Feeling Love and Feeling Pain

In my many observations of late, none is more troubling to me than our innate seeming need to look down on others, correct and criticize others.  I’m not speaking from a holier than thou space, trust me.  I’ve had my share of being mired in the ego’s muck.  But something happened somewhere along the way that made me start to see and feel things differently and well, maybe it was always there.  I think back to my childhood.  I was a very quiet and observant child.  I didn’t speak much and spent more time watching what was happening around me.  I remember when one child would cut another down, how I felt it inside.  I didn’t know I was an empath back then, I just knew that I felt it – the pain of another.  For one soul to cause another pain does not only hurt the intended recipient but those who were watching with some level of soul awareness too.  Those were very early years in school.  In fact, beyond the second or third grade I don’t remember feeling like that all that much.  Just every now and then.  I remember some of those mean and hateful words sometimes being turned on me for being taller and different than the other kids.   I felt I had to learn to fight back to defend myself.  As a child, not knowing any better, I dove in tit for tat.  Hurt me and I will hurt you, was my motive.   It wasn’t until a fight I got into with a little boy in the fifth or sixth grade that something really registered.  Not that it deterred me much but this fight with a beautiful blonde haired blue eyed boy struck me to my core.  He called me a name I don’t even remember and I had had enough that week and I unleashed a fury on him the likes of which I’m sure he did not even remotely anticipate.  In the span of a few seconds, this boy was on the ground begging me to stop.  I remember looking into his eyes and time froze for a second.  I felt his pain…pain that I was causing him, pain that he was already in before I even began.  The anger faded and I felt so bad for what I had done and it hurt me so deeply, I didn’t speak to anyone for nearly a week.  I begged God to forgive me and went on my merry way.   I never fought again at school even when taunted.  Whenever I was tempted, I would remember Jeff even if I had engaged and would stop.

As I look back, I can definitively say that I did not come here with a mean streak.  As a child, I remember feeling only love from within me and it was only ever cut off when I was in a state of fear or anger.  In my teenage years, that was the worst time of feeling bad and watching others make even more feel bad.  There seems to be this tug of war going on.  The best is the one who puts down the rest or is stronger as proven by force, most often.  I never liked it but learned to keep a low profile as much as I could but I think sometimes that a part of us remains stuck in the hurtful parts of our upbringing.  If we do not have discussion of occurrences, thoughts and feelings and some way to process the pain that we take on, we become what tormented us in so many ways and so, we go on tormenting as we have been tormented.  It’s a sad voluntary prison but with no other way to know or to do better, we are really stuck.  When these behaviors follow us into adulthood, we remain stuck.  We lose relationships, friends and jobs because of bad behavior that we have learned and until we can find a way to not only clearly see the wrongs in our own behaviors and truly feel the impact we have on those around us with a fair measure of courage and bravery to face it, we will go on perpetuating the problems of this world and worse, we’ll teach those traits unwittingly to our children.  Then we have a whole new generation to carry on our bad behavior.  I wish that every single soul on the planet had the ability not only to see the impact they have on those around them but to feel that impact deep within their hearts.  If only that were the case, I truly believe the world would be different.  Sadly, so many minds are so harmed by emotional pain that they can no longer feel their actions in a truthful way.  They have no way to see the truth and so just continue to act out their pain very much like children do.

We live in a world with people who have been harmed by life and they harm others in response.  Does that call for retribution or does it call for compassion?  I lean more towards compassion personally but at the same time, until these souls can heal and behave in a way that does not threaten society, they should be removed.  The more harm one causes to another, the more pain they take on in their souls whether or not it consciously registers as feeling bad within them.   In this post I have answers to solve the problem but not any solutions.  What I do have is a very big heart that wishes to impart understanding.   If we were to have that “aha-moment” where the next time we hurtfully criticized someone, we might withdraw our own energy from further engaging in such endeavors with the realization that truly, all those you hurt with your thoughts and your actions in the end will not suffer nearly as much as you will.  Your soul is always watching you with its own conscious awareness.  If you can find the doorways or passages ways to merge your waking consciousness with that consciousness, your behavior will change because you will know definitively the wrong from the right behavior for your own soul’s mission.  You may change how you look at the world.  It is so easy to look at people  and find some reason to cut them down or blame them for all that is really wrong right inside the core of you.  It is harder to stand in your own light, find your courage and face you and the horrible things in this world you have done to contribute to the pain of others than it is to just continue with bad behavior – at least seemingly.  When you can face yourself , your true self,  you will ultimately learn to forgive, change and go forward in life with a changed perspective.  We are all connected one to another and there is no pain that cannot be inflicted by one to another that is not felt by the aggressor and others beyond the receiver.  If you wish to challenge this theory, put more love and kindness out there and watch how life responds to you…notice how much better you will learn to feel in time.  We can become part of the problem by fighting back or we can become the solution by healing what’s wrong within us first before we begin casting stones.  Again – I’m not speaking from a holier than thou place.  I am learning this too and have been my whole entire life.  The difference for me now is I feel every single word whether justified or not if it is unkind or hurtful in any way.  Likewise, I also feel every single word that is loving, kind and supportive.  It is the latter that is most often reflected back to me these days.

I find that in this world today, the only thing I really have to offer it is love, compassion, understanding and self-respect.  I may as yet be wholly imperfect in these things but that will never stop me from focusing all my efforts at becoming better at it.  In all of my endeavors of late, I have placed a much greater focus on love, compassion and understanding and will continue to do so. That does not mean I will tolerate bad behaviors in others.  No.  I will understand their behavior and I will refuse to participate because I no longer wish to add to the pain they are already in.  I want to see the world change but my only job in this world is to change me, understand what needs fixing in me and withdraw my attention from an outward focus that is critical or judgmental from the ego’s standpoint.  I wish to create good in this world and leave behind me a wake of positive energy and experiences.  That is the goal anyway.  It only takes effort and awareness I am finding. ~Blessings of greater understanding and healing always and in all ways.

(c) 2013 Jaie Hart (photo, from facebook - can't remember which page - so sorry )