Introduction and Preface

 INTRODUCTION:


A quote from the front cover:

"Finding forgiveness is sometimes much like taking a very long road trip with no map on a twisting, winding and very dark road.  There is no right and perfect way to navigate it and despite what others may tell you, there is no right or wrong way to do it.  Some would say there are things that are unforgivable.  I say, Not So!  There is nothing unforgivable.  The things we think most unforgivable are likely those very things we have not yet found a way to forgive within ourselves.  If we mire ourselves in a prison of an unforgiving world with an unforgiving God and an unforgiving populace, my what a dreary place we’ve trapped ourselves within."

There is nothing humanity struggles more with than the concept of forgiveness.  Religious teachings paint one perspective; philosophy paints another as does psychology, metaphysics, spirituality and the more common every-day understanding.  But, what if not one of them alone is wholly correct and as you move through this so very important life lesson, every path leaves you wanting, desperate, suffering with no seeming way to get free?

This book offers a strategy for understanding for it is only through understanding that you begin to see that forgiveness is just a concept and that like learning 1 added to 1 is 2, you can learn this concept and set yourself free.  Life is intended to create many types of human interactions from which each individual on the planet learns and hopefully, grows from as a result.  It takes time to even see that human interactions of various types and themes have a very intentional place in our lives. 

So, to forgive takes a realization of the true intent of both your spirit and the heart and soul of another who is merely playing a role in your dream.  This will be, I must say, a multidisciplinary and multifaceted approach to this topic because no one path can lead you to the truth except for the path of understanding.  If you want to learn to better understand human interactions and forgiveness, you must realize there are no fences to mend but there are things that you can do to promote your own growth through the art of understanding forgiveness.

I have established now the basics of our premise and will now introduce you to some basic aspects of human interaction to help you understand.  I will draw on a wealth of experience, education and understanding from which I will provide you information to digest and do with what you will.  As always, it is my hope that it will shine some light on a challenging topic and give you much food for thought.

Blessings,

Rev. J.L. Harter, Ph.D

Chapter 1 - Human Interactions

As we begin our journey into understanding forgiveness, we must begin to comprehend the basics of human interactions.  I could start it simply by saying every single thing you do and say and everything someone else does and says to you is perfect just as it is, just as you intended because you wanted something from the interaction.  However, that might be a bit much to take in without more background.  So, let me get a little more basic for a moment.  Often when we break things down to the tiniest component parts we can, we will be better able to understand what we are dealing with.

I will start with a theme I have written about in my other works – Environmental Psychology and Conditioning.  Let me explain:  Environmental Psychology as I use the term, creates our conditioning and includes all of the people who and situations that have influenced us over the span of our lives whether we are consciously aware of that conditioning or not from our first moments of being very young and impressionable to the present. 

As we have lived our lives, Environmental Psychology has conditioned us all. Think of it this way, if you put your hand in the fire, you learn fire is hot so you are careful around flame provided your mind is capable of retaining memory and you have no sadistic tendencies.  Your conditioning has formed your perceptions of the world.  Everything that you experience first hand is and will always be filtered through your conditioning and subject to your perspectives formed by your perceptions, assumptions and beliefs. 

Every experience we have brings us some type of knowledge and we are malleable and intelligent creatures and so we modify our thinking and behavior accordingly when we perceive a threat whether or not the threat is real.  We form beliefs based on our patterns of experience.  Sometimes if something even remotely resembles fire, we run so we won’t get burned.  Does this make sense?

Another tid-bit of understanding is that your ego is part of this conditioning.  Your ego is your consciousness in physical form.  Its job is to protect you physically, mentally and emotionally while you are physically present in this dimension to the best of its capability.  If through conditioning your ego perceives a threat even where there is none, you may react accordingly to protect yourself.  This is completely normal and rational behavior for the most part considering the function of your being to protect itself from harm.

Your ego representing your physical consciousness is like armor.  That armor picks up dings and dents along your journey and it is through these dings and dents that somewhere inside your psyche, you will seek out interactions with others to attempt to gain understanding not about them and how crazy they may be but what also is crazy within you.  I use the term crazy in a very silly and loose manner simply to reference our “emotional stuff.” 

In a sense, we are all crazy – even those most sane among us have weak spots in our armor and will protect those spots sometimes at any cost even to the point of collateral damage to all that surround us.  In a sense, this sense, the individual is doing the only thing they instinctively know how to do.

When someone comes along and exposes one of our weak spots, our seemingly automatic first response is to protect by any means necessary.  So, we engage in this innate seeming need for self-preservation at any cost and will use words, actions either outright or covert via passive-aggressive or other behaviors to protect ourselves, get even with people who expose our wounds and that somehow makes the ego feel better for a few moments.  I liken this to polishing a dent in the armor.  The dent is still there but the spot is shiny for a little while. 

As we go on, that ding or weak spot in the armor is still there and we know that if we take another blow there, it may pierce our external self and enter the core of our seeming safety and solace and that just will not do.  Another important thing to consider here is that putting a ding or dent in someone else’s armor just won’t fix yours.  Strange concept I know but it is a fact.

Strangely enough, we will make decisions that will lead us right into the very things we think we do not want because we unconsciously wish to heal; to make the armor fully smooth and perfect again.  We will semi-consciously continue to try to expose our own wounds through interactions with others who will naturally trigger us until we tire of the pain and finally learn that it wasn’t anyone on the outside victimizing us but us victimizing ourselves in a way with our own thoughts, perceptions, assumptions and beliefs.  Ironic a bit, I know.  But, true regardless.  You can strive to become aware of this fact thus giving yourself precious seconds to step back from an ego-protecting exchange and understand it or you can slip back into auto-pilot and go back to sleep at the wheel.  The choice is yours ultimately.

Human interactions are the basis of our greatest learning in this life.  We learn very young that some people just do not play nice in the sand box.  Some do this unintentionally and some quite intentionally.  It isn’t really up to us to decide which is which or assume which is which.  It is up to us to understand our own reactions to what we experience during human interactions and make the best choice we can in a moment.  What is even a bit more difficult to understand is that another person’s conditioning is not about us even if they direct a very personal assault on our being.  Likewise, our psychological conditioning is not about another person even if we feel we have every right to blame them for the way that we feel.

Blaming or victimizing thoughts impede our progress and keep us mired in the engagement with teachers we may not really wish to study any longer.  But then again, that too is up to us.  Every person we interact with is a teacher.  We are teachers and students in human interactions in every exchange.  We engage with another for the length of time it takes us to learn what we most wished to learn from a specific teacher.  If we can begin to understand that at the basic level our human interactions are based on psychological conditioning and then begin to understand that we engage with people who have complementary or opposite conditioning to learn from, we can begin to disengage from promoting our own dis-ease and dis-comfort.  We can learn from these human interactions and move into a more compassionate and loving space from which to operate, live and experience life.

That is ultimately the goal whether you have arrived at this understanding as yet or not.  Again, the choices are up to you regarding what you teach and what you learn.  Me?  I’m into efficiency.  My physical span here is limited and so I wish to learn as much as I can consciously and in full awareness so I do not waste time repeating the same interactions with different people while never getting the lesson.  It’s all about life lessons truly.

So, this concludes our basics of understanding the human exchange. Realize that this could go on into infinity but I’m attempting to be brief for this little pocket book of mine. To reinforce the ideas presented here, I want to summarize what we’ve covered:

• Every human being, through Environmental Psychology is conditioned into assumptions and perceptions that form belief.
• Every human being, until they become aware, thinks that their beliefs are facts.
• Most of humanity will fight for their beliefs often in order to save face either suffering or inflicting suffering in the process.
• Truth is different than belief. Belief comes from the outside world and is given to us by others. “Truth is true,” as friend of mine often says.
• We have all been through conditioning and will seek interactions to help us overcome any unhealthy conditioning.
• We can understand our conditioning and release ourselves from suffering human interactions by understanding the basis of the actions of others.
• Forgiveness is about understanding.

Chapter 2 - Recognizing Wounds

As mentioned in the last chapter, we’re all a bit crazy carrying around emotional stuff that results from our own conditioning.  It is a fact of human life that we will suffer a bit along the way as we make our journey through life.  Coal doesn’t become a diamond without pressure right?  We are no different metaphorically speaking.  With enduring pressure our being becomes faceted by our experiences.  We take on wounds like a boat with a hole in it will take on water.  We may not necessarily be aware of the wounds that we carry but we become painfully aware the moment a human interaction triggers us into emotion of some kind.

If you are triggered in the negative such as anger, rage, frustration, sadness or depression, it is likely that you are reacting from a wounded place.  Again, this is normal.  It is part of being human that we go through life scrapping our knees from time to time or even suffering a broken heart from something seemingly mundane or obviously unmistakable.  It’s okay to be wounded, it’s okay to have emotion and it’s okay to feel what we feel.  You don’t need anyone’s permission to feel what you feel, you need not apologize for how you feel and you need never feel guilty or ashamed by your feelings.

We are in many ways very complex, more complex than this little pocket book intends to cover but I couldn’t write this without touching on this very sensitive subject.  It is from our wounds that we all react, not just you but the guy who just upset you or the gal who just hurt your feelings or the situation culminating from a series of events or even a single one that made you mad.  Realize that our wounds want to be healed and that is why we are triggered.  When we are triggered, it feels awful but I want to point out something very important to you.  I intentionally desire to change your perspective on pain.  When you are in a state of pain, you are sending a message to yourself that something is not right.

Now, know that pain will often appear to arise from interactions in the outside world.  The truth is that the pain arises from within you as a reaction resulting from your own conditioning.  What is painful to you may be nothing to someone else and that makes neither of you bad or wrong.  It just means you have different wounds and experiences.  So, when you find yourself in a state of a triggered response to some kind of human stimulus realize that you are recognizing a wound even if you cannot consciously recognize its true source.  That true source could be so deeply buried that it could take years with therapy for you to find it or it could take minutes in reflection.  It all depends on you, what you want and how you go about seeking true understanding.

Everyone reacts to wounding.  Why do you think that seemingly unfeeling person has just said something completely insulting and absolutely condescending to you that hurt?  There are two things going on here – two wounds meeting.  The insulter and insulted are on the same continuum of human experience but just in different places.  Dr. David Hawkins wrote and spoke about this concept and I highly recommend you look into his work if you would like to better understand and work through these types of issues.  My little pocket book was intended to bring quick bits and bytes of information to remind you of things you may have forgotten but will eventually remember.  When the right moment arises and you have achieved that which you sought to achieve, the wounds will surface for understanding and healing and it will primarily be through human interactions as noted in the last chapter.

When you encounter a wound or someone unthinkingly or intentionally pokes at your wounds, realize that you have precious seconds to detach, step back and seek understanding instead of involuntarily reacting.  When you feel that core-level need to react, it is a wound calling to you for attention.  There is something within you that wishes to rise to the level of your consciousness for understanding and with understanding, freeing you through healing.

Talk about understanding forgiveness, the biggest act of forgiveness we face is learning to truly forgive ourselves.  We’ll get to that very shortly.  My intent with this chapter is to help you understand what is happening to you when you are feeling reactive, angry, sad, rejected, deflected, etc.  It is just a wound trying to get your attention and often the wounds of other people trigger our own. It’s okay, truly.  It is what you do next that matters most and will either promote or prevent you from healing and growing.  Forgiveness is a stepping-stone truly but you have to understand all the things that seemingly cause the need for forgiveness.  In time, when you are open, you’ll come to know forgiveness is unnecessary because every transgression is an illusory slap in the heart for the sole purpose of bringing you the truth.

Your spirit remains intact no matter what you face.  Your soul may cling to memories of pain and that is okay.  You may even react unconsciously due to your soul’s contents and that’s okay but you can learn to transcend these things if and when you become ready to choose to do so.  And even then, it’s not a cakewalk.  It takes time and effort to achieve healing through understanding and forgiveness.  After these things come the deepening of understanding and then the dissolving of the illusions that cause the perception of the transgressions to begin with.

I’d like to again summarize what we’ve covered here for greater understanding:

• We all carry wounds that are sometimes unconsciously held.
• These wounds cause us to react if something gets too close to poking or brushing a wound.
• The spirit of us truly desires healing and wholeness and so will allow the wound to become your teacher in a moment.
• The feelings that stem from a wound are messages to you from you that something within you needs your attention.
• Through self-reflection we can begin to understand not only our wounds but also the wounds of others.
• When we identify our wounds it becomes easier to see when others are reacting from theirs as well.
• We have mere seconds between reacting from a wound and choosing to seek the understanding that is trying to get our attention.

Chapter 3 - Boundaries

In the last two chapters, I intended to illuminate the impetus behind some of the more challenging aspects of human interaction.  If you can understand why things stand the way they do between us human beings, it can take the sting out of certain interactions.  These few salient points would be incomplete without the one fact we often over look.  It’s really very simple.  Not everyone is conscientious and not everyone is capable of growing beyond their conditioning.  For whatever reason, they remain frozen.  It could be biology, conditioning or pure choice.  Who knows? At this level of physical reality, we are not the same, have not had the exact same experiences nor have we had the same conditioning.

Regardless, understanding that to judge another by your experiences and conditioning doesn’t do much for you but lead you down the path of disappointment.  That is, unless you learn how to set boundaries.  I strongly believe in remaining in a curious position about human interactions until I can better understand what emotional stuff is mine versus theirs’.  However, sometimes boundaries are a necessary aspect of interacting with each other.  Realize that most reasonable and rational human beings will respect a boundary set.  Remember though that not everyone is reasonable or rational based on their conditioning or biological make-up as I mentioned previously.  In such cases you have even more decisions to make.  

Those decisions may be setting boundaries not only with others but also for you.

By setting boundaries for you, I mean making a very conscious decision as to what you will choose or not choose to engage in.  You can choose to let things get under your skin and engage at the same level of consciousness as that coming at you or you can decide not to.  In some cases it is wise not to engage in certain human interactions at the same level of consciousness coming at you.  I use consciousness here in terms of awareness.  Some of us are more self-aware than others and know -- that doesn’t make us better or worse.  We just are as we are and must learn to get along in some way, shape or form even if that means you set boundaries for yourself or you set boundaries for another.

The only person we can truly control is ourselves.  If we don’t like what we are hearing or what is being said, we can step off the proverbial battlefield and focus our attention on self-reflection or just moving on.  This takes courage and in some instances so much courage that you may be challenged to entertain that you even have it in you.  Most likely you do.

We have the right to choose what we will or won’t participate in and you can exercise that choice in whatever way you see fit.  That doesn’t mean you may not be judged and judged harshly for it especially if you are dealing with someone emotionally, spiritually or otherwise challenged in terms of what is considered to be normal behavior.  Again, we all have wounds but just because we are wounded, that does not excuse our behavior.  Flipping that around, just because you can see someone’s wounds and understand why they are behaving towards you in distasteful ways, that does not mean that you must excuse it, stand there and continue to suffer it.  Use the knowledge to understand and then act accordingly.  By accordingly I mean making sure you act in a way that is psychologically healthy, personally responsible, ultimately congruent with your true self and not that of just your superficial ego.

To summarize this chapter, keep the following things in mind:

• While at the highest level of consciousness we may be One, here in physical reality, we are not the same.
• We all have different experiences and while there may be common understanding of decency, morals or behavior, that still doesn’t mean these ideals are shared.
• Everyone has their own perceptions, perspectives and assumptions made about their experiences.
• You can only control your own behavior.
• You have the right to disengage from anything you find demeaning, insulting or otherwise just not supportive of your being no matter who doesn’t like it.
• You have the right to set boundaries that make you feel safe and peaceful.
• At some point you will realize all of the above and afore mentioned chapters and even these limited sets of understandings will transform.
• Focus on what you need in human interactions and strive for the awareness that others also have needs and these may conflict and that’s okay.
•  Resolving conflict requires understanding.  If you cannot come to understanding, it may be time to set boundaries.

Chapter 4 - Forgive and Forget?

Most people misunderstand the meaning of the phrase, “forgive and forget” and try to take or enforce it literally which, well, is really impossible; especially on the forgetting part.  We can forgive and learn to let go but it is impossible to forget something that hurt you unless you have your memory erased or you have deconstructed the situation psychologically or even spiritually to a sufficient degree that enables you to no longer take insult or offense about something that hurt you.  The latter can be done but takes some time and works only if you truly are no longer offended or insulted in your own mind.

To be honest, and I speak from experience, to forgive AND forget as it's typically understood isn't always the best course of action.  Well, again, the forgiving part is wonderful for you in particular but the forgetting part can't be done and sometimes should not be done.  

I'll go back to the fire example to illustrate my thought process.   I stuck my hand in the fire and it was horribly burned.  I was angry at the fire but decided I did not like how the anger felt along with my burns.  So, I allowed the burns to heal and the anger at the fire to dissipate.  I forgave the fire for being what it was (hot and potentially dangerous) burning me.  I forgave myself for sticking my hand in the fire.  Now, forgiveness is absolutely divine in this example.  However, I would be terribly unwise to forget that fire is hot, potentially dangerous and that the last time I stuck my hand in the fire, I was horribly burned.

Extrapolate this concept across to any given situation.  The idea is to forgive the other person who seemingly wronged you, forgive yourself fully for making a choice that resulted in you being wronged or that a person behaved the only way they knew how in a moment and then find some constructive and healthy way to let go of all anger, frustration and negative energy created by whatever it was that required your forgiveness.  

Carrying a grudge is very harmful to you energetically, emotionally and sometimes even physically and please don't get me started on vengeance.  Let go of the grudge and negative energy when you forgive.   If you do not wish to face the same anger and frustration, you will have to remember what you learned of the situation without having to relive the anger and frustration or consciously consent to its repeat.  Forget the negative energy and animosity of the situation.  Forgiving and forgetting does not mean you are obligated to put yourself back in harm's way to do the "right thing" with forgiveness and forgetting.  We were blessed with memory for a reason.  Use it wisely to guide your decisions in the present.  Do forgive and forgive fully but do NOT forget the lesson you learned. 

There are many additional examples in this world that will be obvious to you in demonstrating that forgiveness is good but forgetting may be a bad idea (check your local city police blotter if you want more ideas here).  The goal is to release yourself and another from the negativity you may hold concerning a situation or a wrong seemingly or actually done to you.  Everyone makes mistakes and forgiveness is a beautiful gift.  But you should not forget the lesson of the situation or it may repeat.  Forgive the grievance and forget the negative energy of it but always remember the lesson learned.  Simple, right?

To diverge a little bit, now that we’ve established forgiving is good and forgetting may not be we’ll focus a little bit in upcoming chapters on how to forgive, how to let go and how to heal.  Before we do that, let’s focus a moment on summarizing this section:

• To forgive is divine and can keep you from carrying toxic feelings and energy around.
• To forgive doesn’t mean you ignore emotions or lessons learned but that you release yourself from the pain.
• Some people cannot help but be who they are and sometimes that can be hurtful.  You can forgive them and let their behavior be a lesson to you.
• You weren’t put here to be a doormat and that is not what forgiveness is about.
• Forgiveness is about considering what happened, why it happened – the truth of it and not your assumptions, taking the lesson with you and leaving the anger behind having worked through it.

Chapter 5 - Dealing with Emotion

Emotions arise from our experiences.  It is a very large part of our human nature here incarnate on planet Earth.  Certain experiences of emotion such as anxiety, fear or pain in a present moment scenario can sometimes seem to strum the chords of prior episodes of anxiety, fear or pain. This may cause many other similar past experiences to rise to the surface of your consciousness, making one simple episode seem like a bonfire.  It's like discovering you whacked your knee on something and a bruise followed but you didn't realize you had it or had completely forgotten about it.  Then you either hit it again or otherwise touch it and the pain returns to be felt yet again.  

This idea makes me wonder if emotional pain ever really heals.  We suffer emotion like anxiety, fear or pain for a multitude of reasons. 

As we go through our lives and experience various events, we assign anxious, fearful or painful thoughts.  At some level, it is almost as if these things are written into the archives of your psyche.  As you move away from those moments where you have experienced such events, you start to forget about the negative aspects of your experiences.  But then, suddenly, something similar comes up and the unconscious mind reaches through all of its archived records to find similar experiences from which to judge or assess the current experience.  In so doing, the thoughts will strum the chords of other painful experiences and seemingly set them loose, leaving you feeling emotionally raw and out of proportion with the current experience.

I cannot help but wonder does emotional pain ever really heal? Our emotions stem from a number of things.  Let’s take a simple one for example.  Anxieties stem from fear, and this fear stems from the thought of pain.  This is not the first time I've considered this line of thinking.  A superficial wound will eventually heal in time but the memories of it won't necessarily leave us.  I wonder, when thinking of these emotional wounds - the anxiety, fear and pain, if we will not heal until we begin to better understand our thoughts.  It seems that until you fully understand the extent of a situation that leads to thoughts of anxiety, fear and pain, you won't heal them but rather nullify their existence.  

I have another idea on forgiveness that may change the way you look at the concept.  Take the simple knowledge gained from not taking things personally as an example from our first chapters on Human Behavior, etc.  We've begun to truly learn and understand that most people who express themselves in mean and insulting ways are not really telling you anything about you, but rather are telling you about what is going on inside of them.  When you think about it, we once felt the pain of these seeming attacks, and those wounds gathered and collected throughout our whole lives.  

With some effort finally, we come to understand that some people are mean just because of their own conditioning or other forms of biological or environmental psychology, and this has nothing to do with us at all. The pain that was written, inscribed deeply within our psyches, becomes unwritten through understanding.  Let me say that again in another way.  The pain that we feel as the result of the perceived unsavory or insulting actions of another dissipates with understanding.

We transform our suffering through understanding its purpose.  Oh, I know, it is a huge leap to understand that some emotional challenges have a purpose.  This is especially true when certain experiences seem by their very design to serve no purpose other than our emotional destruction.  But wait, if you go on with that thought, you spill your power out in blame and fear, and there is no healing or resolution to be had with these kinds of reactions.  There is only the continuous collection of more anxiety, fear and pain or other toxic emotions you don’t really want to carry.  

Through seeking greater understanding, you begin to truly know that life is not designed to emotionally destroy you. Essentially, you need to step back and see a much broader framework from a greater and higher perspective of love, compassion and understanding. When you can accomplish this, ultimately, the pain is transformed and simply disappears.  There is nothing then to heal because you have begun to fully realize the illusion of suffering.  I'm not saying anxiety, fear and pain are not real when your thoughts are embroiled in the entertaining of these things.  I'm saying that if you can shift your perspective for long enough, stand in your own power and take responsibility for your play, your actors, your sets, your behaviors and your action through striving for greater understanding, you nullify the effects of pain you think is caused by others, it seems.

I'm toying with these ideas not to blame the victims or rub salt in anyone's wounds.  I'm writing from my own experiences of having those chords of pain strummed so that they rise to the surface to the point I am raw, in an active state of pain and striving to understand it.  I do not fear pain.  I see all three of these topics as very closely aligned. No matter which aspect we embrace, each time one of these things crop up we are being given an opportunity to better understand.  If I step back from the shadows of victim-hood and blame, and stand squarely in the light owning my emotions, my thoughts and the illusions of my own perceptions, I'm free.  

These are tough thoughts to translate beautiful dreamers and I so hope in some way I'm getting through.  I may have to take another shot or two at articulating these thoughts to help them crystallize more concretely from the pureness of feeling within to the simple language we typically use to converse.  So much meaning is lost when you have a feeling and yet try to define it with limited words.  You'll understand when you get there, this much I know.  But, I have this thought that if I can articulate what is rising, it may serve as a light for someone else who wandered ever long in the darkness as I did.   As I'm writing I'm thinking, questioning and testing.  

I'm on an amazing and wonderful journey of understanding in this life and am delighted by each discovery whether it hurts, perplexes or confounds me.  I know I'll understand because there is a knowing inside encouraging me to seek the meaning - to find the freedom.  I have nothing left that needs healing.  What I have is a lifetime of experiences to better understand the truth that is buried beneath the lies of unchallenged perception. 

Let me summarize this for greater understanding:

• As we live our lives, we encounter our emotions as the result of human interactions and this sometimes causes us pain.
• Through forgiveness of self and others, we can begin to transform the pain to understanding.
• As we begin to better understand the truth of an interaction, we begin to shift our perspective.
• Our emotions are valid based on our perceptions but if we do not feel our way through our emotions and try to better understand them, we cannot forgive either others or ourselves.
• If we cannot forgive, we cannot fully glean the lesson we most wanted to learn.
• When we finally understand the truth of an interaction, when we can learn to shift our perspectives and understand our own messaging from within, the pain dissipates into understanding as we gain knowledge in the lessons learned.
• When we truly learn the lesson, we may find there isn’t really anything to forgive.

Chapter 6 - Why Healing Matters

The wounded ego in hiding believes that it is made better by pointing out the shortcomings in others, in blame and in taking even a small measure of pleasure in someone else's pain.  The wounded ego in hiding does not know that in any statements or actions it takes to expose others, it only broadcasts to the world how wounded it truly is.  

Wounded individuals do not deserve admonishment and being given the same medicine that created their wounds to begin with.  Any such actions only serve to reinforce the original wounds they suffered.  What they need is compassion and understanding.  What they need is for others to refuse to participate in any form of psychodrama.  I find silence is often a valuable tool and my sentiments were so perfectly echoed by a dear friend this morning.  For a very personal reason, this topic is so very near and dear to me.  Any followers of my work over time can attest to this topic being written about in different ways often.

My motive is not one of exposure myself, but one of underscoring the true importance of finding those consequences of actions and seeing them for the message they are that internal healing is needed.  Those who criticize constantly, criticize themselves worst of all.  They may lie and say that is untrue but that is only because of a dire need to protect a very gentle, sensitive and wounded heart...or, in some cases, a soul unable to feel at all for other reasons.  We talked about this a bit in a previous chapter. In either case, adding more insult to injury does nothing but embroil one in negative energy and that does not promote any form of satisfactory or long-lasting happiness.  

To discover those very sensitive wounds inside of us, wherever they may exist, is truly a blessing in disguise even if it doesn't feel like it.  When you see evidence of pain in you by the continual negative consequences of your actions, blaming the world, God, the Government, your Mother, Father, Sister or Brother or what-ever, will do nothing to heal you or bring you to a state where contemplating forgiveness or letting go through understanding is possible.

Let me just say this: It is okay to be wounded.  It happens to us all and there is no shame in suffering emotional pain.  Seeing the source of your pain and seeking to heal it to prevent further damage to self or others is of the utmost importance.  If we cannot become aware of our wounds, seek out their true source, the true message those wounds bring to us and seek healing, we are doomed to remain asleep at the wheel of our lives.  This is tremendously sad and disheartening for so many...even innocent by-standers are affected.

It’s a truly challenging part of our existence in this world - to deal with the pain we have suffered; the pain that has been seemingly inflicted by unaware souls.  It truly is tragic in many regards.  But, as Pollyanna-ish as it might sound, I truly believe that through education, understanding and compassion, we can all contribute to the healing of these wounds that seem to run rampant in humanity.  It takes only a moment of understanding to refuse to engage with a wounded soul in a way that might further their pain and only cause you more.  

Realize that we all have a choice to make.  We can co-create in this world in a loving way with our Creator or we can rail against this world and the Source in tragic blame, shame, guilt, violence and much, much, much suffering.  The choice is ours and the sooner we all realize that it is, in fact, a choice, the sooner we can get on with the healing that needs to occur.

My heart goes out to every single soul who seems to be mortally emotionally wounded and I pray every single day that the light of Source might find them and encourage them to seek solace in the loving light integrated into the wholeness of their being.  It is there whether acknowledged or not.  Some might say this is an absolute waste of my time and energy but I do not care.  Emotional wounds do nothing but inflict more pain in this world and too many souls in pain will only create more pain and more suffering for all to contend with.  

Rather than bring myself to hate the hurtful, I instead send them only love.  I will not feed self-hatred.  I will not choose to perpetuate the problem.  I will seek to understand even if my own ego thinks it ought to engage and defend.  I will fight for understanding and compassion.  It's a hard road but a high road to take and no matter the result and no matter if people hate or despise me, I cannot contribute to their hatred with in-kind responses.  Mind you that it would be ill-advised to continually stand in arm's reach of those who feel the need to take a swing at you.  

Sometimes, we have no choice but to love from afar.  Becoming angry and further wounded by souls who really don't mean you any harm intentionally, who truly do not know the harm they do or even those who do and don't care, makes no sense.  You do not have to engage in the hatred and negative energy that such souls create.  It doesn't help.  

Strive to remove yourself to a better state of understanding and in some cases, distant proximity.  I do not suggest excusing or accepting bad behavior in any regard as I mentioned in the chapter about boundaries, quite the contrary.  I suggest understanding and always seeking to set personal boundaries.  There is no requirement that we choose to be human sacrifices of the mortally emotionally wounded.  Get to safety both emotionally or physically but do not engage in the darkness of hurtful thoughts.  If anything is truly evil in this world it is the blind hatred of the wounded and those who seek to retaliate in a complete lack of understanding.  

As also previously mentioned, not everyone is capable of reaching understanding.  It may even be hard for you to do it, but you can if you are willing and you will if you sincerely make every effort to try and if you struggle, you can seek professional assistance to aid you in this endeavor.  There should be no shame in seeking help as I often say.

To summarize these thoughts, consider:

• Whether a wound is real or illusory, the idea of healing matters.
• Freeing yourself from toxic emotion can help you contribute to your own healthy existence as well as clear the path by setting an example, for others to strive to do the same.
• Sometimes distance from a source of wounding is needed to gain a more balanced and healthy perspective.
• Human interactions can be very difficult to grasp.  There is an art to managing it in a healthy way.
• Understanding is a key that unlocks a door hidden in plain sight in terms of navigating the heavier emotions in life.
• You can transform pain into understanding (healing) even if the memories never fade.
• Memories of pain do not have to hold the same weight as they did when you originally felt them.
• Adding insult to the obvious emotional injury of others will never heal your pain.
• Fighting for right with a wounded soul will prevent you from understanding and then learning a potentially pivotal life lesson.