Musings: On Pain Begetting Pain, On Healing Begetting Healing
By: Jacq Babb
Tags: Self Care, Healing, Mental Health, Love

When we see a stray, a cat or a dog, who has been living on the streets, fending violently for itself, just a creature against the world, we recognize that there are behaviors that they have acquired to adapt to harsh environments that have allowed for their survival. If we try to save this creature or better its circumstances, we may be scratched or bitten or attacked. Somehow, this knowledge does not lessen our compassion for the creature. If you’re anything like me, your heart breaks even more to see how scared and hurt a thing it is that it can’t recognize love and care for what it is, that it can’t fathom the idea of accepting tenderness. It can’t quite understand what that looks like or how to behave in response. Somehow everything is a threat. We shield ourselves against possible injury, sure, but we also persist diligently in trying to heal the little being of its pains.

We are those creatures. We are the strays. We have all acquired certain survival skills that are not well suited for domesticity. But we are also the rescuers. With animals, we show empathy. We look to help them better understand love. We look to teach them skills, patiently and caringly, to better receive and show love. But when we are the injured ones, we rarely take the time to extend the same kindnesses to ourselves. And so we scratch and bite and attack those nearest us, those who are wanting to show us the most that we are loved and safe and wanted. We scratch and bite and attack ourselves, when so very deeply, all we want is to be able to be a loving, cuddled little pet.

You are not the villain. Nor am I. You are not the hero, and likewise I am not either. We are simply injured little creatures and fierce protectors, perpetually discovering new vulnerabilities in ourselves and capable, truly, of creating loving environments to allow those vulnerabilities to mend and to resolve and to become our greatest strengths.

I have a little rescue pup. I found her on the streets when she was only three months old, and she was terrified of everything, quite literally afraid even of shadows. I spent years patiently teaching her that every little scary thing she encountered was okay, that a blinking light wasn’t dangerous, that a friendly old lady wasn’t going to hurt her. Now and again, we still find a little thing that startles her, and we slow down and we approach it quietly and safely and without harshness or frustration, and she learns that it isn’t something scary after all. And the next time she encounters it, she doesn’t show the same fear response. She doesn’t run away as frightened. She doesn’t bark as loudly. She shows more confidence.

Sprout is five years old now, and she has made so very much progress. And the thing is, she is the most compassionate little dog I’ve ever met. Every time I make the sharp inhale of pain, she comes to check in on me to see if I’m hurt. If I sigh in melancholy, she places her paw on my arm and looks up expectantly in case I start to cry. If I do cry, she is in my face, smooching away tears and cuddling into my neck. She’s come to check in on me from the other room a number of times as I’ve been writing this, hearing me start to sniffle and feeling moved to make sure I’m okay.

It sounds silly to say, but I know that as a person, I want to be like Sprout. I want to know what hurt feels like, what fear feels like, and to simultaneously be mended enough in my own struggles to be able to nurse someone else in their times of need. That is my life’s aim, to be able to care for others from a place of empathy and strength because I have been able to care for myself from that same place.