I recently heard and immediately loved the following:
Hurt people hurt people, and create systems that hurt people. Healing people heal people and create systems that heal people.
Such wisdom in that. Do you recognize it as truth?
As much meaning as I find in those wise words, I would actually go even further.
I believe that this human realm is a realm in which we all come to be hurt by others, heal from that harm, and help others heal from the harm that has been done to them as well.
And we all come to hurt others, heal from having harmed others, and help others heal from their having done harm too.
We are all wounded healers
None of us makes it through this life without being hurt when having done absolutely nothing to deserve it. And none of us makes it through this life without having hurt someone who did nothing to deserve it.
We all have to heal from that. The good news is that we are perfectly designed to do exactly that. We are even Divinely supported and guided in doing exactly that.
Why be sugar when you could taste the sugar instead?
(Bhakti yoga saying)
We knew when we came into human realm that we were going to live as something separate from our true selves, having forgotten who we truly are. We are all on a journey back to knowing of our true essence as the sweetness of pure love without bounds or conditions. The journey necessarily starts us in a place that is nothing like that.
If you are living a mixture of cruelty and kindness, whether flowing in or out, good for you. You've been making progress on your path back to awareness of your perfection.
Year by year, day by day, we endeavor to become a little more loving and a little more forgiving, toward ourselves and others.
Untouched
There is so much freedom and healing simply in recognizing that we are both relative and absolute beings.
In the relative, yes, we are hurt by others and hurt others. This is the human experience.
In the absolute, we are forever untouched by the whims of life. We are whole, perfect, and perfectly loved.
In seeing both in our own story, we may then be able to hold others with the same broad view. Can we look at someone who has hurt us and see both their perfection and their woundedness? Can we hold someone accountable for the harm they have done us, without thinking they should be punished for it?
Raise your hand if you would like to be punished for the last mistake you made.
Hopefully you've achieved enough self-love to know that what you really need is learning, growth, maturity and compassion. What you really need is another chance to get it right, but with more skill, understanding and inner strength at your disposal this time. So isn't that what anyone who has harmed you needs too? Isn't that what you would therefore wish for them to have?
Of course, this goes both ways. We can't really grant others a clemency we haven't yet granted ourselves.
If we're still beating ourselves up for all the mistakes we've made, well there's not much chance in our embracing a world of clemency for others either.
I was raised worshiping a god of justice, but I have long known that I wish to trade for the god of mercy and compassion.
I don't mean that in terms of organized religion. That's really not for me, though I enjoy learning from any and all of them.
It is more a question of the orientation of my heart and mind toward the world. I wish to be freed from the frame of seeking justice. I wish to feel peace in the lack of punished victimizers and avenged victims, while still standing firm in requiring accountability. Understanding that inflicting further pain does not in fact deliver accountability is crucial for ending the cycle of violence and freeing us from the endless suffering of Samsara.
Accountability does not require blame, shame, or punishment.
Accountability is about accepting responsibility for having done harm, sincerely regretting having done so, and making amends to the best of one's ability to try to help whoever we have harmed feel whole again.
Often there is no possibility of this in physical realm. There is no ongoing relationship that would allow this. Thankfully in spirit and energetic realms, we are all connected across space and time. So we can express our apologies there, and make amends there, when we are unable to do so in person. However, if we are able to do so in physical realm, we should. There is no genuine accountability if we forgo that opportunity.
Let There Be Peace on Earth
I truly believe that there can be peace among humans. I believe that over the coming millennia we will in fact learn to treat ourselves and each other with love, compassion and understanding. This will naturally give birth to a culture of mercy and healing. And this will allow for a world of joyful well-being.
We can do better than we're doing, and we will.
Just keep healing, and helping others to heal. You're doing great.
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(All text and images (except the AT logo) are by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for HIVE.)
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A beautiful post - for now, reblogged, but today I have so little to add, and your post is so beautiful and true just as it is 💚💚💚💚
❤️
Some truly beautiful words and thoughts. It really is a challenge to not lash back out when someone has hurt us, but to be thoughtful and kind instead of retaliate. I do hope we can find peace. Feeling a bit torn right now as the US is going into another election in which the name of the game is division and hate. I hope we can rise above it and find a better middle ground instead of continuing to find ourselves in the mire.
I think we have to start with ourselves. If we focus on the collective level first, it is demoralizing, because we can't evolve other people. They are operating at the level of development they have, and we can't raise them. All we can do is develop ourselves further and be able to teach from our example, or at least live as someone contributing what we want more of and not amplifying what we want less of in the world.
I've been pulling back from awareness of what's going on in the US. For one thing, I already know exactly what I am to do and am doing it and planning to do it. I focus more on people I have had personal relationships with. I'm an energy worker, so as my understanding of what I wrote in this post evolves, it inspires me to extend healing energy to people I remember harming even decades ago.
Like a woman who hired me for my first full time job. It was at this really toxic company and I hated the management there. A year later I got a better job and left this really hateful resignation letter, calling out management. What I didn't realize at the time was how much that hurt her, because she had hired me. I remember the last time I saw her, the pain on her face. Even though it was many years later that I understood why, and I don't even remember her name anymore, I was still able to send her healing energy for the pain I caused, as well as my new understanding and contrition for having hurt her. It took several minutes to fully clear the energy, but I stayed with the pain of it until it turned bright again. Letting myself feel the pain that I caused is the least that I could do, but not in a way that just moves into that pain and settles in it, clearing it.
Similarly we can release those who have harmed us, even if we don't recall their names anymore.
And of course, for people in our lives now, we can write them a letter to express our contrition or forgiveness. If we can do this without expecting anything in return, then it really is a healing act that affects the collective in a positive way. If we know such a letter would do more harm then good, we can write it but not send it.
I hope this helps. ❤️
That absolutely makes sense. It's easy to get caught up in the big things, and forget that it all starts with us. If we all focus on our own energy, it will impact the bigger picture in a remarkable way, one little act at a time. I think that is a wonderful reminder to focus on my own work and not so much on everything else. Thank you!
This post has been manually curated for #adiwathrive by @drrune.
Wonderful post! Heartfelt and dignifying. I have a long process with pain, physical and otherwise, and it has shown me a lot about freedom and joy!
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