For so many of us lately, myself included, it feels as if old emotional wounds are being ripped opened and re-exposed. These are wounds we thought we had dealt with and healed. We are, quite frankly, pissed off as all hell about this.
I recently intuited some information about a client’s long dead father and her very much alive best friend. I said, “It looks like old wounds are coming up for you that need to be healed. It’s all coming around for you again. Your bestie is treating you the way your father did.” My client blinked her beautifully wise blue eyes and she said she thought she had dealt with this painful emotional issue.
She then said something so profound that I felt as if I was the student instead of the teacher. Truth be told, this often happens when I work on her. She drew in a breath and said what she had previously dealt with was the back end of her father’s abuse; she hadn’t dealt with it while it was going on. Now, she said, she’s been given the opportunity to deal with the front end of this abuse thanks to her life-long best friend.
Well, what the hell (head scratch). She’s completely right, you know.
I thought I was through with the emotional/psychological abuse I suffered at the mouth of my starter husband. I thought I had worked through the pain of the passive-aggressive and emotional abuse from my family. I thought I had healed the reoccurring betrayal and abandonment issues that seem to weave themselves throughout my life. I thought. I thought. I thought. Turns out, I thought (mostly) wrong.
Based on previous blogs, it’s no secret I firmly believe people enter our lives to help teach us lessons. Some of those lessons can drop us to our knees while others barely cause us to break a sweat. Some of the most powerful lessons we learn are from our parents, our siblings, our children, our spouses and our besties. Those that are closest to us know us the best and they also know our triggers and how to push them. It only makes sense that our families would try to teach us some of the most transformational lessons.
It’s also no secret that I long ago let go of hating someone for the pain they’ve caused me. I just look at things differently now. Hating someone who ultimately tried to help me heal/grow and may have done so at my implicit request, serves no purpose. It’s like hating your stomach for making you fat.
Most of the time I understand the people who cause us pain are here to help us heal and grow but in the effort of full disclosure, I DO hate someone. I hate this person mainly because of how internally ugly they are and the pain this person has consciously and calculatedly inflicted on someone I love. I can’t shake the disgust and repulsion I feel for this small-minded individual.
Sometimes, when I’m in a more spiritual place, I feel sorry for this person and their tiny self-constructed and limited world. At times I remember that this individual is in a ton of pain and has chosen not to heal. They have chosen to lash out because they want attention, good or bad. They are seeking to hurt a certain person because they feel this person is responsible for their pain and thereby owed it. They misguidedly seek to lessen their own internal pain. This lucid and spiritual way of seeing things calms me and helps me see clearly, but with this particular person, that doesn’t last long.
The reality is this person is trying to teach this someone something but they are triggering the momma badger in me and I want to rip them apart in the form of politically correct, but well directed, words. The reason I don’t is it’s not my fight; it’s not my battle. They are not here to teach me something, at least not directly. I’m just a bi-product; a civilian casualty. While I retain the ability to hate, I will not be mean. I will not yell, belittle, debase or verbally/emotionally abuse anyone. Not anymore. I do not and will not do this no matter how much a person gets my goat.
I was raised by a family who were masters at trying to control others by using these tactics. I know all about the intimidating, threatening, screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-until-veins-pop-out-of-your-neck yelling. I am NOT that person anymore. Yelling has no place in my life. Yelling is just an attempt to be threatening and to try to intimidate another. Once you’re on to this, yelling is almost a laughable offense. Truth be told, you can stop a red-faced, eyes-bulging yeller with just a whisper and a steady gaze. This is a trick I learned from my girl Charmaine and then refined with the help of Jemma from Sons of Anarchy.
Back to my point; people are here to help teach us lessons. If we can believe and trust in that, then everything, every shitty little thing that happens in our life is aimed at helping us heal and grow. Why would we hate someone, yell at them or speak horribly about them, if their sole (soul) purpose was to help us heal? It sounds silly, right? And if we are all connected (we are), then hating them is to hate a part of you.
Susie uses the concept of mirroring. What you dislike/like in them is what you dislike/like in you. Let’s go back to this bitter and abusive person for a moment. What are they triggering in me that I need to heal? I, obviously, am having a very strong reaction to their tactics so I may need to examine what I thought I had healed.
If I choose to do this, I may be able to deal with – and heal – these strong emotions at the beginning of their cycle, thereby healing the entire wound. Maybe I can take a page out of Susie’s book. When life has handed her a giant load of crapsicles it would be easy for her to choose hate and yet she remains neutral and softly says, “I choose love.”