5/12/14

Breaking the Cycle of Pain: Parents, the Inner Child, and Healing our World

In 2001 Michael Jackson gave a speech at Oxford University.  In it he expressed the need to heal ourselves, to heal the inner child, so that we all may begin to heal the world.  Reconciliation, he said, was something he had obtained with his father even though Michael himself had very painful memories.

Reconciliation is a word that has resurfaced many times here on the blog.  Shortly after Mr Mandela passed, Michael and he both spoke about this very powerful form of healing.  It is a tool, a process and a mandate for healing in our world.  For without it, we will not have peace, will not have love flowing freely through our hearts, and our world can quickly become a place of hatred instead of the loving place and people we were all created to be.

Reconciliation is not easy.  When you have been wronged, hurt and sometimes even tortured it is very difficult to put that past to rest.  The key lies in seeing it for what it was, instead of seeing it as who we are and what was done to "us".  So many times we find ourselves in only the thoughts about what was done to us and how it made us feel.  We must realize they are only our thoughts. That the thoughts of others, their feelings, their up bringing, and their inner child must be taken into account as well.

This past weekend was Mothers Day here in the United States.  A day to celebrate your "mother" and honor her.  Some parents and children are estranged and as most people know already, this foundational relationship can play havoc with the feelings and doings of your life even when you are "grown" up.  Healing from difficulties in our childhood must begin with understanding the "consciousness" of what transpired.  People can only act from what they know and as Jesus said, sometimes "they know not what they do."  This not only applies to "them", but to "us" as well.

This statement is important because some of us simply don't know better.  We don't know how to be what someone else needs or wants us to be.  When we do, maybe then it's too late.  Maybe at that point we don't know how to fix it.  In relationships with others; mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, or lovers, one person has to take the first step.  Many times because of patterns that have been ingrained, as Michael spoke about in his speech, it must be the children themselves, if not for any other reason, but because they know better.

My own children heal me when they say "Momma I love you."  The mere words warm my heart and there is kindness and love generated throughout my home.  These children are special.  We are special.  The child within your parent is special as well.  Those that inflict harm on others most likely have done the best they could with what they knew at the time.   Most people react out of what was done to them and sometimes aren't even conscious of what or why they do what they do. So today I ask that you might begin to seek reconciliation with those who have hurt you.  May you realize they were acting only from a place they knew to act from.  Our pain bodies, as Eckhart Tolle once termed them,  engage when we feel pain, but the pain body, those painful emotions from our past is also our ego.  If we learn to recognize it as one and the same we can start to heal.

Releasing pain does take time, but when we realize what it is, a painful past from people who don't know better.  Pain from an episode or episodes that perhaps we have even looked upon differently then they did, we can begin to take steps.  We  must realize that in order to heal we must put our healing in front of being right.  Even though you may know a wrong has been perpetrated against you, you can be the one to take to first step toward healing it, because sometimes the people who have hurt you simply don't know how.

Recognize that this pain is the ego.  The part of us that wants to be right and realize that maybe what's more important is healing.  Then we can begin to release it.  Know that there are two views and perspectives to every side and apologize for causing the other pain.  There would never be anger, never be pain within you if it was never in them as well.

We must want peace and healing more than we want to be right.  We must say the words: I'm sorry I caused you pain, I love you, I appreciate you.  As much as words can hurt, they can also heal.  We must be that that the other can't or isn't capable of being.  Teach by action and say the words.  Your healing outreach will not only extend between the two, but all of those around you as well.

The children who kill, who hurt others, have been hurt themselves;  Let us not let them grow up in another generation of hurtful and shamed people.  Instead, let us extend our hand in kindness and in a loving fashion to show them how to heal and be loved.  If someone does not have love or kindness bestowed to them, if someone else is not shown how, how can we expect them to know any better?  It must start with those of us that know better.  If we can heal ourselves, we can and will heal the world.

Please listen to Michael in the video below regarding his thoughts on this very prominent topic:




It is also important to listen to Eckhart Tolle here as he explains the pain body and it's role in our emotional pain.  We must accept people as they are.  Although we would like them to be something we think they "should be" they are not.  It is our resistance to accepting who they are and what is that causes us the most pain.  For us to heal we must learn to let go of what we think "should be" and enter into healing knowing that we can change the way we "feel" about it just by changing our consciousness about it.  Our pain body is our ego.  As we recognize patterns emerging, these feelings, name them: "the pain body".  It's our pain body when we want to be right, our pain body when we feel we are the hurt child.  Recognize it for what it is, and you will begin to dismantle the negative energy patterns of hurt within you and begin healing.




Now that you know what and how the pain body works, you can bring yourself to say the words to heal:  I'm sorry for causing you pain, I value you, I appreciate you, before it's too late to say them and you regret the precious time you have wasted holding onto a hurt that can only hurt you both and the generations to come.