Courage Can Be Just As

It Is Very Difficult For People To Believe The Simple Fact That Every Persecutor Was Once A Victim. Yet It Should Be Very Obvious That Someone Who Was Allowed To Feel Free And Strong From Childhood Does Not Have The Need To Humiliate Another Person.

The Knowledge That You Were Beaten And That This, As Your Parents Tell You, Was For Your Own Good May Well Be Retained (although Not Always), But The Suffering Caused By The Way You Were Mistreated Will Remain Unconscious And Will Later Prevent You From Empathizing With Others. This Is Why Battered Children Grow Up To Be Mothers And Fathers Who Beat Their Offspring

Every Life And Every Childhood Is Filled With Frustrations; We Cannot Imagine It Otherwise, For Even The Best Mother Cannot Satisfy All Her Child's Wishes And Needs. It Is Not The Suffering Caused By Frustration, However, That Leads To Emotional Illness, But Rather The Fact That The Child Is Forbidden By The Parents To Experience And Articulate This Suffering, The Pain Felt At Being Wounded.

The True Opposite Of Depression Is Not Gaiety Or Absence Of Pain, But Vitality: The Freedom To Experience Spontaneous Feelings.

Ultimately The Body Will Rebel. Even If It Can Be Temporarily Pacified With The Help Of Drugs, Cigarettes Or Medicine, It Usually Has The Last Word Because It Is Quicker To See Through Self-deception Than The Mind. We May Ignore Or Deride The Messages Of The Body, But Its Rebellion Demands To Be Heeded Because Its Language Is The Authentic Expression Of Our True Selves And Of The Strength Of Our Vitality.