No inner conflict at all? That is a tall order. Our inner conflicts usually come from childhood traumatizations, although those early psychological wounds can also be compounded by further psychological wounds later on. Thus to have no inner conflicts at all, we would have to be healed of our psychological wounds. This is obviously easier said than done. But it can happen.
On page 43, Tony says, "Tell me, when you grieve, whom are you grieving for? Who's loss? That's self-pity."
In short, when I grieve certain losses in my life, I am grieving for me because I am the one who has experienced the loss. No doubt about that much.
Incidentally, the Victorian Jesuit poet says as much in his poem titled "Spring and Fall." The poem opens with the following lines: "Margaret, why are you grieving/ Over Goldengrove unleaving?" The last two lines of the poem say, "It is the blight man was born for,/ It is Margaret you mourn for."
Now, Tony in this new book wants to persuade us that we can be happy regardless of what happens to us. So we can be happy when we experience certain losses in our lives. I understand his basic point.
However, I want to examine Tony's statement that mourning our losses is self-pity, because we are mourning for ourselves. I want to raise this question: What in us is prompting us to mourn our losses?
Alice Miller and John Bradshaw and others have taught us to think about and reflect on the Child Within (also known as the Inner Child). Moreover, John Bradshaw likes to say that grief is the healing feeling.
I would suggest that when we mourn our losses, our Child Within is activated and is undertaking the mourning. In short, the Child Within surfaces as a result of our loss and is leading us to mourn our loss.
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