“Why are people so mean?”

These words came from a young woman during a recent session. Her voice shook.

It opened up a door at the base of my belly, releasing a noxious stream of memories: being ignored, betrayed, disregarded, disrespected, abused.

I knew the answer. It could roll off my tongue with the same autopilot that gets me to my daughter’s school every morning before I’m fully awake.

Meanness is an ego-based judgment.

We can never know what someone’s internal experience is or where they are in their spiritual growth.

What is perceived as meanness could actually be an impenetrable suffering, or a catalyst for our own awakening, or one of a million other explanations.

I could (and did) say all that.

But what I felt was OUCH.

I felt the pain that had created the question in the first place.

I felt the struggle to understand and process the incomprehensible.

I felt the unmistakable impulse to be a good person and live a good life.

I felt the frailty and vulnerability of human existence.

I felt the longing to love and be loved.

What we experience, according to all spiritual traditions, is for our greatest good. In fact, we chose it. Which doesn’t stop it from hurting.

Kindness is a big theme for me. (I wrote a manifesto about it.) It’s a huge part of why I do what I do. I’d like everybody to be nicer to each other. And nicer to me.

But I know the world is as much a reflection of my inner state as anything else. Which means I have to be nice to myself, first.

There’s a tool in psychotherapy, based on Gestalt psychology, that involves talking to yourself. It’s called Voice Dialogue, and it allows the patient to give voice to the part of them that is creating a ruckus.

For most of us, it’s the inner critic. Mine is named Mabel. She sports a stained housedress, old-fashioned curlers and a mostly-smoked cigarette hanging from her lower lip.

She does not utter a single sentence without profanity. She is the meanest person I’ve ever met. And, guess what?

She is me.

All her thoughts, feelings, beliefs and communications come from my own head. I know better than to let them out into the world, but that doesn’t stop her from yapping. She criticizes everything and everyone around her, in the most vicious way. She’s criticizing you right now.

She’s criticizing me all the time.

Mabel used to run things. It made for a very unhappy life. Then I realized that Mabel isn’t actually in charge. She works for Me.

Although her delivery is completely inappropriate, and her communication skills are abysmal, sometimes she has a point. Underneath all her ranting and raving, there are occasional nuggets of wisdom that could only have been born by sitting under a pile of $h!%.

Why are people so mean?

Because we hurt. And a hurt heart is like a chip in a mirror. What is reflected will always be marred. Until we let life polish the injury away. Mabel is the collective voice of all my damaged and broken parts.

It’s impossible (as far as I’ve seen) to get through this wild ride called life without accumulating a large number of dings, pocks, chips and cracks.

Some of us experience things that shatter us.

Sometimes it feels impossible that all those shards will ever fit together again. Sometimes, the whole thing needs to go into the fire to be liquefied and re-cast.

Before you look at another being, and decide they are mean… or wrong… or evil… try to remember:

Their cracks might be nearly irreparable.

Bonus points if you can allow in that maybe they have chosen to go through whatever shattered them so that you could experience compassion, empathy, gratitude and love.

The depth of feeling I experience when faced with another’s suffering can be uncomfortable. Especially if that suffering looks like exceptionally bad behavior.

But it reminds me of why I’m here. It reminds me of how much destruction I’m creating inside my own mind. It reminds me that anything I desire in the world must first start with me.

Kindness to self unlocks the door to kindness toward others.

Mabel is free to squawk and bark as much as she wants now. I know who’s in charge.