Have you ever had the experience of seeing a future potential
or probable negative consequence, and pushing to change things in order to
prevent it, only to have that push for change resisted and fought against? This
can be a very frustrating and unbearable situation, where it is like watching a
slow train wreck that you see is preventable, where after doing everything you
possibly can to prevent it, you get to the point where you have to walk away
and let it play out, removing yourself from the situation and hoping for the
best.
This happened to me in a big way recently, where I, years
ago, went through majorly ungraceful and blundering efforts to change a
situation that I saw could lead down a very bad path. In the end, I ended up
losing a life I had built due to the choice that I could not be a part of it
anymore, and my presence there would be a statement of my acceptance and
allowance, which I could not stand by.
Many years went by and no consequence came, and I was soon
in the position of questioning how I see things and whether or not I was making
too big of a deal about it. It had been, I would say, the most painful and difficult
time in my life, and during that time, I had accumulated a lot of emotional
baggage about this issue that I had been sitting with for a while.
Recently, I found out that all the consequences I had
predicted had eventually played out in a big way, and a person had been brought
through very unfortunate circumstances. Every now and again, over time, I would
hear about the bad things happening, and I had an interesting internal
experience deep within me, one that was positive, when by all accounts, I saw
that I should only be supportive and caring. I brushed aside the bizarre
positive experience and instead behaved in the way I saw was who and how I
wanted to be. But when the most recent big blow in the person’s life occurred,
I could no longer ignore this experience I was having, and decided to pull it
out and examine it.
What I found within myself was the experience of righteousness,
spite, blame and justification, where the words “I told you so” came up, along with
the fact that I had perceived myself to have gone through hell and back and
lost everything, where I took the consequence personally as if justice had been
served. This pattern can be seen in humanity all over the world, for example in
politics, where the population wants to see leaders hang from a noose, or one
race wants to see the other race suffer because of injustices done unto them in
the past. Where it then ‘feels good’ to see another suffer a fate you would
never, ever want to experience for yourself.
So, the righteousness comes from me having seen, predicted and
given unheeded warnings of the potential negative consequences, and then in the
end having seen myself as ‘proven right’, and the spite, blame and justification came
from me having felt I had suffered unfairly at the hands of another, and that
they should now experience pain and upset too, so that they can learn the hard
way that they should have listened to me.
In this situation, I must return to humility and bringing it
back to myself, because I cannot claim to understand all the workings of life,
as if it is so clean cut and planned out, even if it may seem that way. My responsibility
is to myself, and to find the lesson that is in there for me, not to immediately
seek and point out the lesson for the other, as that is their process to walk,
and I have mine. Only once I clear myself of any reactions can I look at then
supporting another through their own consequence.
We as humanity are not a species that has a proven record of
the ability to learn from our mistakes, even when they are obvious and the
lesson is right in font of us, we so much more often choose the ‘feel good’ way,
or the path of emotional turmoil, the righteousness, the spite, the blame and
the justification. Even though this is the path to further suffering and moving
in the opposite direction of any kind of solution, it is still the more common
path to take, and I am seeing now in my life why this is the case. I had so easily dismissed the subtle, underlying experience, and it was only by pulling it out of myself with awareness that I was able to see what I was actually in fact doing inside myself.
How we can support ourselves to end this cycle is by
individually learning the tough lessons in our own lives, and forging another
path on an individual level, because in the end, humanity is made of billions
of individuals that are collectively living out and creating the overall
outflows of what we call ‘human nature’.
How I was able to change my own way of living, reacting and
seeing things is by placing myself in the shoes of the other, seeing past my
own reactions and self-interest, and really looking at what it would be like to
be them and to be in their place in that moment of consequence. What I saw was
that it would be mostly difficult to deal with my immediate reality, and my
focus would be more on day-to-day survival, healing, and researching how to
support myself in my current position. To have someone come in, at this point
in time, and say “see, I told you so!” from a starting point of righteousness,
spite, blame and self-justification would only cause me to react more towards that person,
and not so much see the lesson they are apparently trying to show me. Maybe I
would see it if I were in a more healthy and stable position, but not so much
from the point of being at my lowest low, where what would be more supportive
would be for the person to do what they could to support me back to a place of
stability first and foremost.
With this understanding, from where I stand currently, the
righteousness, spite and justification melts away, and the reality of the
situation becomes more clear. I can see beyond my self-interest and how to be of
best support for the other. This doesn’t mean I know exactly what to say or do,
but it does mean that, if and when moments present themselves, I will be there
to support as I can, with a clear starting point, to not taint the interaction
with my own baggage that I hadn’t dealt with yet.
