Everybody Hurts*

When your day is long
And the night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
well hang on
Don’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong
If you feel like you’re alone
No, no, no, you are not alone
Hold on …

Everybody Hurts
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2020/12/16/everybody-hurts/

These are some of the touching lyrics from the R.E.M. song, “Everybody Hurts.”
Touching lyrics for any time of year, most especially those when the nights are long.
Touching lyrics for any time in the evolutionary cycle, most especially those
when there are societal crises right out in the light of day – among others, a pandemic,
economic crisis, racial injustice, abuse and violence in countless forms and under countless guises.
Touching lyrics that will hopefully move us to open our hearts wider and deeper than ever before.
Touching lyrics that will – even beneath our consciousness – call us to true healing from the inside out,
individually and collectively.

R. D. Laing wrote: There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided
is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.

So when you, like everybody, hurt …
what do you do with your hurt?

Do you try to avoid it, causing yourself and others even more pain?
Do you hurt yourself even more, pretending it’s better if you’re in control of it?

Do you try to avoid it by hurting others directly?
Do you try to avoid it by getting revenge on others?
Do you try to avoid it by running away from it, in all versions of escape?
Do you try to avoid it by building an arsenal of defenses, both obvious
and in the form of guises?

There is, for example, the guise of being civilized.
  And as Laing also wrote:  “We are effectively destroying ourselves by
violence masquerading as love.”

Do you try to avoid it by sublimating your hurt into activities, even causes?

Or, knowing that everyone hurts …
Do you purposefully, consciously, for growth and transformation…
Utilize the hurt you feel for your healing?

My prayer at this time in our year …
At this time in our lives …
At this time in our world …
At this time in our evolution …
May we stop avoiding our pain …
May we stop acting out our pain …
May we utilize our pain with care and truly good intention
For the sake of healing …
Our own healing to the root …
And through that
The healing of our world.

May it be so.

© Judith Barr, 2020.

 

*R.E.M. Songwriters: Buck Peter Lawrence, Berry William Thomas.