(image: h.ttps://quotefancy.com/quote/777632/Bren-Brown-What-makes-you-vulnerable-makes-you-bieautiful)
What goes around comes around.
You reap what you sow.
Your wrongs catch up to you.
Harmful behavior does not justify harmful behavior - no matter how one tries to twist it.
It is way harder to hold others with compassion, empathy, & love. In my 45 year journey I have failed others. I held them to an unattainable pedestal. Trying to tell them how to be when they didn't ask.
I saw my behavior as an act of love. Looking back it was about my ego, my self-protection, & my inability to live up to my own standards. So when others did me wrong or my community then it was my duty to correct them.
It was never my duty to correct them. The elders hold the role of accountability to which ever community they are in. The community comes together with (not against) the person who did harm in order to find/offer solutions/alternatives.
The most difficult emotion is vulnerability. We get it in our heads that we have to be warriors. We have to be cultural leaders. We have to do better than the whyte man. So many ways to hide ourselves. So many ways to redirect the community eye from us towards others.
Who are we as a people now? In today's times we have lost so much and gained back so little. We've regained the truth telling but lost our emotional balance. We've gained ancestors wisdom but lost our humility. And on and on.
So when you hold our own to accountability, is it because you still want to be in community with them? Or is it because you want to turn your back on them and abandon them? Shame them into change? Is that real change then? Is that empowering our people?
Our voices still very much need to be heard. And our own sometimes still need to be pulled aside and talked to (not at). How does one do that in a compassionate way - even through the rightful anger?
If I've learned anything in this life it is that I will make mistakes. I will cause harm. There is no escaping this reality without doing these two things.
All your good intentions mean nothing if you can't utilize your mistakes & harmful ways into a teachable moment. You cannot force others to see their wrong-doings if you are unwilling to show your own.
Heal.