Today one of my best Facebook buds, who is funny and positive and has the most “can-do” attitudes I have come across, posted her status update as two tiny words “I apologise…” She is normally so funny and juicy that even the “I apologise…” has a lilt and a spring in its step. A conversation underneath it ensued, which started as “and so you should. who gave you permission to walk around being happy and bouncy and saying lovely things to awesome people?? and supportive, and encouraging, and just plain darned nice?? LOL…..♥” Then came her response “I hurt somebody today… And I’m truly sorry. It’s not in me to do things like this :-(”

It got all of us chatting and ended up reflecting what I really believe. We are souls who perhaps have been together many times, we adore each other, yet we come to this crazy planet, that is filled with ambiguity, to learn and grow and hopefully leave it as better souls who worked through issues. I have come to think that perhaps the people that hurt us the most are the ones who love us the most, because against their wishes we have asked them to help us learn a lesson on this planet. It is not a role they may want to play a part in, but one where they have “agreed to play bad cop” when they really would have liked a better starring role in the movie of our life. But they got the bit part, the part they did not want to play, because that was the part we needed the most.

So when I have been hurt, I try to look at it through the lens of what I needed to learn. In the last few years on a number of fronts, I and others “broke my heart.” I had a heart that was very together. In this time I have learnt that a broken heart is an open heart and amazing things happen when your heart is open. I have learnt that I am not perfect and therefore not to rail against the hurts inflicted on me, but rather see them as the most amazing gifts, because in them I have learnt more of who I truly am, than in many of my most joyous experiences.

The piece I still have not quite reconciled is where I am the one who did the hurting. As much as I can rationalise and accept when I am on the “receiving” end, I still struggle if I am the “inflictor.” I think it is because when you are the one doing the hurting, you know it is “not like yourself” and you wrestle with why it happened in the first place. I think the uncomfortableness that you are left with when you have done the hurting, is a reflection of how much you loved the person and how much you never wanted to hurt them or how much it grates against your own values when it occurs. To my earlier post “Does love mean never having to say you are sorry?” I am now firmly of the view that the absence of an apology means that hurter has not contemplated the lesson from their perspective either.

So, to my Facebook Bud, you have the best intentions, we know it, we love your spirit, you might have done the best thing for that person, it might not feel good, but it may be just the thing they needed to learn. My worst experiences have been my best experiences because they taught me who I am. Perhaps you helped someone find themselves…or you just learnt who you really are in your own moment of naked vulnerability.

Embrace it…

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Tanya Uncategorized