Tag: Pain

A gift for you

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Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. – James Clear

I have been hurt. So have you. Somewhere along the line we have all been on the receiving end of behaviour that is rude, thoughtless, violent, offensive, toxic, troublesome – you name it. And it can cut deep. It causes pain which doesn’t just disappear.

The importance of forgiveness…

But carrying hurt around, staying angry, storing the pain in a section of our mind so we can revisit it time and time again, only perpetuates the hurt. It keeps the wound from healing. The strange part about that is it has no effect on the person who hurt us in the slightest.

How to forgive…

Now I don’t pretend to be the expert of how to forgive someone, I know it has something to do with letting go of the anger and working to get to a place where we are not reliving the experience, eventually even wishing the person well in their life. There’s no three step process for this unfortunately, you can do your own research on what may work best for you, but I can tell you that once you get to the point where you can forgive, it is an amazing gift for yourself. You will feel lighter, happier, healthier and be able to live your life without the constant threat of being thrust into pain and anger.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean you let them do it again…

Just because you forgive someone for hurting you, that doesn’t mean you automatically invite them back into your life where they can do the same thing again. Forgiveness doesn’t go hand in hand with trust. I can forgive you for crashing my car, but that doesn’t mean you still get to drive my car. The damage can be fixed, but it is costly and not one that I am willing to pay twice.

So, I can forgive someone for hurting me, giving myself a gift, making my way through life lighter, happier and healthier, whilst having solid boundaries in place to protect me from future hurt.

Hurting people hurt people

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The hardest thing for me to do is to looking past someone’s outward behaviours to see the motivations of their behaviours. Everyone acts in a way that makes sense to them at some level. For those that commit acts of violence or aggression or seek to tear people down, mostly what motivates those actions is pain, hurt and trauma. Sure, some people are psychopaths, but most people are just in pain. That doesn’t excuse their behaviour, nor should it inoculate them from the consequences of their bahaviour, but it does give insight as the reason why. Once we can see the hurt, pain and trauma, then we can attempt to heal those parts and, hopefully, bring an end to violent acts and aggression, at least in that person.

You see, hurting people hurt people. If you have been hurt in your life (and who hasn’t?), it is likely that you are hurting those people closest to you, without even realising it. It is almost a guarantee, unless…

Unless you have done the work of healing, unless you have access to gratitude, unless you have been generous to yourself.

Being generous to yourself helps you heal from the hurt, hurt people less and gain superpowers to not be as hurt by other hurting people.

Hurt, pain and trauma is a big fat mess, but generosity can be starting point to bring some healing to you and those around you.

Oh, That Hurt.

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I recently hurt my back. You may have heard about it if you have seen me; it seems that I can talk about nothing else.

I didn’t do anything specific to cause the injury, just a combination of a newborn baby, lifting things and a minor history or back complaints. Every couple of years or so something like this happens, but this one was worse than normal. If you have ever experienced back pain, you will know what I am talking about because you use your back to do everything. I couldn’t put socks, shoes or pants on, I couldn’t sit in chairs, or find a comfortable way to stand and sneezing was a nightmare.

My effectiveness at work plummeted. If you can sit or stand, you can’t email, or plan, or meet or pretty much do anything that a job requires. But the worst thing was the threat of a sudden burst of pain at any given moment. It was all I could think about because one false move would conjure significant pain.

It gave me a glimpse of what it is like for someone who constantly lives with pain, where it permeates every area of your life, it wears you down and changes the way you think. It gets to a point where you cannot imagine life without pain, and it is terrifying. Things that were previously possible are no longer possible because of your pain. That is the cruel psychological effect that it has.

Not unlike the effect of poverty. I have often referred to the psychological effects that poverty has on people, because not having enough to feed your family becomes all that you think about, it permeates every area of your life. Things that were previously possible or may seem possible to someone on the outside looking in, are not possible because of poverty. You cannot imagine a life without it, and it is terrifying. Unless…

Unless someone does something to overcome it. Unless something changes.

Now, I can see a specialist and do my rehab exercises and work to improve my back. That’s up to me, no one else can do it for me.

Poverty doesn’t work the same way. It is a trap that no person can work their way out of by themselves. It requires someone to step in, make a donation and take what seems impossible and make it possible. That is what ending poverty looks like.

Loss Breeds Gratitude

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity Guy1 Comment

I missed a concert recently. It was going to be amazing, the first date night with my wife for a while, a musician that we both loved, the first concert of their Australian tour. By all accounts a perfect night ahead…until

There are very few words that I can use to explain what happened and not gross you out, but just before we were about to leave our 18 month old was unwell, which required a clean up and a decision that we couldn’t leave him with babysitters like that, even if they were family. So we gave our tickets away and I was shattered. We both were. So much of a build up led to a giant let down and disappointment.

Most people around me at the time shared my disappointment, but a few encouraged me to be thankful for what I did have and for the fact that other people enjoyed the concert on my behalf. I hear that, but I wasn’t in the place, yet.

I think it’s important when we experience loss in life that we acknowledge it and experience it. Sure, this was just a concert but the principal is the same with any loss. For us it was a loss of an experience, a loss of what could have been, and in some way I needed to grieve that loss.

After a little while we got tickets to another concert. A different artist and venue, but this one we actually made it to, just, and we loved it. We probably loved it more because we missed out previously.

Loss breeds gratitude. If we let it, if we sit with the painful, difficult parts of life and grieve, that paves the way, over time, for joy to be experienced.