THE WAIL I grew up with the “if you don’t stop crying I will give you something to cry about” style of parenting. I am beyond needing to judge that. I had parents who rarely allowed themselves to cry, and couldn’t abide by seeing their children cry either. I know that the cry-aversion was then amped up by being born male. “Big boys don’t cry.” Regardless. Trying to apply those directives was for years nothing less than excruciating. Male or not I was born with a sensitive heart that had direct access to my tear ducts. My natural response was to cry when I was happy, cry when I was sad, cry when I witnessed any type of heroism or transcendence. Though I tried myriad ways to

HURTING PEOPLE HURT I have often heard it said that hurting people hurt people. I do suppose that it is true. What we do not transform we will indeed transmit. What I am not able to really be with internally will become an external target. It is unfortunate at a deep level, and yet there is a deeper truth to this that most often goes unacknowledged. While hurting people hurt other people in the process of becoming conscious it is also hurting people who help others at the deepest and most profound levels. A big part of my spiritual awakening has been about increasing the capacity to sit with and to stay with the pain surrounding my heart. I grieve the number of people that became targets