I want them to die.
Situation: An inquiry from the perspective of a woman who lost her husband and children in a raid by foreign men.
This image came up in a session with Barry, and this statement is from a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet written from her perspective.
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Is it true?
Yes.
Can you be certain it’s true.
No.
What happens, how do you react, when you have that belief?
Hard, anger, hatred, numb, imploding, paralyzed, victim.
Small (as victim), big (when think of wanting them to die).
Weak (victim), powerful (wanting them to die).
Helpless.
See images of them die, suffer, slow painful death.
Want revenge.
Want to see them suffer as much as I do.
Hard, unyielding, cold.
Stern face, stiff.
Deadened face, body.
Obsessed with them, images of them killing, living, dying a painful death.
(I am not here for myself.)
(I abandon my own life.)
Who would you be without that thought?
Here for myself.
Soften. Kind to myself.
Open heart.
Come back to myself, my own life.
Turnarounds
I want me to die.
It’s painful to live with the initial belief.
With these beliefs (about this situation) I cannot imagine going on, living without husband/children.
(This is more true than the initial belief.)
I want my thinking (about them) to die.
My thinking about them is painful, paralyzing.
I want to see what’s more true.
I don’t want them to die.
It’s painful to want them to die.
I don’t want to kill them.
I don’t want to do to them what they did.
(And continue the suffering.)
I want them to live.
I don’t want to do to them (and myself) what they did.
I don’t know what will come out of their life.
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Notes
It feels good to do this inquiry.
I can easily find these thoughts in myself, when I go into the situation with the woman who lost her husband and children, and it helps me understand how many experience it who have been in similar situations. It helps me understand the anger, the numbness, the (apparent) desire for revenge.
It helps me find it in myself, and start finding more clarity inside of these pockets of confusion.
This inquiry also helped me see how I go into suffering to tell God and the world I am suffering, that something is wrong, and I hope it will bring God/others to agree and make it better. It’s a tantrum, as Byron Katie points out, and I act as I may have done when I was three years old and used tantrums to get my way.
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