When something unfair or unjust happens to us we often fight a desperate battle for validation. Something horrific happened to me some time ago which completely sucked the life out of me.Today I got a letter in the mail which has just bought the whole sordid mess back into sharp focus again.
The sense of outrage I feel is bubbling under the surface and it's just not healthy. I have struggled with this for a long time. Today I need to remind myself of the lessons I have already learnt and to just let it pass. The truth is everyone has a story. Mine is just one of the many stories out there. There is not one person alive who has not been through some type of crisis and had their lives changed as a result. Unless you have been living in a cave, that is.
I stopped telling my story a long time ago. It wasn't because it didn’t consume me day and night, but because I was so ashamed. I didn’t want people to know how bad it was. I didn't want to be judged. I wrote it all out so that it was out of my head and there it sits. In hiding.
Could you imagine that every time you met a person they just wanted to talk about their life crisis? You would just get drained and depressed. It is not healthy. So, if you have a story to tell, choose carefully who you share it with. Because every time you tell people, it will just deplete you of energy. It will make you relive the pain and it will hold you back from being your true self. Your story can suffocate you.
Mine did that to me for a long time.
Why does a person need to be validated? For one simple reason really. They have not accepted the situation or forgiven themselves. Usually a person feels that if they let go of their story then they aren't validating what happened. The key is to learn the lessons from the experience, to forgive and then move forward. Our stories are meant to teach us important lessons not to stop us in our tracks. Nothing happens to us that we cannot handle. We must gain the strength to keep moving forward. If we don't, we become self absorbed victims when we persist with our grand tragedies over and over and over and over!! Even if it is only in our own minds.
At first I found it hard to forgive even myself, because I thought I was then condoning and tolerating what happened to me. I felt I had to hate this person with a passion. It was so wrong and I wanted justice. The truth is this person doesn't care if I hate them or not. By hating them I am trying to force them to care when they could care less. They proved that by the horrific things they did. So getting angry just made me powerless and frustrated. I was a paralysed in my grief. A friend of mine finally said to me, “You run the risk of getting cancer, heart disease, arthritis, etc. You are creating a dangerous toxic environment in your body. While all that is happening to you they could care less, in fact they probably have never given you another thought. They are evil. This is what they do. So all you gain from being angry is more misery. You need to forgive yourself and save yourself from yourself!!!!”
Those words did hit home to me and I need to be reminded of them today. We cannot change another person’s thoughts, views, actions, choices or sense of morality. We cannot change the past. We can only control our own life. If something bad happens to you and you are obsessing about it, please go to a counsellor and really do some healing. Do not just hope for a miracle to change your life or hope that the perpetrator will see the error of their ways or that justice will be done. Life is truly unfair sometimes. However, I firmly believe that the universe deals with these things in its own way. We just have to accept this to be so.
Do not lose yourself or let evil control you. Be an inspiration to others. Live a truly authentic life. Learn the lessons from your story and see how you can help others. Find someone else who needs help and give them your time and heart and experience.
