TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND MY PAIN!

“No apology has meaning if we haven’t listened carefully to the hurt party’s anger and pain.” Harriet Lerner

I love Brene Brown. If you aren’t familiar with her work, Google her. She has TED talks, books, a fantastic presence on Facebook, and so much more. She is a research professor at the University of Houston, an author, and speaker. The majority of her research is about vulnerability. She’s definitely worth looking into.

Anyway....Brene posted a list of her favorite books recently and on that list was Harriet Lerner’s book “Why Won’t You Apologize? : Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts”. I ordered it right away and read it cover to cover in a couple of days.

I won’t go into a full on review of the book but  if you do nothing else today, after reading this blog of course, buy this book and read it.

As someone who witnesses people’s pain (their masks) - and who has had my fair share of it -, I can tell you that pain is as prevalent as oxygen. It’s also as invisible as oxygen.

Mass shootings wouldn’t happen if the shooters weren’t in pain. It is hard to inflict pain on others if you feel loved and are living life from a loving place. Pain must be shared. If I’m in pain, you should be in pain. That’s our society's mentality. Everyone is so caught up in the pain they feel that they become blind to the fact that others are hurting too. 

People are suffering and part of that suffering is because they haven’t received a proper apology for a past hurt. The other part of that suffering is people’s inability to be vulnerable and ask for that apology, or worse give an overdue apology. 

Pain and anger needs to be validated in order to heal the wound in your heart. That's the secret to healing our society. If we could all just validate each other rather than argue about who is right and who is wrong, then we could change the world. Literally. 

Putting on a mask to cover your pain only allows that pain to fester. You become angry. You become passive aggressive. You become spiteful - needing someone, anyone to feel the pain that you are in. This is an instance when sharing is NOT caring.

Learning how to be a great apologizer, and a great receiver of apologies, can be such a tremendous tool to healing all of the pain that we carry. Lerner’s book is a great resource for anyone who is in pain or who has caused pain (all of us).

Some of the highlights from the book:

          The Many Faces of “I’m Sorry”

          Five Ways to Ruin an Apology

          The Secret Life of the Non-Apologizer

          How -and Whether- to Accept the Olive Branch

          Who Is at Fault?

I highly recommend that you read this book. Like, right now. Go read it.

If you learn nothing from me, know that whatever pain you are carrying needs to be dealt with. Pain doesn’t hide behind masks very well. It seeps through the mask and oozes like an open wound leaving trails behind you. It’s time to figure out what mask you are wearing to cover your pain. The happy mask? The I’m fine mask? The Enlightened mask (this one is so prevalent now. People claim enlightenment and yet inflict pain on others like it’s their job)? The angry mask? The addictive mask -using substances to cover the pain-? 

Maybe you need an apology. Maybe you need to give an apology. Maybe you will never get that apology but need to work on understanding your roll vs someone else’s behavior that caused you pain.

Talk with a therapist or talk to me. I can help you name the pain and come up with a plan to face that pain - which may be seeing a licensed therapist. The point is that you need to talk to someone who can listen objectively and help you name your pain.

As ever, and namaste.

Kathy