Escaping The Pit of the Emotionally Damaged
A few days ago I was having an online discussion with a friend about toxic shame. Both of us felt the time was right to explore some of our past experiences and write about it in order to possibly help let go. (Yes, we are great fun at parties!)
After the exercise which was productive for both of us she made the following comment: “I kind of tend to think that the universe corrects all the wrong”.
For some reason our conversation and her final comment kicked off a story in my mind involving a pit where all the emotionally damaged people of the world live. Maybe it will be useful for someone else out there who also finds themselves in the pit.
I imagine the people who have been damaged emotionally in their life are in a giant pit. There are many of us there. We can see people walking around and happy outside the pit but there seem to be more people in the pit than outside. We seem to be invisible to the people outside the pit. We call to them sometimes for help but it is like we are speaking a different language they can’t understand. At first we are afraid of the other people in the pit. There are people yelling and screaming or fighting. We stay by ourselves and don’t talk to anyone. Other people can’t be trusted.
Eventually our fear fades and we decide to try talking to other people in the pit. Some of them are not ready yet and ignore us or even attack us and bully us. At first we don’t understand they do this because they are afraid and unhappy in the pit. This cycle repeats and we then find people who want to talk to us. They feel like we do and we get very excited and start making plans to escape the pit together. Soon we work together to climb out of the pit. About halfway out something changes. Your partner suddenly changes and instead of working together they start stepping on you so they can get closer to escaping. Eventually they push you back into the pit as they make their way out. You are crushed of course but get some satisfaction in seeing them fall back into the pit a few days after escaping. They were not truly happy and only took advantage of you to try to make themselves feel better for a brief period.
This happens many times with other people in the pit and each time it gets harder to try again. Eventually, you do try again and this time something feels a little different. You are experienced enough to see the signs of when people just want something from you and you don’t see any signs of this. You are still very cautious but as time goes by you start to feel like you can trust this other person. The other person wants to escape from the pit too but they don’t think there is an easy way out.
Together you discover that some of the people that escaped from the pit before are on the outside now and can still speak your language. They offer help and advice on how to get out. You try to follow the advice but it is very slow and hard so you wish for an easier way. Over time you meet other people in the pit who are in the same place and you start to build a community. There are still hard times but you all support each other and try to make the best of things in the pit. Slowly you start to see that the pit is not so bad. Sure, it would be nice to get out but there are enough things in the pit to enjoy that life doesn’t seem so terrible.
One day you wake up and suddenly realize that there are levels of the pit below you that you didn’t even see before. The members of your community are in this new level and it actually seems a little closer to the “normal” people outside. Life is a little easier here because there are not so many angry and hurtful people as in the lower levels. Your community grows even more to include the people at this level. Life now has more meaning. You still struggle but other people care about you and pick you up when you fall. You do the same thing for them and slowly start to forget you are even in a pit at all.
The world and your place in it finally starts to make sense. Before you even realize it you find yourself outside the pit looking down on all the people below. Now you are one of those reaching out a hand and trying to help others escape.
In my mind the universe presents us many options to choose from. If we can hold onto the people who will support us and help us grow, then things will slowly get better. We will still make mistakes along the way and trust people when we shouldn’t. That is ok as long as we eventually let them go and don’t give up on finding our community. In this way I agree that the universe can correct all wrongs, but we have to play a part to. The universe by itself can’t make choices for us.
