Breaking Free from the Circle of Pain

With what I have seen in my country till this very moment, it is not strange to some of those who were born in my country that at an early stage, life is going to reveal to us or has even revealed that pain is not a new thing, right from the start of our upbringing, to disciplinarian parents, and to you and I who have been betrayed by those who we refer to as dear friends, and I would like to say that in our day-to-day activities as humans, pain is kind of woven. And with what I have seen with true honesty, I have come to realize that pain can lead to a regular thing, which often hurts people, and as a result of that, they end up hurting people around them. I could remember one of the stories that my sister told me about when she was still in junior secondary school. There was this female teacher of hers, always unsmiling and always looking intimidating, that they usually wondered what was wrong with her. But along the way, they found out that she was raised by very harsh parents who often beat her even for the smallest of her mistakes.  But she refused to let go of those traumas, hence her carrying them into my sister's class, making them afraid of her once she is around. However, with the way she often behaves, I once told myself that she might not be wicked, just that she is still rotating around the cycle of the pain she passed through. But when I look at situations like that, can we say we should hold those people responsible for such actions? I will say yes, because we should all be held accountable for all the actions we take, regardless of what we might have passed through or shaped us. When someone has this traumatic behavior from a young age, the behavior is not an excuse to be behaving negatively towards people. If we stay back and keep doing self-pity due to the hurt we have experienced in the past, that hurt will keep growing, and such a person is going to be a victim of those circumstances, and it will pass from him to his offspring and on. I have met a lady who was raised by harsh parents, and anytime she does something, the next thing she would say is that, “I was brought up this way.” But what I know for sure is that that circle of pain can be overshadowed if the person can admit to it instead of living in the shadow of my memories of it, instead of self-pity. When such a person chooses to seek genuine personal interaction with the person they trust, maybe choose therapy, or it will work, and stay prayerful always, instead of wallowing in self-pity. Letting go is something that is very visible, but it does not mean letting go of accountability. Letting go and refusing to allow that memory to haunt us is not holding on to the pain and letting it define our identity.  Now, assuming that teacher who taught my sister had decided not to hold on to her past pains, perhaps she would not have passed fear into those students back then, and they would have learned in joy and open minds instead of being intimidated. And I hope some of those students won't linger on that fear too. And what I will say is that we all have a choice to pick from. Either to linger on or decide to get past it and move on. Either way, it is not going to be very easy, but moving on is the only way to make our tomorrow a very safe zone that the experience of the past. --- Thank you for reading. > _{Images created by MetaAi}