For those that are regular readers (thank you) you’ll know I am not a massive fan of humanity. Dogs, they’re awesome. Humans, are far from wonderful. I include myself in that, I’m aware the choices I make aren’t always in the interest of the planet, the words I use are not always the kindest…humanity is a gigantic working progress and as a species, our end of year report would say ‘working under expected levels, needs to improve’

Sometimes we can be hurt by others, whether the harm was intentional or not. It can leave us reflecting on why humans are vile, often we don’t deserve the reaction or behaviour put upon us. However, while negative behaviour is never okay, it often has a logic when you take a step back. *taking a step back is difficult.

Often those that need the most love, are the hardest to love. When I’m working with a traumatised five year old, who is hitting, biting and scratching the INA (individual needs assistant), stepping back you can see the child is in crisis and it doing these things because they don’t know how to communicate safely how they feel yet. When I speak to the INA, they often (in the moment of getting hurt themselves) can’t understand why the child hit them. Questions like ‘he was fine this morning when he came in, I don’t know why he kicked me? I’ve the one that got the Lego out like he wanted’ …sometimes it’s not about the INA (who side note, need paying better and in many cases given knighthoods) it’s about the internal world for that little person.

I don’t personally believe in God, but I do believe in energy and many of the universal laws. For ease of sharing, I’m going to use the word God and prayers in this next section to convey my thoughts, feel free to edit the word God for whatever works for you.

If we imagine that each human on the planet is a vessel. Some more full than others, perhaps when one vessel is in need and asks God for help, God takes from another vessel to answer that prayer. Perhaps if you’re a human who has given something in a relationship and got little back, God was sharing your love and compassion to answer the prayer of someone who has little love in them. As they have such little love they can’t give it back in exchange as you can. Maybe, God uses each of us to answer the prayers of others and at the time, although we are ‘helping’ because we don’t realise it’s an act of God we feel hurt when the relationship doesn’t feel equal.

Again, this doesn’t mean it hurts any less when others ‘abuse’ your good will, but somehow knowing that in that moment they need it, knowing that in that moment I couldn’t give that to them – it’s like planting hope. We all exchange energy all of the time, inhaling and exhaling. We all have the choice to evoke boundaries, or perhaps in this case ‘lids’ when we don’t wish to share our the contents of our vessel any further. I love the idea that we can use our lids to let God know when our own vessels are no longer available to others.

This week, love those who need it a little more, try not to take their reactions personally (after all their reaction belongs to them) and perhaps in the next few months humanity’s report card might return with ‘better than expected’. Also, if in doubt put a lid on it and protect your contents.