Counselor's Corner: Peace results when we let go of the blame and feel the pain

Fred Cavaiani

So often it becomes easy to blame someone for our pain and our fear. Everyone has emotional pain. But so often we want to avoid  this pain and blame someone else for our pain.  We can become angry with how someone has bluntly talked to us. We can blame a spouse for becoming  upset with us. We can blame parents for how they may have spoken to us in our childhood. But blaming others or circumstances for our pain is never helpful. It stops us from feeling our pain so we can heal. It is never what has happened to us that keeps us stifled and emotionally and spiritually in a prison of self- absorption, resentment, or anger. We use anger and resentments and blame as a way of avoiding healing. I need to feel my pain so I can heal. When I  accept my emotional and even physical pain and not blame others for this, I starting healing and I get to a deeper and more peaceful level within myself. The honest embrace of pain becomes an opening of my heart and mind to healing and to an experience of God.

Anger, blame, and criticism of others in my life will never bring me internal peace. It puts me into an emotional prison of anger and feeling sorry for myself. That never works. But when I embrace the pain I am feeling, I begin to see such positive and good things about life and about other people.  

Last  week, I took a group of people who had lost their spouses in the last year through a meditation. They sat  quiet and receptive and found themselves going much deeper into themselves as  they embraced the pain of the loss of their loved one. Instead of running away from  their loss, they embraced their loss and started feeling peace. The more I open up to the pain in my life, the more I will discover an inner peace even with tears streaming down my face. When I let go of blame, I open up to my pain and I begin to heal. It  is an amazing and accurate paradox of life. When someone says something critical or negative about me or about someone else, or about the world, it doesn’t bring joy or peace to me unless I accept  that this is their difficulty and I do not have to embrace negativity or criticism of others. I don’ t have to correct someone else but I do not have to participate in their negativity. And for certain when negative thinking starts entering my mind,  can quickly decide  to put a stop to negative thoughts and start looking and talking to others in a positive and loving manner. People need to be loved not corrected. In this experience of love, I give another person a chance to feel a loving presence that helps bring out the best in that person and the best in me.

Misery will result when I become angry and critical and focus on blaming others for the condition of the world.  Life will always have serious difficulties.  There will always be pain and suffering.  But there will also be good times, happy times, and peaceful times. These times will increase in my little corner of the world when I let go of blame and feel the pain that is inside of me. That embrace of my pain will bring me into a peaceful state and help me experience joy and hope and a positive experience of God.  When someone smiles at me and is kind toward me, I feel hopeful and loved.  What if I did that to everyone. Before I started typing this article I went and got something to eat at McDonalds. The young attendant there was so kind and friendly. I felt better. She felt better. Staying kind and positive changes us and changes other people. Each present moment of life when positively embraced will bring a person into a depth of peace and joy that becomes  uplifting and influences me to be positive and hopeful in each present moment.

Yes, peace will result when I let go of blame and feel the pain that I need to experience. It is one of the most positive and fundamental emotional and spiritual principles of life. I have seen the positive results so often throughout my life. And when I depart from this, I now quickly realize that I better return quickly to letting go of blames and feeling my pain so I can pour more love into  the world and to everyone who crosses my path. Love, peace, God and feeling my pain are all connected in a very positive and uplifting way.

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Fred Cavaiani is a licensed marriage counselor and psychologist with a private practice in Troy. He is the founder of Marriage Growth Center, a consultant for the Detroit Medical Center, and conducts numerous programs for groups throughout Southeast Michigan.

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