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Stop the Hurting


I saw something on Facebook the other day that touched a nerve.  It was this video vignette about karma.  I'll be the first to admit that I don't really know much about karma beyond the casual way we use it in our vernacular.  What goes around comes around is my limited understanding of karma.  The video opened up with a scene of a callous man explaining to his wife that he was leaving her for another woman.  Fast forward three years later and the scene is a mirror image of the first.  His new woman is equally callous toward him and is telling him she is leaving him to get back together with her ex.  They even used some of the same dialogue in both scenes to reiterate the irony.  After the video a man expounded on the subject and I interpreted his message as saying if you've been hurt, don't worry, because how people treat others will come back around to them later in life.

Maybe there is a balance of the energy in the universe.  Id' like to believe that for every hurt created, somewhere out there is a kindness being spread.  But I don't agree with the idea that if we have been hurt, part of our healing rests in the promise that hurt will be revisited to those that hurt us.  And I've heard it so many times.  They've been offered as words of solace, "He'll get what's coming to him..."

But life isn't fair, and I know of plenty of instances in which people have suffered pain, and nothing of equal damage has befallen those inflicting the pain.  It's a hard truth, but you can't force someone to be accountable for their actions.  You can't force responsibility on others.  You can't force consequences on them, or strong arm them to feel the consequences of their actions.  That's not in our control.  We end up wasting energy just spinning our wheels, trying in vain to create and satiate our thirst for our own perception of justice. 

Sometimes people hurt us and we don't know what happens to them after they've left our lives.  Maybe they are hurt, maybe they have regrets, or maybe they've just moved on and are happy to have left that situation, maybe they're living their best life.  Who knows.  But, does it truly matter?  Do we find closure through a passive form of retribution by wishing ill on others?  Do we need the assurance that the perpetuation of hurt and pain will live on in the other person in order to move on?  Do they need to suffer for us to find wholeness?

There is enough hurt in this world.  If we've been hurt, let that cycle stop with us.  Let's not create more pain from our own pain.  Let's not become perpetrators of hurt ourselves.  That's not what we need to move forward.  We could spend a lifetime waiting for karma, and then we'd be stuck.  Stuck in a place spent revisiting our hurts, never letting go enough to give our wounds time and space to heal.

Once we've let go of someone and decided to move on, what happens to them after that is their story - not ours.  When we focus on our own story of healing, our pain can give birth to the most sacred beauty and strength.





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