Responding to Painful Events

When emotional pain is not acknowledged and attended to it morphs into all manner of effect. It can become disease, injury, resentment, bitterness, anger, violence which is often referred to as 'evil'.

When I learned of the school shooting in Connecticut I felt deep pain and sadness and wondered what might make a young man kill his mother then drive to an elementary school and start shooting children and teachers then himself? The immediate response was 'pain'. The most likely driver would have to be emotional pain of some sort that may have been festering for a long time and somehow triggered (pardon the pun). 

When this kind of event takes place you find people everywhere reviewing their safety practices and making new laws and rules while busily condemning evil and hating the perpetrators. In the end, how does that address the pain? It's no different from what we do personally when we are hurting and don't know what to do with it; there is a tendency to blame and to put up more layers of defense.

There is another way. We can attend to that which is hurting with compassion and understanding, whether it is our own pain and the pain of others. We can learn to see beyond the outer layers of hatred and anger to the soft center of innocence and vulnerability. We can give what is actually being called for which is love instead of rejection.

One of the reasons I don't turn away from the 'news' is that every time something like these shootings or any kind of painful event happens it is an opportunity to focus love and compassion where it is most needed in the world and in myself. After all, the way we perceive the outer is but a projection of the inner world in the end.

Start right where you are, attending to your own pain and see how that affects your view of the world and the way you respond to events like these school shootings or wars or drunk drivers or any other painful scenario.

You want peace and love? Be peace and love.

Namaste