Fueled By Love
How do you relate to looking beyond someone's anger and hatred to what they actually love and are simply trying to protect? Can you share a story of a time you were able to do this and see a difficult situation through the lens of love? What helps you avoid the trap of hating the hater?
So much YES to looking beyond someone's anger and hatred to what they love and are trying to protect. This has been my mantra since before our election cycle in 2016 here in the US. Often it has fallen on deaf ears, I was told if I was compassionate and loved, I was then complicit. I disagree. If I love and seek to understand, I feel as if that is trying to build a bridge toward understanding. So, I continue to post about love and compassion for Everyone and seeking to understand what is underneathe the anger/ hate which is often fear and yes, under that is love often of family, sense of security and wanting to be seen, heard understood. Here's to looking through the lens of love. What helps me avoid hating is empathy and compassion and knowing that hurt people hurt people and healed people heal people. Maybe there can be more healing and less hate. <3
"Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." -- Bill W., Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 62.
Love does not drive us; fear does. Love is very different from fear. With all due respect, I disagree with Timber Hawkeye.
It's a beautiful thing to be so aware as to be able to pause, to empathise, and to understand why someone hates, hurts, is racist, etc.
I fall short of this empathy far to often, I'm afraid. I feel so fierce about fairness - fair treatment of others. I am tending to just become quiet especially now with the challenges politically in my home country, America, when I read or hear terrible talk about immigrants, about race, etc. For me my 'right and wrong' are really clear to me and I have sincere difficulty understanding this idea of protection or protecting with racism, or any 'ism' really.
For me the real deal is being more loving within myself, to myself and others, to be of meaningful service to someone else daily, to be accepting and loving in my words and deeds... to be my best self, better and better in every way every day... and when I fall short, I remember that tomorrow is a new day!
When we suspend judgement, the heart opens, love flows and we are free.
