Everyone is an individual

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We absorb ideas even when don’t realize it. One of the things that I had to learn is that everyone is an individual.

You might say this is obvious. Everyone is an individual. There is a conscious level where we understand things, and then a shadow side where we don’t understand things. My problem is that my experiences made me think that women were not to be trusted. I was wrong.

I could blame the experience in my life, but the truth was that I was hurt and I didn’t realize how badly I was hurt by one experience in my life. That colored my experience all of my life. It took a thoughtful doctor who helped me understand that my pain was not real and that everyone was an individual.

It hurt to admit that I was hurt so badly, but it also hurt that I might have hurt previous relationships with women that I had. I understand why women and men have hatred toward each other. We have been hurt and we think the worst of an entire category of people. No hatred makes sense, much less that hatred against a group.

Why am I sharing this with you? It takes time to learn and understand what is in our hearts as well as our minds.  It is true that women have many reasons to hate all men. More than 80% of women have reported being sexually abused by men. That is terrible. Almost every woman I have known in my life has shared they have been abused. I would be very angry if I were a woman toward men.

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Ultimately, however, hating men or women doesn’t help anyone. I had to forgive the woman who hurt me, and myself for being vulnerable and hurt. The things we hate aren’t out there, they are inside of us.