Dear John:

I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much input, so please take your time and read at your own pace. Feel free to respond whenever it suits you, and only to what resonates — no need to address every point.

Of all the responses you received in 2013–2014 (long before I discovered Tiny Buddha and joined the community), one stood out. It was also the shortest: just four words.

“John, who hurt you?” —posted by Brook on September 4, 2013, in your thread, Things Said and Things Left Unsaid.

You responded that same day: “No one has hurt me.”

But your full reply painted a richer picture: “No one has hurt me. If anything, I hurt myself through self-judgment and criticism. Any suffering I experience is from craving — a craving to be, or a craving not to be. I watch the up and down from moment to moment and see myself pulling away or pushing toward, just spinning and spinning unnecessarily in circles.😉”-

That response stayed with me because it touches on something deeply human and often unspoken: the quiet denial of pain that originated not from ourselves, but from those who shaped us.

Many children and adult children deny harm done to them by their parents and blame themselves instead. It’s often a survival mechanism. To acknowledge that someone we depended on for love and safety caused us pain can feel destabilizing, even dangerous. So the mind adapts: it reframes, rationalizes, and redirects blame inward. It’s safer, in a way, to believe “I hurt myself” than to face the grief, anger, or disorientation that can come with saying “they hurt me.”

Self-blame can offer a sense of control. If we’re the problem, maybe we can fix it. Maybe we can become “good enough” to earn the love that was withheld. These patterns become internalized — sometimes for years, even decades — until something, or someone, invites us to question them with compassion.

That’s why Brook’s four words were so striking. They weren’t accusatory — they were a quiet invitation to consider what might have gone unspoken. To look at the shadows without flinching.

If you’re open to it, I’d love to continue reflecting with you on how these dynamics shape our inner worlds — and how clarity, not blame, can be a form of grace.

Warmly, Anita

Hi Peter:

Your story is brilliant.

“He knew which ones needed shade, which ones needed space, and which ones thrived with a little neglect.”-

In human terms, he knew that some people thrive when you offer steady presence and care—like giving shade. Some need freedom and autonomy—space to find themselves without pressure. And some find their strength when you step back and let them wrestle with life on their own—neglect not as abandonment, but as trust in their resilience.

The neat garden is the temporal existence: measurement, labels, separation.

“The second garden lay beyond the wall, wild and boundless.”- That’s the eternal—no separation, no labels, no measurement.

“The first seed grew because I tended it. The second grew without me. One needed boundaries, the other needed freedom. Which is compassion?”- Before reading his answer, I knew it was “both.”

“(Compassion) knows when to build walls and when to walk beyond them. It speaks the language of care in many dialects.”- Compassion doesn’t mean being endlessly open or available. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is set a boundary:

* Protecting your well-being from emotional harm

* Saying no to toxic dynamics

* Creating space for clarity and healing

These “walls” aren’t punishments—they’re acts of care. Like fences around a garden, they preserve growth and protect what’s tender.

Other times, compassion asks us to soften, stretch, or step beyond the boundary:

* Offering understanding after someone sincerely admits fault

* Letting closeness deepen when trust is earned

* Choosing grace where judgment might be easier

It’s not contradiction—it’s discernment. Compassion knows the difference between self-sacrifice/ self-erasure, and heart-expansion.

Compassion isn’t one-size-fits-all—it changes based on what’s needed. For one person, care might mean sitting silently beside them. For another, it’s calling out a harmful pattern. And sometimes, it means walking away without apology.

“Boundaries are not prisons. They are invitations to know where you begin, so you may know where you end… and then forget both.”-Boundaries often get mistaken for walls that shut people out or isolate us. But in truth:

They’re not punishment—they’re protection. They’re not rigid—they’re responsive. They’re not fear-driven—they’re clarity-driven

Boundaries invite authenticity, not restriction. They create a frame where your true self can move freely, without being overrun.

Without boundaries, it’s easy to lose your sense of “me” in someone else’s chaos, urgency, or projections. To know where you begin is to reclaim agency and voice. Boundaries help you identify where you stop and the other begins:

* What’s mine vs. what’s theirs? Where does my responsibility end? When am I merging, absorbing, or abandoning myself?

Boundaries guard against emotional enmeshment and relational self-erasure… against the belly-up posture I habitually took.

“Zahir smiled, ‘It is the gardener who listens to the seed, not the wind of old words that tries to shape its bloom.’”- The gardener here is the one who nurtures life attentively—not by imposing, but by listening. They hear the potential whispering from within the seed. They honor the seed’s unique rhythm, rather than forcing it into a mold

They recognize that growth requires presence, not control

To listen to the seed is to be guided by what wants to become—not what others expect it to be. It’s a metaphor for relational attunement—parenting, mentoring, or loving with patience and curiosity.

The “wind of old words” symbolizes, for me, the voices of shame, doubt, or cultural expectations. These winds try to dictate how the seed should bloom—how a person should grow, speak, love, exist. But wind is external. It may be loud, persuasive—but it doesn’t truly know the seed.

This line is a radical act of compassion: It urges us to cultivate from the inside out, not the outside in. To be the kind of presence that listens instead of labels. To trust what’s emerging—even if it doesn’t match what the winds once declared.

It’s about tending the seed instead of yielding to the wind.

“’Do not seek to name the dance. Just feel its rhythm.’ And the mist did not explain. It only embraced. ‘The path is chosen before the mind draws its map.’ And the heart did not argue. It only opened.”- This speaks to the urge we often have to define, categorize, or make sense of what we’re experiencing emotionally, or spiritually.

But some things, especially the most profound, can’t be named. They’re meant to be felt, not explained. Like: a moment of connection you didn’t plan for, a truth that arrives without words, an instinct to choose grace instead of retaliation

Naming is the mind’s attempt to control. But feeling the rhythm is the soul’s way of moving with life.

And that final line—“The heart did not argue. It only opened.”- That’s when we stop trying to explain everything and simply walk forward.

WOW, Peter!

Anita (and Copilot)

Dear John:

You’re welcome!

As for “what’s next—more meditation? More yoga?”- What has helped me tremendously is journaling about painful childhood experiences. I do this in my thread, “Life Worth Living—what is it like?” using a method I call SOCJ (Stream of Consciousness Journaling). I simply type whatever comes to mind, freely and without structure.

You can try it here in your own thread, or privately. Maybe you already have…?

Anita