Tuesday, June 10, 2008

On finding peace

No wanding today, so no IVF news.  I am hanging around the hotel, and am supposed to be working, but haven't started yet.  Maybe I will get inspiration shortly, or maybe I will go for a swim in the pool.  I am bone tired, though, from the stims and from traveling mixed in with the time change, so I really wish I hadn't committed to do so much work.  I'd be OK if a few things with deadlines hadn't cropped up at the last minute, because nothing I had planned to bring with me needs to be finished until I get back and could be worked on piecemeal, but a couple of the last minute items have a deadline of tomorrow.  Ugh.  Must get brain in gear somehow.


But I have been mulling over finding peace in life.  It is all very well for me to feel (and I truly do) that everything that has happened to me has happened for a reason.  That my struggles and suffering have brought me to where I am today.  I totally believe now that suffering can be very good for the soul, and can bring so much growth.  And I am very much at peace with my path.  I am blessed, in fact.  I still feel that my heart sometimes beats so wildly in my chest with love for everybody in the room that it fills me with amazement that I even see people differently now.  We are all just souls inhabiting bodies, and all have our path to walk on, however winding that path is towards peace.  I realized yesterday that I am even at peace with moustaches.  Oh yes, I have harbored a hatred towards them and the men that think they look just fine with a moustache.  But now?  Hey, if they think they look fine, then how about that?  Isn't that just dandy and fun?  Even moustaches have their place in the world.

Except.  Except I am stuck thinking about child abuse.  I am lucky that that never happened to me.  But how can I justify my new-found firm belief that everything happens for a reason when there is child abuse in the world?  I can see no good that can come out of that, no good at all.  And I can't see being able to get past it if it had happened to me.  Or that anybody could or should get past it and find peace with it.  I suppose I should just think that previously I couldn't see infertility, or cancer, or the death of a loved one as being things that one could ever find peace with, and now I can.  So maybe it will come eventually if I mull hard enough.  Maybe.  But the destruction of trust, the mental, emotional and physical pain and torture inflicted upon an innocent child?  I doubt that I will find the good in that any time soon.  I watched some animal cops shows on TV yesterday, and I've got to say that animal abuse is pretty darn awful too. 

7 comments:

bleu said...

It is interesting you mentioned child abuse. Last year in an effort to try and become a better mother I started getting books on forgiveness. I didn't want my inability to forgive to hinder me as a parent. The interesting thing is since having my own child I have found my forgiveness of my own parents to become less and less not the other way around.

Well after much reading and searching the main consensus I found was that forgiveness is important and possible except in cases of child abuse, then there is not letting it rule your life but not excusing or forgiving it either. That is where I finally landed, trying not to dwell on the scars and let it go knowing I am not an abuser, but I do not forgive them either.
I am so glad you have found peace, it is really beautiful.

Anonymous said...

Both my parents were abused - it was a large part of what brought them together. Their shared histories have changed them both and helped them make many decisions about how they wanted to live their lives and how they wanted to raise their children. They have been good parents. I wish that they hadn't been abused but I can also see very specific times when a good decision they made was clearly guided by their own childhood experiences. It sounds horrible to say I benefitted from their horrible experiences, but in some ways I did.

My mom's parents have both passed and she has found that she can forgive them now. I don't know if she could have forgiven the bodies that carried their souls, but she forgives their souls and thinks that whatever drove them to be scared and abusive in life has been lifted off them in death. I don't think everybody has to get to that place or has to get to it how my mom did, but its definitely brought her peace.

DC said...

I'm with you on the child abuse and animal abuse. Oh, and on the crazy hormone-fueled haze. Not fun.

Alacrity said...

The only time I watched the animal cop show I cried through the entire thing and for the rest of the day.

It is amazing how cruel people can be - to children and to animals.

Anonymous said...

I think one can find meaning in what has happened to them, but that suffering isn't inherently meaningful. If you were abused, you'd have to make meaning of it, hopefully not that it was your karma, 'cause that would just giving into the abusers.

Not on Fire said...

Okay I am not an expert at this, but you don't have to like child or animal abuse (a good thing), you just have to accept that it happens.

It happens because people are unconscious. The only thing that you can do, other than reporting it when you see it, is to be conscious so that you are adding to the positive energy.

Does that sound right to you?

Anonymous said...

I believe that the statement "everything happens for a reason" only works in retrospect. That is, you can look back and find "reasons" for anything that happened (indeed, that is something most people do automatically) but finding some connection doesn't make the relationship between the happening and the reason cause and effect. Finding a connection is particularly easy to do if the first happening is bad and the "reason" is some outcome that even has a tiny bit of good in it. You can focus on that if it makes you feel better. But lots and lots of bad results come out of bad events -- and there is no reason to think the "good" result is any more the "cause" of the happening than any the bad results. Things happen (bad and good) and you make the best of it that you can. If believing that some good result is the "cause" of some bad event is the way you make the best of it, go ahead. But manufacturing connections where they don't exist gets you to problems like the abuse situation. I hope you don't see this as harsh -- but I do think it is a more realistic approach to this kind of thinking.