Healing
Wounds
“Blame
gives us permission to remain where we are while pressuring others to
tiptoe around our wounds. Blame does not heal and it does not produce
change; forgiveness does.”
Caroline
Myss (Sacred Contracts)
Blame seems to be the
go-to center of our national and international discourse these days.
We sit around for hours and blame others for the difficulties of the
world. It's fun, I have to say, to be among like-minded people for a
good old gripe session—we use such moments to bond with each other.
But blaming and shaming do not move us off square-one to find
solutions to problems that confront us.
Caroline Myss has spent
her entire career talking and writing about why people develop all
sorts of ailments in their bodies and why they don't heal. In her
world view, it is, to a large extent, because we are holding on to
blame. We blame someone, usually our parents, for not giving us the
up-bringing we needed—for being lesser people than they “should”
have been. We can find guilty people all along the way to blame for
our unhappiness and lack of progress if we want to. The problem is,
it doesn't get us anywhere. When we're done complaining and punishing
and roiling around in anger about the injustice of it all, we're
right back where we started.
Justice, we think, would
go a long way toward obtaining “closure” for the misdeeds that
caused our wounding. We seem to believe if only he would admit his
wrongdoing, if only she would say she's sorry, if only they would
make ammends, then I would be one-hundred-percent cured. We think
if we could just punish them for what they've done to us it would be
the solution to the problem. Unfortunately, most of our “tormentors”
will never admit to wrongdoing, or are already long-gone and cannot
receive justice, so here we are—square one. What now? Do we spend
the rest of our lives as mad as a wet hen and holding them
accountable? That's an option, but if we make that choice, we should
do so with full knowledge that we are the ones who will pay the price
for it—with our health and our peace of mind.
There is only one
solution for healing unhappiness caused by past wounding and that is
forgiveness. Not just saying we forgive, but letting go of blame.
Wresting one's life back from the black hole of blame and shame is
liberating. Accepting that we are responsible for our happiness, or
lack thereof, puts us in a position to do something different. We can
move off that first square, and discover all the wonderful things
that life has to offer. Best of all, we can free our hearts and souls
from the tyranny of our own anger.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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