“I hear you, Ma’am,” Samir** (name changed) said respectfully, “Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes.”
“What a profound statement that is. Tell me more of what that means to you,” I nudged him gently.
“It’s a lyric from a song…” he continued.
Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes.
What an impact that line had on me.
Samir had been struggling for the past 25 years. Struggling with life, with multiple losses, of loved ones to death in his formative years, of relationships; deceit in business, failed dreams, a hopeless future, and a seemingly-inevitable scepticism and cynicism towards life.
When he came to consult me, he had a long term history of also struggling with crippling panic attacks and clinical depression, had been to a few psychiatrists and psychologists, read many a self-help book but had constantly struggled with a sense of failure, rejection, loss of self-esteem. And his brutal past continued to haunt him.
“I’m tired, I am just so exhausted. Life continues to be relentless and I don’t have the energy to fight back. I’ve been to so many therapists and still, I feel broken.”
“I’ve been told to do yoga, meditation, write out my feelings, but it just hasn’t worked for me.”
And that’s when I told him those are band-aid solutions that are attempting to heal deep wounds.
His words probably expressed my perspective better than anything I’ve ever used in my practice in all these years. Picture the futility of it. Instead of extracting and removing the bullet that is causing the wound in the first place and making it fester and metastasize, a band-aid would not even stop the blood flow.
How, then, can one expect symptomatic measures like yoga and meditation (good in their own ways and definite complements to therapy) to get to the core of the problem and resolve it?
To free the mind of the demons, the emotional baggage, the self-loathing, the thoughts that come and nag, pinch, hurt, and hit, and make you feel the anguish and the pain with such intensity that it takes the life force out of you, one needs to dig deeper.
“Meditation and writing brought them to the surface, but then I didn’t know what to do with all that came up? It’s like all the muck and the dirt has come up and no one told me how to clean it up!” I’ve heard this lament so often.
No wonder everything looked dull, bleak, and hopeless to Samir. To his credit, he committed to my methods.
“I trust you, Dr. Divya,” he said.
“Also trust the process,” I told him.
We unearthed a series of life experiences that were laced with guilt, regret, failures, mistakes, which he had held onto. He beat himself up for them, and this led him deeper into that hole he admitted to having dug for himself.
“With each passing day, I find myself in deeper shit.”
We spoke about the importance of letting go and freeing ourselves from the pain that holding onto the emotional baggage was causing. But I couldn’t impose that on him without him letting me in.
“Talking of letting go, Ma’am, have you heard about the story of how farmers catch monkeys in India when they become a menace to their crops?”
I was intrigued and wanted to know more. The story goes like this.
In a certain part of India, a set of farmers was concerned about the monkeys that were destroying their crops. They didn’t want to shoot or kill them, and sought to look for a compassionate way of dealing with this menace, by finding a way to catch the monkeys and have them return to the jungle.
A farmer observed the monkeys’ behavior and came up with a plan. He carved out a small hole in a coconut, big enough so that a monkey could slide its hand through. He then put a banana inside the coconut, and tied it to the side of a tree. The smell of the banana caught a monkey’s attention, and of course he had to stick his hand inside the coconut to grab the banana. When he tried to pull out the prize, the monkey couldn’t get his hand out, because it was clenched in a fist holding the banana. It did not fit out of the small hole. The monkey refused to let go of the banana, however long he was in captivation, or however much the banana rotted. The farmer was able to catch the monkey. Had the monkey just let go of the banana, he would have been free.
(Side note: I later remembered reading this story a decade ago in a book called Full Catastrophe Living, by Jon Kabat-Zinn.)
I smiled at Samir, because he knew what was coming next.
“So what all are you holding on to that no longer serves you? Do you see what it does to you? The constant living in pain, the anguish, the depths you acknowledge plunging deeper into?” I asked him.
“The bananas have rotted and I am still holding onto them.”
Even in the midst of this anguished realization, Samir was able to share a lighter moment when we figured that there may be half a dozen bananas in the mix. We agreed to start letting go one “banana” after the other or if he saw the pain of holding on, to drop them all at once.
--*--
We label emotions as “negative” and I have nudged people to move away from that perspective. Negative means it’s something to be avoided, but when it comes to emotions, the more we avoid them, the more they come back with a vengeance. When we avoid facing thoughts and feelings that cause distress, we suppress them, repress them, because that seems easier to deal with, rather than look at them as messengers telling us something.
There is an impact from the past that hurts us, that brought on anger, resentment, regret, guilt, a falling in our own eyes, and we continue to live with those imprints. They hurt, just like bullet holes would, I am sure. And hence, till the time these wounds aren’t healed, band-aids just won’t help.
Can we make space for them, learn from them on what needs to be done from this point on, tend to them with tenderness and care, and work on healing them? Because it is only then that we can experience true liberation from the emotional baggage.
Samir let me in.
--*--
After a session I usually ask people to reflect on something I would write or say. I throw in “homeworks” which I am notoriously famous for by now.
Late one night, after one such email with a couple of assignments from me, I heard from Samir, a long, detailed reply, towards the end of which he acknowledged that while the session hadn’t been easy that morning, he had made space for the sadness, saw it from a different perspective, heard himself out compassionately, and that he had reflected on the homework I had sent him.
“I read all the documents you had sent. Re-read them. Got some insights. Acted. And I am free…I would have possibly lived the rest of my life with my muddled emotions, memories, and regrets. I will never be able to thank you enough for this breakthrough.”
I congratulated him for starting the process of letting go and wanted to ensure that the work was deep, and had a lasting impact and wasn’t just a “surface cleansing.”
We exchanged a couple more emails, and promised to take that up in our following therapy session.
--*--
I can understand how facing our worst fears, failures, disappointments, regrets, mistakes can be tough. It brings up a barrage of emotions that wrenches us from inside and we quietly go back to avoidance again. All it takes is an empathic, compassionate person to be with in the here and now, whom you can trust, who can virtually hold you in a safe space, and who walks together, stumbles together, cries and laughs together, on this journey of true healing.
Just for today, what can you let go of in order to be free? I understand it’s not always easy. You may call it impossible too. But once you realize that living a life on a roller-coaster, or living in pain is worse, “impossible” just becomes yet another wall to break down. Together.
(*Note: “Band-aids don’t fix bullet-holes “ is a line in a song called Bad Blood by Taylor Swift.)
(** Note: Samir’s details & name have been changed to protect his identity and to ensure confidentiality. He has also given me consent to write this piece. )