Faith: The Evidence of Things Unseen

Me: It's very difficult for me lately to see myself as a good person... whatever that means.

Therapist*: You see the problem there, don't you? "Whatever that means." You're judging yourself by a standard you can't even define.

Me: Yeah, I know.

Therapist: When you were a child did you believe you were a bad person?

Me: No, not at all. I worked very hard to be sure I was a good person.

Therapist: [laughing] I think that answers the question, doesn't it?

Me: Yeah, I guess there was some sense of insecurity there--that I needed to prove I was a good person.

Therapist: Which would not have even occurred to you if you believed you were a good person.

Me: No, I suppose not. I guess that's the problem--my whole life my sense of self-worth has relied on this view of myself as a good person, which was dependent on what I did. That worked fine as long as I was doing those things that made me a good person, but now suddenly I'm not doing those things anymore.

Therapist: Perhaps what you need to do is prove that you're a bad person.

Me: Should I rob a bank?

Therapist: No, prove it with the evidence that you already have. List out the evidence that suggests to you that you're a bad person.

Me: Hm. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is that I'm leaving my wife. I'm hurting her. I--

Therapist: Can you think of anybody who has made it through life without hurting anybody else?

Me: Well, no, but--

Therapist: Do you believe it's possible to make it through life without hurting other people?

Me: No.

Therapist: Then you believe that all human beings are inherently bad.

Me: No. I suppose the problem is that I judge myself by a different standard than the rest of the world. I can forgive other people for hurting each other, even for hurting me, but it's harder to forgive myself. I expect more from myself.

Therapist: Is it that you think you're so much better than everyone else, or so much worse?

Me: Both, I guess.

Therapist: What makes you so special? What makes you so different from everyone else on earth, that you deserve this special standard of judgment?

Me: I don't know. Now I feel like I'm a bad person for believing I'm so special.

Therapist: [smiles] And yet you don't even know what it means to be a bad person, or what it means to be a good person. You don't have evidence, and yet you cling to this belief that you are bad. You're a man of great faith, you know.




*Although my Therapist has the same blogonym as Samantha's Therapist, they are not actually the same person, at least to my knowledge.