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Today's
Meditation:
The
tendency that I learned while growing up was to hold on to
things. If you insulted me two days ago--or a week
ago, even--I'd still be holding on to that insult, mulling
it over in my mind, making myself go through alternate
cycles of self-pity, anger, hurt, and all the other
emotions that come with an insult. I certainly would
not let it go and go on with my life, and I'd be making
myself miserable because of what you said or did.
Fortunately,
I've learned to see the self-destructiveness inherent in
that pattern. I've learned about the art of letting
go, of moving on to other things and accepting what
happened for exactly what it was, but not letting a hurt
continue to cause me pain.
If
you hurt me, it's like you're immediately attaching a
heavy ball and chain to my ankle, and the weight of them
causes my mind constantly to return to the weight and the
pain. The most important thing that I've learned,
though, is that I have the key to that chain, and I can
reach down and unshackle myself any time I want.
Sometimes
it takes effort to do so. In extreme circumstances,
I've had to let go of "friendships" with people
who constantly caused me pain, and when I've been able to
let go of what I saw as a friendship, my life has improved
dramatically.
Most
of the time when people hurt us, they do so because
they're in pain themselves, and they don't know quite how
to deal with that pain. Hurtful actions and words
are a result of their pain. If we allow that hurt to
affect our lives negatively, though, then we allow their
hurt to become a part of our lives. If we don't
learn to let go of such things, we're damaging ourselves,
and we're certainly not helping others.
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