Why Did This Happen To Me?

For most of us, our emotional pain also comes at the hands of other human beings, confusing us even more. How could my mother who claims to love me have treated me like that? How could my father gamble away my life for alcohol? How could my teacher do that to me, knowing that the psychological scars would harm me for the rest of my life? As children, our traumas begin at the hands of the people who are supposed to love us and protect us. These are the people who we look up to and run to for help when we scrape our knees or get into a fight. They are so big and so strong and so adult! They will help, so we believe! When these guardian angels fail us, we are left outside in the cold. We feel as though we have been abandoned forever. After all, if an adult could do that to me, a child, then surely this world is dangerous and offers no protection for the vulnerable? What was so wrong with me that made this person hate me so much that they put me through all of this? The moment I found healing in my life is the moment I stopped asking why others treated me so badly. I stopped questioning what drew my abuser to abuse me, and I stopped seeking a reason for my pain. The hardest fact of life to accept is that none of us can choose the hands we are dealt in life. We can’t choose our parents or our family. We can’t choose where we are born or what race or gender we are. As much as a lie might comfort us, the cold, hard truth is that we have very little control or power over what happens to us in life. We may lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that our wealth will protect us, where we live will protect us, or who we marry will protect us, but every day we read news stories disproving this theory.

Don't Let The Small Stuff Bog You Down

Why did this happen to me? What is the root of my pain? Of course, this is a difficult concept to grasp as a child but, the good news is, you are no longer a child. You are an adult seeking healing for your inner child. Whether you react to your personal trainer by pushing yourself harder or you break your ankle and fall into the mud, the goal is to find the source of your pain. The goal is not to ask why. It is not to spend so much time with your personal trainer that you don’t have time to think, nor is it to give up in the mud. The goal is to go back to the innermost part of yourself and seek the root of your pain. Whether you are a person who uses your pain to motivate yourself to higher levels, or you are a person who prefers to leave your pain behind and seek a better life without constant reminders, you can only achieve your goals if you confront your pain. When we ask why we do not confront our pain. Instead, we cower from it. But when we accept our trauma, abuse, pain, neglect, abandonment and so on, we step out from victimhood, and we accept that life is not fair. We do not deny, we do not hide, and we do not run away. We do not distract, and we do not give up.

Trouble No More

Instead, we face reality with human dignity. Think about it this way. If a doctor diagnoses a patient with cancer, the patient has two options. Why did this happen to me? Asking why only keeps you stuck in your pain and your past. And so does denying it, hiding from it, running away from it, distracting yourself from it or giving up in hopelessness. Your inner child is broken and ill. So how exactly do you accept your pain? To accept our pain is easier said than done. If it was that easy, our parents and the people who abused and hurt us wouldn’t have done so in the first place. They would have very easily let go of their own pain and treated us with acceptance, love and validation. They would have very easily accepted their pain, moved on in happiness and then loved us without breaking us. That is we can spot emotional pain from afar. We can tell when a person is in deep emotional pain.

All Things Must Pass

We are constantly surrounded by our pain, so we are hyperfocused on pain wherever we are. We see it in the news, in our local community, in our offices, in our colleges and so on. We know that pain is rife in our world because we see it everywhere. What we cannot accept, however, is why people choose to hurt others and cause others pain. We see that most emotional pain in life is caused by other human beings, but we find it very difficult to accept why it is this way. There are many theories about why. Some people argue that humans cause each other a lot of pain because of our individualistic and capitalist society. They argue that capitalism forces others to believe that dominance over other humans through abuse is the only way to get what you want in life. Others argue that humans are driven by an innate love for power and control over others. We dominate not because of our political and economic systems, but because we just like to dominate and hurt others. Rather than our political and economic systems causing us to dominate and abuse others, we create these systems in the first place so that we can more efficiently abuse others. We do it because it makes us feel powerful. Then there are the people who argue that children learn to hurt and abuse others when they see adults do it. Really, there is truth in all these answers.