Jennifer Bergman, MFT

10/19/2016

10/04/2016

You will get through. I think that's what I need to remember most often in those head in the midst of those hard days of life. I've had many friends who will call me up and will simply say you'll get through. Or I've had friends who simply tell me how much they love me or are proud of me. Those thin...

09/30/2016

"Radical Forgiveness in Exchange for Freedom: How To Set Yourself Free" To read the article in its entirety, please visit http://jenniferbergmantherapy.com/blog/2016/7/12/radical-forgiveness-in-exchange-for-freedom-how-to-set-yourself-free

08/22/2016

Letting go can be hard:

Letting go through forgiveness carries its own challenges. Particularly if the person you must forgive was someone you once loved or were attached to. As you come to accept things as they are, you might find you have some grieving to do. You might grieve the loss of that person, and what you hoped they would be for you.

To release someone from a severe, “unforgivable” offense often is the last string holding us to that person. Perhaps we haven’t seen them in years. Perhaps they are deceased. You may find when all is said and done, that the anger and pain may have been all that was left of the relationship - the last string that was connecting you to that person. In many cases, to forgive in this way means to let go.

And letting go can be painful. In these cases, to forgive is to say, “Here is where we part ways. From now on I won’t be carrying you around with me anymore.” If you are forgiving someone you have had an attachment to, there may be grief accompanying this letting go process.

Other times we must grieve for ourselves. We grieve for how we have suffered as a result of this person. For what we gave and had taken for granted, for what we have lost, for what was taken, or for what we needed but never got.
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I provide a safe, collaborative space to help you get back to who you were, or would like to be. Call me today and let's get started (310) 283-6370.

08/16/2016

Acceptance:
In order to release something, you must give up the need to change it. We might be holding onto the wish that they would give us repair and validation. But that is out of our control.

Forgiving in this way requires that we accept things exactly as they are - we simply accept them, and things, as they are right now. This does not mean that you need to have lunch with them or even talk to them anymore. But (now brace yourself for this and don’t get mad at me) you must accept that this person who hurt you, did what they did because of who they were or are and their particular set of life experiences. This may include that they were damaged or mentally ill.

Now don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t excuse their behavior one bit. It is only to say, it was what it was and it cannot be changed. That’s all.
http://www.jenniferbergmantherapist.com/

08/08/2016

Another person can’t free you by apologizing to you. You free YOURSELF by forgiving them. As a therapist, one thing I hear a lot from my clients is, “I know I need to do some forgiveness work around this but HOW? What would that look like?"

Call me. Let's work on this together! (310) 283-6370

07/28/2016

Forgiving the unforgivable may require that we reframe the meaning of forgiveness: The other day I was watching a talk show on forgiveness, and their psychology expert seemed to dance around this idea of the need to forgive, doing her best, I know, to explain how forgiveness is so good for the forgi...