Parakalein

I was with a person who was very troubled by events in his life that we overwhelming.  He had been judged badly and cruelly, I think, by people who had been treated badly and cruelly by him.

I met with him even though he had said some mean, judgmental and cruel things to me about me.  I asked him why he thought I was willing to meet with him given what he had said to me.  He was not sure.  I told him that I was there because I refused to let my life be directed by parts of me that are hurt, wounded or frustrated.  I choose to respond to people with "openheartedness" regardless of their behavior.  It is about me not about them.

As we met he told me the story in his head about what people had done to him, said about him, and how rejected and judged he felt.  After listening at length to his story.  I told him the reason I had chosen to meet with him is that I heard his attack of me as the expression of a hurt and wounded person who I wanted to see and hear, from an "open heartedness" that was about who I try to be.  I asked him if he could hear another story.  I told him a story using all the facts that he had used in his story with a different spin on it that was about people really caring about him but feeling very frustrated by him.  There actions toward him were from frustration as his actions toward them.  He was incensed.

I asked him a simple question, "Why do you believe and value the story inside your head and cannot see or value the alternate story in your head."

His head has been wounded so deeply that when he tries to speak for that wounded part to protect it or defend it, the result is perennial wounding.  The tragedy is that there is truth to both stories.  It is only about him.  the tragedy is that the other people's story is only about them.  This is what makes this conflict un-resolvable.  When stories of a wounded head meet stories of wounded heads there is only more head injuries and the heart can never feel heard or healed.

At the same time to invite a person to be healed in heart so they can not have to fight for their rights or cause sounds "counter productive".  Interestingly it is the only thing that will result in countering that is productive.

Cultivating an open heart is to nurture a healed heart.  For a heart to heal it has to give up its burden and beliefs from the wounds of the head.  The wounds of the head are real life head injuries.  The come from experience and from conclusions based on those experiences.  However stories based on a true story are not the true or full story ever.  The story behind the hurt or wounded head is the unheard or wounded heart.  It is only when the heart is healed that the head is relieved form it s burden.  No head convincing will do the work of the heart.  It is the work of the heart that is transforming.

I have a part that has learned the hard way this life lesson: Open your heart to hear the inner story of healing that is in you.