LEARNING TO LICK OUR OWN WOUNDS

 



“If your compassion does not include yourself,

it is incomplete.”

Buddha


Only a deep awareness of our own imperfection can help us understand our fellow-beings’.

“I am imperfect”… “I am fallible”… “I don’t have all the answers”… “I need help from others” – this realization helps us to be kind. Patience, tolerance, empathy, forgiveness and healing… Yes, they come from a deep realization of our imperfection. It is not  possible for us to deeply relate to our fellow-beings, if we do not recognize our own imperfection and need for interdependence?

The lesser we see my own flaws and fallibility, the more we distance ourselves from our fellow-beings. Conversely, the more we see our own flaws and fallibility, the closer we get to our fellow-beings.

Thus, before we learn to forgive others, we need to forgive our own selves. Compassion towards others begins with compassion to ourselves.

This is an important lesson for inner peace. Yet, it’s the most elusive one.

Just as animals learn to withdraw and lick their own wounds after getting defeated, you and I need to do the same. We get wounded in our daily frictions. Our inability to accept each other’s imperfection is what causes these frictions. And, the sooner we realize this and withdraw, the lesser wounded we get. And, licking our own wounds is the only way to our recovery…

It's self-care… Self-healing.






GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic.: pixabay

 

Video: Robbie Dunbar

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