Love, Relationships and everything else...

Sometimes, I feel I should have chosen psychiatry as my specialization. Ironically , though I have never had a ' real ' relationship of my own, I am a relationship counselor to a lot of people including my patients , family , friends, friend’s spouses and even their parents at times. Sometimes, I find myself wondering about what actually it is, that they find so easy to confide in me. At times, I am left perplexed by the responsibility incurred onto me, by putting in of so much of faith. This often leads me to introspection of my own being.

Counselling others has had therapeutic effect on my own self. Or may be its an escape plan, conceptualized by my own sub conscious mind, and an excellent one for that matter. Switching on the lights on the outside of the window helps to elude the darkness inside, for a while, at the least.

However, from all my experience in dealing with people and their relationships, most of them being troubled ones, I have learnt a golden rule – FORGIVE, FORGET and MOVE ON.

At the outset, it may not sound something different from the various advises been in circulation from centuries on. For example, in a failed relationship or a broken marriage, they will tell you to move on. The usual advice is to go out, meet new people, interact with them and for some, may be, even marry one of them. They will tell you that time is the greatest healer. With the passage of time, you will eventually forget the past and finally one day, you will be ready to forgive and the soreness will heal.

But believe me, it doesn't work that way. It is all, but a game of sequencing. It never worked in that order. Although, it may be easy to keep busy, putting all the negativity at bay, trying to move on all through the day. But none of it can fill the emptiness of that occult moment when u close your eyes, just before falling asleep, at the end of the day. That emptiness needs to go away. Everything else is like treating the symptoms. Emptiness is the disease requiring cure. And the panacea for it is forgiveness. And forgiveness leads to redemption. One must not only forgive the person causing the hurt, but also absolve one’s own self from the shame, guilt or punishment of being in a wrong relationship or with the wrong person. Some things are just not meant to be, for no reason and for on one’s fault. Holding a grudge is like drinking the poison and waiting for the other person to die. And nobody deserves to live in that wait. Letting go is liberating.

Once you have achieved the hardest by shedding off the resentment, forgetting will come easy. Forget u must. Some prefer to whitewash the walls of their past completely and start afresh. Some would find it enough to just forget the part of it that stings while still banking on the reminiscence of the happier times. To each his/her own but forget you must.

And with God’s grace, one day you will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. That is when you will be able to move on and embrace the eternity.

So, FORGIVE, FORGET and MOVE ON!!