I have often heard it said that hurting people hurt people. I do suppose that it is true. What we do not transform we will indeed transmit. What I am not able to really be with internally will become an external target. It is unfortunate at a deep level, and yet there is a deeper truth to this that most often goes unacknowledged.
While hurting people hurt other people in the process of becoming conscious it is also hurting people who help others at the deepest and most profound levels. A big part of my spiritual awakening has been about increasing the capacity to sit with and to stay with the pain surrounding my heart. I grieve the number of people that became targets of my projected grief, rage, and torment. I didn’t know that all of that blame was an ill-attempt to displace the pain from inside of me. If I could believe that you were the problem I didn’t have to bear the brunt of realizing it was me. I didn’t have to take responsibility for my part in energetically calling forth the cast of characters that would assist in my unshrouding. I didn’t have to be accountable for my misperceptions and my own self-aversion.
It wasn’t until a painful and horrifying truth began to dawn that the way to freedom became at first subtly visible. While blaming and hurting others was in some ways easier it was also a way of staying in a self-constructed prison. While it would seem that casting the pain out would alleviate it in here it actually amplified it. Hurting you hurt me even more deeply. Pain is pain. It ultimately isn’t about your pain or my pain. It is THE pain. Hurt is THE hurt. Until I could muster the courage to be with my pain and hurt I kept increasing it by projecting it forward and increasing the overall field of pain. When I could own that it was THE pain ensconcing my heart and dimming my experience healing became available. Wholeness began to come into focus. Compassion was exponentially increased. When I could be with the pain in my heart I could be with yours.
And so having become expansive and even friendly with this pain in here I can help you rather than hurt you. I can know at least in part what you are going through because I have limped along a similar path. My painful experiences become the fuel for a torch I am now meant to carry. When I do my own work I have no need to use you for a target. You were never the problem. You were never really the cause of this pain. It was in here and now it is in many cases not. And where pain remains I have the capacity to stay with it and so it no longer holds me captive.
So hurting people hurt people until they own the pain inside and begin to help others from a place of connection and deep compassion. The pain has become useful. It has become light. It has become love. And while I may hold boundaries I no longer need to build walls. It is safe in here. And in your pain you are safe with me.
