Recently I learned that someone I consider a very close and dear friend, someone I had months of deep intimate sharing with, shared some very harsh, hateful, angry, and jealous statements about me to my partner and to other people.
While being always kind and loving in every face-to-face situation his attitude was so full of hate towards me when I was not there, that I got really shocked, hurt, and saddened when I learned his statements.
On one hand, the spiritual path teaches us to find compassion and love for those who hurt and harm us, even when it is full of hate. Seeing the pain carried by that person beyond the words expressed. I could see that, feel that, and It made me deeply sad.
On the other hand, the spiritual path teaches us to have immense self-love, self-respect, and clear boundaries with others in order to maintain sanity AND safety. So I had to cut ties after clearly expressing my pain, the hurt, and the harm that was created.
So many people stay in an abusive relationship with their perpetrators because it is too unsafe to leave, and sometimes because for someone holding a lot of trauma a "fuc**ed up" love can feel and look like real love.
Often judged as the "non-spiritual reaction", the strict and clear boundary path is in fact the greatest act of unconditional love, true love.
Those territories of unconditional love for others are always inauthentic if they are not weaved with clear boundaries and respect. Like my teacher told me one day "you don't have to like everyone but you have to love them".
It is a tricky and yet necessary prayer to find love and compassion while creating a safe relationship. As another friend share with me "I do not believe in safe space, I believe in safe people". And sometimes people are just not safe (yet) to be in an authentic relationship.
Authenticity, and authentic relating, require us to go beyond "pleasing and faking" and voice our concern directly with those involved, without gossiping or trying to manipulate (power dynamic).
This is one of the consequences of the patriarchal and capitalistic system. The exclusion of our humanity. The use of pain, fear, and the consequences of unresolved trauma, create cycles of abuse, hurt, and harm while preventing the resolution of conflict and healing.
Nature homeostasis only exists because of a clear way of giving and receiving, all framed within extremely clear boundaries. There is no gossiping in Nature. No hate. No manipulation to hurt. No masks are worn.
What is there is confronted and authentically related, felt, and spoken.
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