Brave Enough To Be Bliss

The thing that has helped me the most in developing compassion for literally all people is remembering that other people’s hurtful behavior toward themselves or others reflects their pain and unhealed wounds that we may know nothing about even if it is a very close relationship. Many people do not disclose their wounds because they feel unlovable at their core. We can never truly know what has happened to another person and how that may be impacting their behavior. But when I remember another person ’s behavior is not a reflection of me, even if it feels like it sometimes, I can look at them through eyes of compassion. I may not love the behavior, but I can still love the hurt human being, even when as a result of the behavior I may be hurting too. Compassion for myself and the other person is the key to helping me accept the reality of the situation with love versus judgment.

“Those who are hardest to love need it the most.” Socrates

As happens sometimes, I woke up in the middle of the night and immediately picked up my phone to type in these words…

Tonight, I had a dream. A most beautiful bride, all dressed in white, came walking toward me, I reached out to her and held her in my arms for a very long time. And then she moved slightly to the right and picked up a tiara from a small table behind me that I hadn’t seen. She put it in her hair, but it wasn’t right. It didn’t complete the look, it ruined it. She looked at the box. She slowly opened it and took something small out of it and said he gave me these and the box was always there. And she told my grandmother that he did these things to her. She read from her childhood journal, but I could not hear exactly what she said. My grandmother laughed and said it couldn’t be true. Although I do believe we can learn something from every experience and that good can be made to come out of the worst of circumstances, I have always struggled with the phrase; everything happens for a reason. While that phrase provides comfort to some people who believe there is a divine plan out of our control, so many people struggle with their faith like I did when something truly tragic happens. Once we have experienced something so awful, so unfathomable, so unbelievably painful, it can be difficult for that phrase to feel comforting. When that tragic time in life arrives, our world can easily fall apart when we believe that we or someone or something is in control of absolutely everything that happens in this life and that it all happens for a reason. When that simply does not make sense anymore, our world can all come crashing down and we are then left at our most vulnerable, most alone and most desperate without anything to hold onto. We can feel lost and afraid. Afraid because control provides comfort and without control, we are left with fear. And we want to run from fear. But it is in those times, our most broken, that we only have two choices. Settle into the comfort of darkness or fight to find the light. When we hear of things happening to strangers we try to believe “those people” must have done something to deserve it, or they weren’t careful, or they were doing “bad” things , because we simply cannot accept an explanation that could weaken the story we have created to provide our comfort. There has to be a reason, because for us to believe otherwise would leave us without the protection of control and then we would have to face our fear. So instead, we leave our fellow humans to suffer alone rather than face our fears, so they don’t have to face their reality alone. “You’re not better than them just because your addictions are less visible or more socially acceptable. You’re not. And instead of asking how they could keep drinking, gambling, using, etc. Ask what happened in their life that makes this the only way they know how to survive. Recognize you’re not better than. Then go be a light. And seek connection. Connection is where healing begins.” John Delony And I understood then. I understood why we do these things. Why we don’t hear and see these things.

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