And it’s very hard to have compassion for someone who’s shown you no compassion at all. So, instead of starting at the place of trying to have compassion for someone who has hurt you, start with having compassion for the pain they had to experience in order to make the choices they made. The one who causes pain is in pain. I don’t have to know anything about their wounding to know that hurt exists. At some point, someone brutalized their innocence. Or made them feel terrified, tossed aside, beaten down, invisible, unseen, unwanted, or shamed. Chances are, it was a combination of several of
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