Laziness gets a bad rap. We’re told it’s a flaw, a weakness, a waste of time.
But sometimes, doing nothing can save your life — and the lives of others.
When Marty betrayed me, the repressed emotions of the child I once was came rushing to the surface with an intensity I had never felt before. The anger was so overwhelming that for a fleeting moment, I wanted to kill him.
But it was too much work.
So instead, I sat on my couch in the fetal position and let the storm rage inside my body. I didn’t try to distract myself. I didn’t act on my impulses. I just felt.
Later, reading Alice Miller’s books, I had the aha moment: most of my intense hatred wasn’t truly about Marty at all. It was the stored rage, grief, and despair of the defenseless child I once was — triggered by a betrayal in the present.
Once those emotions were fully felt and understood in the context of my childhood, they were gone. Permanently.
No matter what happens now, no one can trigger that same well of pain again. If someone reminds me of my past — if they begin reenacting their own unresolved drama in my direction — I simply walk away.
As a child, I could not walk away.
As a mature, conscious, liberated adult, I can.
Feeling those emotions the day of Marty’s affair was my rebirth.
Alice Miller describes this process with a clarity that pierced my soul:
“At the beginning of our lives, we were, as very small children, totally dependent on our parents. And we believed, we HAD TO believe, that we were loved by them. Even when we were abused, we couldn’t realize this... Thus, we had to repress our rage, indignation, and deep disappointment into our bodies… Should we, as adults, be treated in the same way… we can become aware of the cruelty endured before. But… the knowledge of the whole amount of cruelty can still rest repressed… For this reason, we need what we call ‘the transference,’ hating, for instance, another person instead of our mother or father.”
“…The transference can be liberating if we are ready to see it as a consequence of our early life… At this moment, the transference becomes our guide… to BELIEVE what [the child’s] body KNEW its whole life but his mind could never believe: that so much evil and hatred can be directed towards a small, innocent child only because the parents have endured the same and have never questioned this.”
— Alice Miller, About Transference, October 14, 2008
That day, I unknowingly used the transference as my guide.
By staying on that couch and feeling the unbearable pain, I finally met my outraged, terrified inner child — and freed her.
Revenge would have kept me in the past.
Laziness, in its quiet wisdom, carried me forward.
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