On anger and intentions
"Anger makes it difficult to forgive and when we're angry we're more likely to attribute someone's actions to their character rather than to their circumstances. And when we continue to attribute it to their character...usually we attribute malintent, when really they were in so much pain, usually we are just the collateral damage in other people's brokenness."
~Dr. Danita Phillips
Years ago I read Danita Phillips’ book, The Garden Within. And it was beautiful and showed how divinely inspired our bodies are, to mirror creation, like trees, very much part of a divine design from God.
She also spoke in the book about our inner emotional work, that we do on ourselves.
She also does quite a bit of speaking and touring. This quote really struck and resonated with me.
How often is this the case?
It makes me think of something that I have read that I continue to think about and set with -
“If you knew how much of what people say is projection, you’d never take anything personally.”
Much of what people say or do or how they respond to you, is something that is circling within their internal monologue - and much of us are in pain or thinking about ourselves or grappling with something within ourselves.
The quote above does certainly make you question the intent and how important to give benefit of the doubt and not assume malintent.
I do think there needs to be a balance - we are still accountable to how we hurt others amidst our pain.
But, centering the quote and understanding above can help us to exercise empathy and compassion to others and see them for what they really are -
Humanity, humans just… hurting.
Doesn’t that sum up most of us, in some way or another?
It correlates to that quote - hurt people hurt people.
And, yet also, lest it seem too bleak -
Healed people can [at least] help other people.