We’ve all experienced hurt and injustice from others. I’m quick to forgive and move on. Sometimes, however, I get stuck, as I have with a special person, who I stopped caring about some years ago. Without knowing why, I began to have a physical problem. An injured toe wouldn’t heal.
After xrays and consulting with two medical specialists, I felt stuck. The cartilage was gone. I was told that this is what professional athletes experience and to wait and see if the inflammation goes down. I waited for two years. From time to time I did offered myself healing prayer on it. Then recently, out of the blue, I received guidance to seek help from an acupuncturist.
I was astounded at what happened. After the first session, the symptoms changed. It was as though my toe had been dead and then come alive again. And I hadn’t realized it, but the entire area of missing cartilage had been closed off from feeling. Even more, I had a feeling that the healing was much deeper than my toe.
Following the second acupuncture session, I felt life coursing through my entire body. It was a feeling of openness and freedom.
Then, later, in the middle of the night, I awoke. I reached for a Buddhist book on compassion, to continue reading where I last left off. As I read, I started thinking about the relationship that I had closed off from years ago. I wished I didn’t have to live with that feeling. Overall, I evaluated that I had compassion for the person who had hurt me. But now, I realized, that I was wishing for compassion for myself.
In fact, I deeply desired to live softly in my heart regarding this person, even though we, most likely, would never have a close relationship. The hurt from years of feeling rejected, having it one-sided, and the memories of harsh words exchanged all surfaced once again. I stayed in this suspended state for a while as I listened to my desire to live in my heart and, yet, still feel emotionally safe about this relationship. I wondered if this was even possible. And did I have the courage to step outside my comfort zone of being shut down?
Reading my book, I came across an extraordinary story of a woman who was at a meditation retreat. She began to release her pain and grief as she experienced loving compassion for herself. Oddly, what had helped her was a warm hard-boiled egg that she placed in her pocket to remind her of her own warm, soft heart. The egg stayed in her pocket for a couple days. It was a way of holding herself and bringing back the warmth to her grieving heart. And it worked.
I discovered that my desire to live in a soft heart was of primary importance to me. What was my equivalent of an egg in my pocket? It was the decision to regard this person with my heart’s softness rather than feeling bristled. I could continue wishing wellness to this person’s life and feeling compassion for their hardships as I had done. Only now I could do it with a soft heart. And at the same time, I could maintain a distance which caused me to feel emotionally safe, without a need to rekindle the relationship. This was more about my need to be consistent living an open heart throughout every area of my life, than it was about trying to fix the relationship.
Just as my foot had come alive, it was like new life coursing through my heart.
I was now engaged in this new path and I had a means to practice it. I decided that every time this person comes to my mind, rather than feeling defensive or grieved over the loss of what possibly could have been a beautiful relationship but never was, I had a new place to go. I could choose, in that moment, to hold joy, love, compassion, well-wishing and blessing and even forgiveness in my heart. And at the same time I could hold great tenderness towards this person as well as myself.
I had a way now of letting go of the sadness for not being close, and not sharing laughter. I felt the grief behind my fear of letting go, which had turned into emotional defensiveness. Now it was time to be true to myself and move forward in my heart by opening it where it had been closed.
Letting go meant I could return to that part of my heart and have new life, living softly and with tenderness towards myself as well as the other person.
I thought of the human predicament where we wear masks that cause us to forget who we are with each other. Masks of warring political parties, terrorists, rapists, savage behaviors, child molesters and masks hiding horrible motivations of greed, apathy, injustice, and selfishness.
Our masks occupy us with judgments, fears, categories of good and evil, right and wrong sides. They continually separate us – even from ourselves.
Masks also create powerful emotions of bitter resentment, anger, rage, hate, revenge, fear, and distrust.
All the while, there’s a hidden and forgotten truth that underlies our connection through God’s Allness. We are of this Allness. We are spectacular in our original union and oneness with one another. We belong to each other as a family of love, godliness, and compassion.
This is the truth, our reason for being, and the most important thing to remember. And to hold each other wholeheartedly in our original state of innocence and purity, free of wrong, while maintaining our right to live in our compassionate hearts of love and forgiveness. This is the highest practice. Without this, something within us dies.
In our compassionate hearts, we don’t live to fix anyone or the pain we may experience from them. We rise above all differences to stay in our hearts with softness, gentleness, and tenderness for us all.
In this way, we are safe and free to be vulnerable, open, and connected in the center of our compassion, living from our hearts with softness.
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