"It has been said that vengeance is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Every choice for payback is also a choice to coarsen our hearts. Since our hearts are inside us, they stay hardened not only toward others but toward ourselves. Retaliation is a form of suffering for both perpetrator and victim. An offender does something that leads to suffering in the victim. Then the victim reciprocates, and so the cycle of pain continues."
"Retaliation is turning on others. Self-retaliation is turning on ourselves, self-sabotage. Let's look at a prime source of self-retaliation: believing in and obeying the decrees of the inner critic. This is the scolding voice resident within us that may resemble put-downs or criticisms from childhood. This is the inner bully who pummels us, especially when we are most vulnerable. When we take that critical voice seriously, we become tyrants over ourselves."
"The inner critic may want us to believe that we are isolated prey with nothing going for us. We mistakenly imagine we are trapped in our suffering. Hope flourishes when we realize we have resources. Our main inner resource is our own Buddha nature: a presence that is intimately with us and never lets us go, no matter how dark the day or how dark our deeds."
Vengeance and retaliation harden the heart and perpetuate suffering between perpetrator and victim. Turning retaliation inward becomes self-sabotage when the inner critic’s decrees are believed and obeyed. The inner critic echoes childhood put-downs and can become a tyrannical inner bully that pummels vulnerability. Self-loathing functions as a form of revenge against oneself and deepens suffering. Hope arises from recognizing internal resources rather than imagining isolation. The primary inner resource is Buddha nature, a persistent presence that endures through darkness. Self-acceptance and supportive others serve as healing forces against the inner critic’s injuries.
Read at Psychology Today
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