STOP SCRATCHING YOUR WOUNDS

A husband and wife I know quite well were involved in a family feud with her older brother for decades. Many years ago, just prior to the death of the wife's father, her brother bought the house the father lived in. The wife felt she was chided of part of her inheritance, and a feud ensued that ended up a a lawsuit and the woman not talking to her older brother for well over 15 years. The younger brother, not wanting to choose sides, also became an unwitting party to the feud, and the woman stopped talking to him as well.

What I remember most is how the husband and wife kept talking about how they had been wronged, and that they were pursing the lawsuit for their children as well (despite the fact that the children would rather the lawsuit was dropped and family peace was made). With every recounting of the story of how they had been wronged, it was obvious that the couple felt they were right and justified in their actions. There was quite a lot of "righteousness". Not only that, but the visual image I had was of the couple scratching open the old wounds on their arms, and then showing them saying: "See how much I am still bleeding. See how much damage they have done to me."

While the above may be an extreme case of how the ego mind can make "being right" more important than "being whole", it illustrates a very crucial point that escapes many of us: our ego mind is willing to keep us wounded and even wound us more, by making us believe that the past is still in the present. The ego is actually creating new wounds by scratching at old ones, and blaming the old perpetrator for the new wounds ! What is commonly referred to as "living in the past" is actually caused by thoughts our (ego) minds are creating in the present.

And therein lies the solution to the problem: the human body and mind are very adept at healing. But we can unconsciously or consciously interfere with that healing ("becoming whole" again) by scratching our wounds, whether they be physical, mental or emotional. The mind has all kinds of ways of tricking us into believing that if we stop doing so, we have to agree that what was clearly wrong is right. Righteous indignation is a sure fire sign that we are being tricked into this belief. So is playing out a victim drama or continuing to blame someone for past wrongs.

The antidote to this is forgiveness, but the concept of forgiveness too has been distorted by our (ego) minds. More about that in another article.