Next: Exploration

Next: Exploration

Much of our pain in life is reinforced by those closest to us.  They say they want to help, but at the same time do not wish to see us in our pain because it triggers them into their pain.  I experienced this when my first wife died.  I was really hurting.

Those who said they wanted to help were uncomfortable with helping because their own buried pain was being projected into their world as fear and those fears were being transfered on to me. Their best efforts to help hurt like hell. They were more afraid of me because of their own fears. As it turned out, not much help. They meant well but were bound up by their own inner workings. They made pointed comments to attempt to lighten the load of my situation and they only served to reinforce my pain.

Life’s Conundrum; How Do I Help Those Who Have Something That Repulses?

What I have found is that if I encourage them -- those people who seem to carry that which repulses them -- to explore into that thing that repulses, whatever it is; the remedy is always held someplace deep in the exploration of their own sense of repulsion. Some times it is a call to action, but most often it is an act of forgiveness. It is in their own sense of pain, hurt and rejection. It is in there some-place, they just have to find it. Sometimes it lay with something hideous that someone or something else is doing, but most often it is a dark place deep inside their soul that has quietly been resting there, sometimes for years, and is now disturbed and kicking up a fuss. With forgiveness, it is not about the other person, thing or happening.  It is about recovering the energy I have invested in protecting me from the world I thought would harm me. Then investing that energy into my own creativity.  I become a co creator with the Creator. Then, finally, giving up the fantasy of how I think things should have been.

Another oddity is that, as they find the resolution and become comfortable with it; they are no longer overpowered by it; whatever it was, seems to lose the quality of repulsion.

This all seems to happen over time.  I have come to believe that time is probably one of the more important factors in this whole process. Time in combination with clear thinking, a sense of safety and the full appreciation of the feelings involved.

They are no longer projecting it out onto the world.

Neil Tubb Zen and the Art of Walking Lightly