Erica Staab

I remember sitting in tears talking to a friend about something another had done wanting to know how they could be so hurtful, so cold, so insensitive, and she simply said softly: “Hurting people hurt.”

In some ways it reminds me of this poster:

Because no matter where you put the comma, the pause it is true… hurting people hurt… themselves, others and it can be really messy, and hard, and complicated.  And yet… taking responsibility for our hurts, for our places of pain can be one of the most courageous things we ever do.

What had started this whole thought was reading this beautiful quote from a wonderful book This I Know: Thoughts On Unravelling The Heart by Susannah Conway,  While I had read this quote recently and was touched by it in the reading, it showed up for me again in this interview by Brene Brown, and when things begin to show up time and time again I know that it means someone in my life (often me) needs to hear these words, to be reminded of this truth.  So as a part of my commitment to healing myself and the world I offer my thoughts, my musings, my questions, and the answers that as Rilke says “Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”  Perhaps together we can live into this beautiful work of healing our hurts, living with integrity, holding one another gently when we fall from grace and to come to love ourselves and one another through it all.

“I believe that by being the best and most healed version of ourselves we can truly make a difference in the world. I’m not an activist or politician, and I’m not able to have any direct impact on the areas of the world where help is needed. But what I can do is make a difference in the small pocket of the world I call home.

I can live with integrity and be honest about my feelings, even when they hurt. I can put my whole heart into my work and pay forward the generosity that was shown to me when my world fell apart. I can look after myself, knowing that by healing my own hurts I won’t be passing them on to anyone else. In a society like ours, filled with so many emotionally wounded people acting out their pain, this is possibly the most important work we could ever do—heal our hurts so we don’t pass them on.”