My son and I watched The Guilty with Jake Gyllenhaal the other day. It was a really good movie, underrated in my opinion. I won’t give any spoilers other than one line that really stuck out to me from the movie: “Broken people fix broken people.”
Don’t ever think that you don’t have something to give, because you have problems. Everyone has problems. Showing that you have overcome your problems (or at least, earnestly and honestly working on overcoming your problems) is more helpful to anybody, than pretending that you never had any problems to begin with. (You are only fooling yourself in that regard – people see through “fake” and “social media filtering” quite easily. People aren’t dumb.)
Some of the best friends whom I have ever made in my life, I met in a support group. We spent a lot of time crying together in a circle, passing around the Kleenex, before we made it to the part where we go out to eat and laugh our heads off together, on a frequent basis. These people help me like no others, because they “get it.” All masks are off. We have helped each other on a path of growing and healing and expanding, because the level of empathy and authenticity and our ability to sit with the truth is unmatched. These relationships have made me somewhat intolerant to “superficial.” I don’t have the patience anymore for “pretend.” Real is where it’s at, and the only way I want to be for the rest of my life.
Notice that when people go through the unimaginable, such as what Gabby Petito’s family is going through with the murder of their daughter, they do things such as immediately set up a foundation to help other families to find their missing loved ones. Helping others through what you have been through is cathartic for all parties involved. No one wants to think that the pain that they endure, is in vain. Pain can always be alchemized for some good.
Instead of avoiding your pain and pretending that it doesn’t exist, work through it. Even when you do this, don’t pretend that you have all of the answers. You don’t. Every time when I smugly think that I am now in the phase of my life in which I fully “get it”, as if I am some kind of saint or yogi or something, I’m whammied and humbled. Hard. But with the help of others who have walked a similar path before me, I get back up on my feet, and I try again, and I hope that it is this “getting back up on my feet”, which is what truly helps people, not just myself. I hope that others who are experiencing some of the upsets which I experience, can be inspired and feel hopeful by my path of trying. I hope that however shaky and raw my hands are at times, they are always available to help lift someone else up on this path which we call Life. We are all in this together. You and I are never alone. Broken can be healed.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.