Love even those who hurt you
Learn to love and love with clear boundaries
What is hard to do — Loving a loved one, or those who hurt us? Of course, loved one is named such as we still love them. Generally most people say that it’s easy to love a loved one. For those hurt by other humans, loving the person who caused the damage is unfathomable. Rightfully so! Through the hurt, a piece of the person who sustained the wound is taken away from them. It is definitely a herculean effort to get oneself to love even those who hurt us. But it is possible and that constitutes loving kindness. In Buddhism, loving kindness is called Metta. Some of us like to refer to loving kindness as compassion. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama says that compassion should be practiced when possible and that it is always possible.
When we approach a person who has been injured and ask them to have loving kindness or compassion or forgiveness towards their wound inflictor, we are most often hurting them. With our demand and judgement, we invalidate their feelings and the severity of their wound.
From wound to healing
When we get hurt physically, or emotionally, we follow a process to healing. First comes the grieving stage. It is possible that there is some strong feelings associated with this step but the grief of the person who’s hurt is real. It has to be felt, it has to be expressed, and hopefully with the help of either loved ones or professionals (or both) be soothed. Tears should be allowed to flow from the eyes as an expression of their emotional state.
When the person is ready and with the correct help, the next step in the process would be forgiveness. Forgiveness however has nothing to do with the other person — the inflictor of the pain. Forgiveness is the acceptance that this pain has happened to me and the conviction that it will not cause me to suffer more. Forgiveness helps us segue into healing where the pain starts to abate, and we become fully healed. The heal process too requires the love and support of trusted and caring people who can stand beside to help as needed.
When we fall and get a bloody gash, the injury isn’t going to disappear the next moment. For sure there will be pain for a period (grieving period). After that, the pain will stop (forgiveness) and the wound will start to get better (healing period). The wound mostly will leave a scar (forgiveness and healing doesn’t imply forgetting) that might remind us of the injury.
Achieve Loving Kindness and love all
In order to achieve loving kindness towards all, we have to first understand where love, also known as loving kindness or compassion, originates from. If we were to look deep inside, we will actually see there are many layers to ourselves. One layer is the physiological sphere — physical + mental + emotional areas constitute this space. The second is the spiritual sphere. Through our spiritual sphere, we are actually connected with each other, the nature and the universe.
Loving kindness, sometimes referred to as unconditional love, originates in the spiritual sphere. Since the layers are not disconnected from each other, this love is shared with the physiological space, which then spreads the love using acts and / or expressions of the same. Similarly when we experience love from others, our physiological layer receives and sends to the spiritual space.
After a traumatic experience like a physical (including sexual), or an emotionally abusive incident, the person who has sustained the wound feels the impact in the physiological area. During the grieving period, there is a disconnect with the spiritual side. The wounded could be struggling to feel the unconditional love for themselves. While it is easy to expect them to not feel guilty, most often they tend to hold themselves responsible for their injury and find it daunting to unconditionally love themselves.
Once the grieving period ends, through forgiveness, the broken connection to the spiritual side is repaired. By letting go, and convinced not to let the wound hurt them anymore, the abused start to love themselves unconditionally. At this time, the guilt, self-doubt, and self-loathing start to diminish. When the connection to the side that’s capable of loving kindness is re-established, the healing begins. During and after the period of healing, the physiological side is restored back to its full wellbeing.
Those practicing loving kindness or compassion are then able to use their spiritual side to love even those who hurt them. However, their physiological side needn’t participate in this effort. Hence, the evident displays of love, affection or reconciliation might be missing.
Loving Kindness and Boundaries
Imagine you are a farmer who has a field of wonderfully growing crops. You would protect your crops from intruders, using a fence. That is still a practice of loving kindness. When you leave the field out and available for all, you allow some animal or person to hurt your crops, your prospects of reaping the benefits, your hard work and also hurt themselves through the act. A simple fence prevent everyone from getting hurt and serves as the most compassionate thing to do.
In life, the extent of the hurt or the abuse can push the person to decide on having delayed or no reconciliation. This decision helps put the boundaries that protects one’s physiological space, and prevents the other from repeating their act. While visibly there aren’t any acts of love as we know, everyone can practice loving kindness from their spiritual side.
Genuine Apology
Genuine apology consists of awareness of the mistake, expression of remorse, acknowledgment of the pain inflicted, and corrective action. When someone offers a genuine apology, and it resonates with the affected, the possibilities of a reconciliation increase. Loving kindness then manifests as visible acts of love.
Conclusion
- Loving kindness is possible to practice all the time. If not from the physiological side, it is always possible from the spiritual one.
- A person who has been affected goes through a process of grieving, forgiving and healing. (Rushing another through this process leads to serious consequences)
- Loving kindness doesn’t have to exhibit visible evidences
- Genuine apology helps with a possible reconciliation
- Boundaries are an integral part of the loving kindness practice
