The key to empathy and compassion and therefore freedom from hurt, is to observe.
Those that are the most angry , vindictive, manipulative or in the victim mode etc are actually the ones carrying the heaviest burdens of fear and insecurities.
When you realise this, you see others in a different light. Understanding gives one compassion and ultimately the freedom from the pain that they try to inflict upon you.
In fact, the understanding puts you in a plane much higher than one they can reach. They are not able to hurt you anymore.
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Understanding of it still doesn’t free you of the daily pain of putting up with the toxicity. When people hold on to their ego at the cost of breaking up the family, when you can see the destructive path that they have put not just themselves but people connected with them also, and you feel helpless as there is only so much that one can do. It is a daily struggle to live with people like that
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