Liz Vigar – Counsellor | Counselling in Reading, Berkshire

“Never free, never me – so I dub thee unforgiven”

Metallica “The Unforgiven”

The theme of the song is essentially about being trapped by what others have imposed on us.  Although particularly about a religious framework, I think that many of us could say that, to some degree or another, we have conformed to the authority of others who have determined how we should live – who we should be.  

Later in the song there a line that goes: “he tries to please them all, this bitter man he is”

This is about someone who has spent years trying to please the very people whose expectations have so constrained him.  His true self has been progressively buried in the continual effort to satisfy everyone else. 

I think that this too is something that many of us can relate to.  A child can learn that love, approval or safety depend upon being the ‘right’ sort of person.  We can also experience this in relationships, peer groups, societal expectations and institutions among others.  Eventually, pleasing others stops being something we consciously choose, rather, an automatic way of existing, surviving and trying to find love and acceptance.

I think a turning point can come when we discover that thoughts, beliefs and expectations, for example, are not our own as we had previously thought, but are sometimes someone else’s.  

When we make these realisations, there can be deep pain, sadness and anger.  There might be anger at those who have taken away our freedom, grief for all the years lost – whole stretches of life that cannot be recovered, opportunities not taken, relationships affected and choices made out of fear.  

The second line of the quote: “ so I dub thee unforgiven” is about taking back control as in ‘you don’t get to do this to me, or label me – I’m going to call you unforgiven.

I might go further though in saying that I think forgiveness is another potential turning point.  Sometimes people talk about forgiveness as ‘letting go’ but I think it is more than that.  I think that forgiveness shouldn’t demand that the thing that happened ‘doesn’t matter anymore’.  In order to forgive deeply, it is important to know what it is we are forgiving.

This kind of pain, especially that which comes from years of abuse and control needs to be named and felt, rather than hurried past or denied.  Sometimes we imagine freedom to be reaching a place where we are no longer affected by what happened.  But perhaps a deeper freedom is being able to say: “yes this did happen, it affected me deeply, I will tell the truth about it but I will now allow the life I have, to begin to be lived authentically.  Forgiveness can be an informed choice as opposed to something we feel but it is not always easy!

Carl Rogers said: “People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be.”  

He goes on to describe how a sunset doesn’t need to be controlled, it can simply be allowed to unfold.

It isn’t about throwing off rules but a suggestion that, given the right conditions, people can move toward growth, integration and becoming more fully themselves.  This doesn’t mean throwing off every value that we have inherited and saying ‘nobody gets to influence me’.  Perhaps it is closer to: ‘I can examine what I have inherited, decide what I genuinely believe and consciously choose what I carry forward’.