbed into following their own will - mixed with genuine compassion.

And that was exactly that. The emotional debt has just quietly disappeared. And while you realise that people will still disappoint you, the relationships will still end and that someone might still ignore your message after reading it… The world remains gloriously inconsistent. The people who once had unlimited access to your emotional world quietly discover they've lost the key. They can still knock - they simply can't let themselves in anymore, unless you yourself unlock the door.

Looking back, I don't think the strangest part of that day was that he booked a session with me.

The strangest part was that, while I sat in his kitchen drinking coffee and later on on the couch during the session - and even afterwards when he kindly offered to give me a lift - it hadn’t once occurred to me that my reactions were wrong or odd in any way. For the first time in a long while, there was nowhere else I needed to be. I needed to be where I was needed - because there was someone whom I could genuinely help without hurting myself in the process of doing so.

I came not because I wanted to prove anything to him or to myself. I came because I cared for him as a human being. I still remembered everything that had happened. I knew how exceptionally difficult it must have been for him to go through the session with me, and I felt supportive and encouraging, while really hoping he would listen to what I suggested he would do next to help him reduce the emotional pain.

And I suspect that's where I recognized my emotional immunity.

It does not begin when life finally gives you better people, and not when nobody ever hurts you again. It begins when the people who once had the power to rearrange your entire emotional landscape quietly become... people. Nothing more - and nothing less.