To learn to withstand our own feelings is the most powerful act of defiance against those that have committed atrocities.
All abusers are desperate to escape how they feel, and their acts of desperation can be catalysts for us to learn how to be with ourselves.
An abuser is driven by their commitment to avoiding how they feel. Their desperation to not feel their own pain motivates them to seek a sense of power through the violation of others.
The path home is through the pain.
Consider the moments when you’ve reacted to your own inner landscape, in ways that didn’t take into account the repercussions of said reactivity.
You might not realize the extent of the pain you caused. Perhaps the person who was hurt by your actions went home, and, afraid of and disgruntled by how they felt, disregarded their child’s needs. As a result, the child felt abandoned by the parent – unsafe – as any child will feel when their inherent need for love and support from their parent isn’t met.
This is trauma.
Humans have strong opinions about what is and what isn’t traumatic. No matter the degree we deem it to be, trauma does not go away by ignoring it. It must be witnessed and felt in order to be transmuted.
We do not think when we are afraid of how we feel inside. We only react to it.
Our desperation to avoid our own pain can cause more trauma, or it can be transmuted IF we commit to doing the work of witnessing it.
Everyone’s pain must be witnessed. Avoided feelings are catalysts for abuse.
It starts with us.
We cannot control others, we can only control ourselves.
We cannot continue to believe the lies that we have been taught: that our feelings can’t be trusted; that it’s not OK to feel.
Now’s the time to learn how to be with ourselves.
We must be our own parents. We must be there for ourselves the way a parent is for a child, whether we had that experience as children or not.
Many didn’t have this dynamic and need it recreated, within themselves, in order to heal and end the perpetuation of trauma.
We must prove to the children within us all that we can be counted on, that we will be there for them, and that we will stop ignoring their needs.
We must allow ourselves to witness and experience how we feel, and honour every human’s right and need to do the same.
The true warrior brandishes no weapon. They courageously look within at their own pain, and say, “This is what lives within me. And it’s alive within all of us.”
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If you feel inspired to do the work of the warrior along with me, there is a course being offered through Sounds True which can help support you.
It’s called The Power of Awareness and is being offered by Jack Kornfield & Tara Brach, beginning June 8th.
I don’t make cash when you click the link. Just sharing a resource that helped me and might be helpful to you, too.
xo
A
