May We Recognize Our Role in the World’s Toxicity
When a relationship is falling apart, it is never just one person’s fault. We would love to believe that it’s completely one sided. It’s so much easier to portray ourselves as the innocent victim or the righteous hero. But alas, the brutal truth is that 99% of the time, you also had a role to play in the toxicity. And this is true whether it’s for a relationship between two people or our relationship as a society.
If we want to repair the way our society is functioning right now, then we must first look at ourselves in the mirror. We need to acknowledge the toxicity within ourselves so that we can learn how to turn that into a gift, and support others when they are doing the same.
Mirror, Mirror, Deep Within My Soul…
Back when my marriage was falling apart, I was addicted to criticism. I didn’t even notice myself doing it, but I was constantly expecting my husband to criticize me. So, all my time was spent readying up criticisms to hurl back at him. From the outside, I was just cooking or doing the dishes in silence. Inside of me, I was always in a full-on shouting match with my husband, even when he wasn’t even home.
I was getting hurt over words that he never said to me, but that never registered in my head. Once he came home, I was practically looking to start a fight in order to use those come backs that I had practiced all day. If my husband fought back, I used it as a valid reason to categorize him as a terrible person. My vision was so tainted that I failed to see all the good things he was doing. His attempts to help me would feel like an attempt to control me. Every worry about me felt like a commentary on my incompetence.
Now, the question is, why was I expecting my husband to criticize me so often? The answer? Because I was always criticizing me. A part of me always saw myself as an incompetent, lazy, stupid, worthless weakling. But another part of me held out hope that it wasn’t true. So, I played it out using imaginary fights, placing my husband in the villain role and me in the protective hero one. It felt good to stand up for myself, even if it was all in my head. Oh, what a very convoluted way of having a fight with myself!
…Who is Responsible for the Toxicity of the World?
And now, I see this playing out in the macrocosm. We, as a society, are fighting ourselves. We, as a society, are feeling very insecure. Some are struggling to keep up with the changing societal values, and are bewildered to suddenly find themselves on the “wrong” side. Others are feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of problems on this planet, and their inability to fix them all. Still others have been feeling marginalized for a very long time, and losing hope that they would ever be seen. So, we pick an easy target to turn into a villain. That way, we can look at them and say, “It’s their fault” or “At least I’m better than that person!”
We’ve been saying “Shame on you!” But the shame is on us, created and placed there by us. We’ve been stuck in the shame cycle, shaming others to feel better about ourselves, but then feeling ashamed of our own hypocrisy. When we fight with others, we are fighting ourselves.
May We Love Ourselves in Order to Love Others
The way out of this downward spiral is unconditional love. A radical forgiveness that accepts all of us as imperfect human beings, making mistakes that are necessary for our growth as a whole.
We also need the courage to reevaluate some of our long-held beliefs. Our beliefs are a product of our own individual experiences we’ve had, under the circumstances that we were born in. Accept that they were right for you up until now, but they don’t have to remain so for the rest of your life. Having an open mind will eventually lead to your acceptance of others with different opinions.
The way to world peace is inner peace. When each of us accepts our own toxicity, forgives our transgressions, and then chooses growth, peace will ripple out in ways you won’t imagine.