Healing and recovery often involves spiritual development. This is because it is often spiritual and moral principles which help us to practice healthy self-love and understanding. In turn, this leads to extending this love to others by increasing our capacity to receive and give love. It also breaks the tendency to engage in toxic relationships and to set healthy boundaries with people who don't treat us well based on their idiosyncrasies. Without healthy self-love relationships become toxic and and how you treat others becomes toxic. When you are able to receive love you are also more readily able to give it. When you treat others with healthy loving behaviors and it is not mutual or being reciprocated you may find tolerating abusive behaviours. Healthy self-love creates and environment that encourages love for others grounded in a mutual healthy respect for others and a strong love for self. Healthy self-love helps us to understand how well we deserve to be treated and in turn how not to let others treat us in an unhealthy manner.
Spiritual principles are often very difficult to teach others because it’s not really your job to do it this for others. This learning is supposed to come from spiritual caregivers such as parent teacher or healer. When this is missing from one's upbringing it becomes a difficult but not impossible task to lean and practice it. The importance of instilling grace, kindnesses and empathy towards others is a life skill that many people take for granted. Without these principles relating to others whose mistakes seem glaring becomes toxic and people who don't understand that without these principles some may expect others to carry their past shame and misery for their mistakes. This behavior is the basis of toxic relationships.
Everyone has their own healing path. You can't take people through self-forgiveness and kindness you if haven't been shown or don't understand this for yourself. Once you experience forgiveness love and grace in times where you mess up you realize how important it is to do this for others as well. Then you will never see it as appropriate to judge, or point out someone’s past mistakes and use it to hate or devalue then.
People who have difficulty practicing these principles often feel justified in treating others poorly. Understand that you don't have to carry shame or guilt with you for your entire existence. It is often their shame and guilt they project onto others.
Your season of pain came from your own mistakes and they are just that...your own mistakes. Mistakes or even difficult experiences are something you can forgive yourself because you trusted what you knew at the time. You past pain is NOT for someone else to use to punish you. When someone shows you, they don't appreciate you are or are ungrateful to associate you walk away. It means they may lack empathy or worse yet don't live life with these principles. Their guilt and shame for things they do will only end up being projected on you. In their minds the past lives on forever because they never learned to forgive themselves and lay something to rest. You see their past wrongdoings and yours are only alive to then that’s why your past becomes an issue.
It is interesting how these attitudes in the end seem to influence their lives negatively. Nobody likes someone who can’t take ownership of their behavior. It's the same sort of forward thinking that is necessary for moving forward in one's life. If you have this tendency, you'll likely have no qualms about shaming others or laying blame or trying to convince others of feelings you can't manage are not yours but theirs. If people around, you continuously fail to treat you with what amounts to basic respect then let them go and let them go for awhile and shift the focus on taking care of your own health. This may involves seeking out healthy adults who are empathetic, are more reciprocating of your kind acts and generosity. Healthy relationships also help us to relate to others in a more healthy manner because they involve boundaries.
