Aug 9, 2022
You Don’t Need to Confront the Person Who Hurt You
Real healing occurs when you do not hold any grudge against anyone
There is a reason behind every action that anyone takes. Even if the action was hurtful to someone the perpetrator of the act himself might be suffering. Any happy person would hardly hurt someone. It is better to understand the reasoning behind the action and forgive the perpetrator for the same. Holding a grudge will eventually eat your happiness and you will never fully heal from the trauma.
Perpetrators are actually struggling
Most people who are hurt want to consider themselves victims and do not want to understand the reasoning behind the person who was the perpetrator. In most cases, the perpetrator of hurtful actions is in fact struggling with internal conflicts. We are so filled with anger against the person that we cannot perceive that the other person may in fact be struggling.
Love is our innate nature. It is only when we experience fear that it creates a blockage in the expression of this love. One is not to be condemned for being frustrated.
“Consider a person who is struggling mentally to be someone who has lost his eyesight. He cannot see love. A blind person is not treated hatefully by others. Rather people have more sympathy for him.”
“Similarly, a person who has lost his ability to love is not to be condemned for being aggressive. He needs more sympathy.”
Healing and confrontation
Most texts tell that you need to confront the perpetrator of the hurtful action in order to relieve yourself of the pain. But I think confronting means you are elevating the status of the perpetrator. If you are mature then you will understand that the perpetrator is working from a lower center of consciousness. He in fact needs more love than you do provided you are working from a higher center of consciousness.
It is only through pure love and acceptance that we can truly heal ourselves. Even if a person confronts the perpetrator then it means he had anger against him.
“Anger is a sign of weakness. Whenever we get angry we need to look inwards and try to address the root cause.”
The process of catharsis and refinement of the inner child helps a person get rid of anger against the perpetrator. After removing the emotional charge associated with the incident one needs to believe that every event that happens to us is in fact enabling us to rise up the evolutionary stage. The difficult situations offer more impetus to work on ourselves and help us reach a happier state. Internalizing this belief will free us from assuming the role of victim. We in fact will be thankful to the perpetrator of the hurtful action as he enabled us to be free from attachments to this world and reach a higher level of consciousness.
Perpetrators need not be free
The fact that we need not hate the perpetrator and rather have sympathy for him does not mean that the perpetrator repeats the same act again especially if it involved physical abuse. We can even go to court in order to confine the person so that he is not hurtful to others. But we do all these with love in our hearts.
Most people believe people can’t change. I think it is not true. Given the right environment and willingness of the person to change, anything is possible. The perpetrator needs to be given an opportunity to express his feelings and work upon them. The various beliefs of the person need to be handled on a one-by-one basis till he frees himself from internal conflicts and becomes a happy person.
Example: Ram is an ophthalmologist. He recently did an operation on Sara but due to some issue in the eye lotion there was an infection and Sara lost her eyesight in her right eye. Sara’s husband Abdul got infuriated and came with his friends and vandalized Ram’s hospital. He even physically assaulted Ram and fractured his leg.
Ram initially had quite some anger against Abdul for his action. He too was boiling with anger and considered himself the victim. There was a thought in his mind too to hurt Abdul. It was then that Ram was advised by his friends to undergo the process of catharsis and refinement of the inner child.
Ram performed catharsis on the incident and removed all the emotional charge from his psyche. After that, he analyzed the reasons that caused him to become angry. There was insecurity that his career is over as most people would know about his failed operation and might fear coming to him for an eye operation. He also feared financial insecurity as his hospital has been vandalized. In order to address these two issues, Ram internalized some spiritual truths. The aim of life is to have internal happiness and it is not dependent upon professional success. A person who has his basic needs fulfilled can be as happy (or more) as a very rich person. Also, one should not derive happiness from what others think of him. His sense of happiness should come within.
Thus, by working on himself Ram raised his level of consciousness and became a person who was not dependent on others for his happiness and satisfaction. Then he also came out of playing the role of the victim and tried to understand the reasoning why Abdul was so aggressive.
Ram didn’t want other doctors to face the same situation so he went to court against Abdul but with love in his heart. He understood that Abdul was deeply attached to his wife Sara and took the aggressive action out of his frustration. Abdul needs to be treated for his internal turmoil and till then he needs to be confined. But once Abdul works on his inner conflicts and reaches a calmer state of being he too can be freed.
Conclusion
A hurtful action has a perpetrator and a victim. It may be a common perception to have hatred against the perpetrator as it helps in taking stricter action against him but I feel one can even go to court to confine the person. But he can do so with love in his heart. The victim can utilize the hurtful incident to enable him to internalize some spiritual truths and rise up in the evolutionary stage. Doing so would enable him to not see the event in a negative light. Following this approach, the victim can heal himself of the negative effects of the hurtful incident while also enabling the perpetrator to look within. Having hatred would cause both perpetrator and the victim not to heal themselves and hence should be avoided. Hope you follow this approach and help yourself and your perpetrator achieve a calmer state of being.
