Transforming pain? Or transmitting it?

I have elevated "do as I say, not as I do" to an art form. I preach Dalai Lama but I practice Taylor Swift. Which is all a way of saying that although I want to float above the fray, to go high when others go low, sometimes I find myself in the mud, slinging away with the others.
"Those who don't transform their pain transmit it," says Father Richard Rohr, a Jesuit priest, speaking words that transcend any religious doctrine.
And when I'm in pain is, of course, when I go low.
When I'm scared is when I go low.
When I'm angry is when I go low.
For instance, I recently read about a well-known misogynist who's suffering health issues. My first thought, "wow. He's in real trouble." My second? I'm ashamed to say it was to mentally give karma a high-five.
I catch myself. I don't want to be a horrible person. I want to be serene and generous of spirit and empathetic, even to awful people who make life harder for other people. And I often succeed. Or, at least I succeed when I can connect with that awful person's vulnerability. When I can see that awful person's pain.
I was finally able to release myself from the festering hatred of the OW when I could recognize her pain. The second I was able to extend even the tiniest bit of empathy toward her, a miracle occurred. She no longer occupied my thoughts. She no longer poisoned my soul.
But what about those times when I just can't? When their pain isn't visible, when I can't conjure up empathy? When their cruelty seems so gleeful, when they seem to be benefiting from it? Well, then, I generally offer up a hearty "fuck you". Maybe not overtly. But my heart has a helluva middle finger.
The math goes like this:

My pain + the ability to see another's pain = compassion/transformation.
My pain + inability to see another person's pain = transmission

The problem with transmitting our pain is that it isn't like something I can pass to someone else, leaving me pain-free. Rather, it's like a virus. I still have my pain but I've also infected another through cruelty or just a lack of compassion.
Anne Lamott puts it this way: "Some days the only thing that can cheer me up is something bad happening to someone I hate."
Yep. Exactly.
Except the times in my life when I've spewed that bile, when I've wished horrible things on horrible people, when I've celebrated another's misfortune, I've been the one who feels horrible. My pain, transmitted, re-infects me.
When what I want is transformation.
What I want is mercy. We all do. Or, as Lamott says, "I am starving to death for it, and my world is, too.
I've been on the receiving end of mercy and it's transformative. I've been given the benefit of the doubt when I probably didn't deserve it. I've been given a second chance when I messed up the first one.
Which is why I want so badly to extend that mercy in a way that transforms. To rid myself of the desire to see others hurt, even if they really really deserve it.
Cause that's another tricky thing about mercy. Most of us don't deserve it.
Our husbands don't deserve it.
They messed up their first chance and probably their second.
Feeling empathy for them isn't exonerating them. It doesn't mean that what they did to us was okay. It isn't about giving them permission to do it again.
Rather, it's about refusing to infect another with our pain and refusing to allow them to infect us with theirs.
Not easy. Especially when we're festering in our hatred. When our pain feels radioactive.
But the alternative to mercy – to instead keep transmitting our pain – does little for our own healing.
Only when we can take responsibility for the only thing that truly IS our responsibility – our own actions – can we begin to feel free of our pain. And of theirs.
As Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it: "Option 1 feels like poison. And Option 2 feels like freedom."
And doesn't freedom sound lovely?