Living in the COVID World...and Beyond #69: Stopping Revenge

What’s the difference between several people with guns acting independently killing or wounding a dozen people while they are going about tasks of daily living AND several people with guns acting under the auspices of their government killing or wounding a dozen people while they are going about tasks of daily living?   Is there any difference if it is a person with a gun or a plane dropping a bomb?

To me, whether acting independently, or as part of a political movement, or as part of a military force, or as part of a government initiative does not matter.  Killing innocent people is simply wrong, no matter who does it, how it is done, and no matter what the motivation or the hoped for desired outcome of the action.

There are too many cases these days, whether in Ukraine, Russia, Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Israel, West Bank, Gaza, and the list goes on, of killing/wounding/raping/destroying without regard for people’s lives.

There are countless political, economic, and social explanations for why this is happening.  I try to look for what is happening psychologically.   And one area that I keep thinking about, and looking at within myself, is the pull for revenge.

I had the pull to seek revenge, and it tended to come up around my closest people

(hopefully not as much as it used to).   When I have experienced someone

as acting in a hurtful direction towards me, I want to hurt them back.   I’m sure we have all observed this behavior in young people, whether demonstrated with physical actions or words (one person says something mean, and the other person responds with something mean in return).  For me, my pattern when acting inside hurt feelings has been to withdraw.    Withdrawing is my patterned method for hurting someone back who I feel has hurt me.   When I do it, it is acting inside of a patterned pull for revenge.      Is this

any different from the person with the patterned pull for revenge who uses

a gun to get revenge?   In both cases, we are acting on the patterned pull

for revenge.  The gun is more destructive than withdrawal …  but I think I we need to purge ourselves of any last remaining pulls to act out revenge feelings and encourage others to do the same.

Although I don’t remember it very well, both my mom and older sister have told me stories about how my dad would withdraw and totally stop talking to my mom when he was upset about something.   My best guess is that I saw that, maybe experienced it directed at me or maybe I just experienced it as a bystander, and something got internalized within me as a result.   I have had to work hard to not act consistent with what I saw my dad do.

Do you have feelings inside you that sometimes cause you to want to seek revenge?   Do you remember early experiences of where or how those feelings might have gotten installed within you?