Greetings Readers,
Today’s post is a re-share from September 2023 with some new photos from a walk last month through Maudslay State Park in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Watch for more photos from the Maudslay walk soon.
Thích Nhất Hạnh is one of my favorite Buddhist authors. I hope you all enjoy!
The heart and soul of an empath is easily hurt by the pain of others with whom they feel a connection. I know this because I am an empath. I have found this quote to be a very valuable reminder from Thích Nhất Hạnh...
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
The other part of this, in my opinion, is that person who makes you suffer has to be willing to see their "suffering is spilling over" and the fact that they "need help."
Until the suffering being, who takes out their pain on others, is willing to own their suffering and get help, they will keep hurting people. We are helpless but to offer them prayers and compassion, while we shield our hearts.
Namaste... Pamela
Stay tuned for new posts including a couple new Photo Essays and a Daily Affirmation coming up in the next few days…
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I cannot speak for all people, since I only know myself fully; yet this holds true for the first 32 years of my life.
Some would describe me as narcissistic during those years, violently so. And the evidence of my actions would easily support my being labeled such.
None could know what was behind my behaviors, not because they didn’t try or care; but because I didn’t understand what I was doing or why myself. The things I had experienced as a child, the feelings I had toward myself, the anguish I tried to keep bottled up inside caused harm to all those around me.
Only twice in those first 32 years did I even glimpse what was inside of me and both times, in those moments of clarity I didn’t know enough to ask for help.
In all honesty I assumed there was no help available to me, so I put aside those I loved and cherished most in a pointless effort to protect them from what I was becoming or had become. And in doing so, inflicted even more harm upon myself. I became that which I feared and hated about myself and saw no way out.
Eventually society had enough of the pain that was pouring (not simply spilling) out of me onto others and placed me where I could no longer do harm.
There I was faced with the very thing that you mention here. Responsibility. I am not responsible for all that I suffered, nor for the imagined things that I thought about myself. Those things were learned throughout childhood and even as an adult. My responsibility began when I accepted that although my life was a traumatic experience up to that point, I could take the responsibility of my behaviors and have a choice over what I would do from that point onward. A choice, instead of reacting. A freedom to know myself and embrace the pain I had allowed to flow out onto others and choose to own it instead.
It has not been easy, by any means. A daily struggle and a daily reprieve as I walk forward upon this alternative pathway, unsure of my footing, often unable to see where the path I am on is leading. But the freedom to choose lays before me as does the choice itself.
I can continue on this new path or return to what I already know causes others pain. My responsibility lays in making the choice every single day. It is the focus of my life now, to make the choice and take the steps that will move me forward along this new path, perhaps not simply because it’s new to me or because it’s so different than anything I’ve known before; I see the choice as being free to have the choice itself or return to not having it by deceiving myself into thinking again that there is no choice for me.
Thank you for the pictures and the quote Pamela. I always imagine what the world would be like if we all took the attitude of empathy first rather than assume animosity first. Namaste 🙏