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Poem and Essay
The Injured Soul: A Poem and Essay About the Damaging Effects of Wrath, Jealousy, and Vanity
When jealousy, vanity, and wrath like a triad of hurt may be the result and cause of why hurt people hurt people.
Hurt people hurt people, so many have witnessed and concurred,
Oh, when wrath, jealousy, and vanity combine, the soul is surely injured.
With fiery anger, from a distressed mind, wrath lashes out his pain,
And jealousy, a green-eyed beast, consumes the heart in vain.
Vanity, the queen of ego’s delight, sits high and mighty on her throne.
Yet, in her shadows, love and compassion are rarely displayed or shown.
How this triad of danger wreaks havoc on the soul!
And what remains is broken as they swallow you whole.
Together, their torments are most treacherous and venomous,
if we dismantle the joy and beauty and good growing within us
only to cling to these vices, that distort and disconnect
in feeble and often unwarranted attempts to protect.
But the truth is, they are destroyers of our true self.
They cannot connect our heart with anyone else.
This triad tears us apart from the peace of Spirit
with each unkind act we commit and hurtful word we spit.
We feel the effects of trauma on a soul level. That emotional pain is often trapped in our body as trauma memories, and it can cause us to react to life and the world in a way that does not serve our personal growth or well-being.
As I have grown on my self-awareness journey, I have discovered the statement “hurt people hurt people” is more often true than not. I have seen these tormented souls torment others because they still carry and cling to their pain and trauma.
I cannot deny that wrath, jealousy, and vanity — powerful emotions — can easily consume us if we allow them to. With intrapersonal intelligence (knowledge of self), we grow in self-awareness as we develop emotional intelligence to…
