The forgiveness is really for you, not the other person.
I think of it as a modern view of forgiveness that is similar to loving kindness meditation. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but I was thinking your T may have had this in mind. The loving kindness is something I am trying to do in my effort to deal with some anger issues. I haven't found other ways to get past a few things that left me stuck for longer than I what would have been expected. But I have made progress and am getting there.
Your T will help you get to where you want to be.
This person sums it up in a simple way:
Quote:
In fact, you may never say the words “I forgive you” out loud. Instead, forgiveness is an internal process, something you do to help come to terms with a past experience and end your suffering, pain, anger, and resentment around the event. You simply decide to stop focusing on blame and instead move forward in a more positive direction.
Why Forgiving Others Is the Best Thing You Can Do—for Yourself - Happify Daily
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Loving kindness meditation:
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Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is a special type of Buddhist meditation that aims to cultivate unconditional kind attitudes toward oneself and others. The core psychological operation is to keep generating one’s kind intentions toward certain targets, while the detailed operations vary across different Buddhist traditions. Generally, practitioners silently repeat some phrases, such as “may you be happy” or “may you be free from suffering” toward targets. In some traditions, they also visualize the mental image of the targets or light from one’s heart toward others to help the generation of intentions (Sujiva, 2007). The targets change gradually with practice, following an order from easy to difficult; they generally begin with oneself, then loved ones, neutral ones, difficult ones and finally all beings, with variations across traditions. Buddhism claims that LKM cultivates four sublime attitudes called “four immeasurables”: (1) loving-kindness, which refers to unselfish friendliness; (2) compassion, which refers to a willingness to cease the suffering of the distressed one; (3) appreciative joy, which refers to feeling happiness for other’s success or fortune; and (4) equanimity, which refers to calm toward the fate of others based on wisdom.
The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review
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