Do you want your abuser to rot in hell? This desire may be hurting you the most.
Most of us have had some experience of abuse.
Maybe it was physical or sexual abuse, or maybe it was emotional abuse. There are so many subtle ways to experience abuse. Even just the slightest feeling of being disrespected can feel like abuse.
How do you do that? The experience of abuse runs deep in the mind. And it may be hard to move on and let it go when you know that what your abuser did was wrong.
This is why, years after abuse, it is common for people to keep feeling like a victim, powerless and angry. The mind holds onto the wrongness of what they did and it can’t move past it.
But there’s something interesting worth noticing…
I find that one of the keys to letting go of abuse is to notice where I’m still mentally pushing down my abuser. It takes some stillness to see and to feel.
What they did was wrong. No doubt. There’s no condoning that.
But if I notice where I’m continuing to hammer them with it in my mind for what they did, that’s my my part. This is where I hurt myself. And when I’m doing this, there is no way to disengage from the pain.
My mind is engaged in punishing them. And that keeps bringing me back to the scene of the crime, over and over, trying to right a wrong in a way that can never work. I am literally hurting myself by pushing them down.
Even if that person was abusive, it hurts to attack them, to wish them to suffer, even if I only push them down in my mind.
When I notice how I’m doing this, it can level the playing field a bit. It can tone down the feeling of righteousness and of being a victim. And it can help me to unhook from the pain. There is now something I can do to stop my pain.
Yes, they were abusive. No need to deny it. But where is the pain coming from now? In my experience it’s coming from where I continue to abuse myself and my abuser by wanting them to suffer.
Would you like to get to let go of your old traumas? Join our Inquiry Circle community and take The Work 101, a course in learning how to really deal with any kind of stressful experience.
Todd
"If you haven't undone your painful thoughts, you can get into a bubble bath, light candles, recite positive affirmations, pamper yourself in every way--and once you're out of the tub, the same thoughts will come back to haunt you."
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