Pain is what keeps us from compassion. When we are in pain, we cannot see past our own pain, our own perspective, our own viewpoint of another or a transpiring situation. It consumes us in righteousness, anger, hate, othering, and impacts our mental health, habits, and well being. Our pain is valid, and a completely necessary and biological response to the violence of our lives and the world. And it continues to keeps us from compassion for others.
I have found that only when we transmute, go through, unwind, and process our own pain, can we see others. It's only then that we can get beyond the binary, put ourselves in the shoes of another, and find ourselves in each other.
How do we make space to process our pain so that we can hold compassion for the people we hate the most? or even the people who hate us the most? How do we find ourselves in each other in order to bridge beyond the binaries of our mentality and our pain? How do we process enough to stop writing-off people who are on our side? How about the people who are on the complete opposite side, how do we build love with them? Who is indicted with the privilege to have the time and space to go through their pain?
