When we meet and experience each other from a heart level, flesh falls away. What is left are the bones of compassion that hold each of us up.
How do we get to the heart? How do we see from the heart?
We must become fearless, vulnerable, and naked. And we will eventually have to do this with each other.
To get to that sacred space where we can feel safe enough to allow ourselves to become vulnerable and to set fear aside, we first have to practice it with ourselves.
We must be with ourselves, standing in front of our Truest Nature, completely open and honest. Raw. Seeing the beautiful bones and honoring the bruises.
**Now I want you to know, dear reader, you will not find anything scary. You will only ever find beauty. No matter what you’ve been through, no matter what you’ve done, when you dig deeper, and deeper, and deeper, you will only ever find your purest, most original form, and it is beautiful.**
You may end up finding parts of yourself that you might not like. But, when you actually shed light on those parts and integrate them, when you acknowledge those parts, you will find that the whole of who you are is beautiful.
Jack Kornfield writes in his book, “The Wise Heart,” “Each of us has our own measure of pain. Sometimes the pain we suffer is great and obvious; sometimes it is subtle. Our pain can reflect the coldness of our families, the trauma of our parents, the stultifying influence of much modern education and media, the difficulties of being a man or a woman (and I add, the difficulties of however we identify). As a result, we often feel that we have been cast out. To survive we have to cover our heart, build up a layer of clay, and defend ourselves.
We lose the belief that we are worthy of love. The mystic Simone Weil tells us, “The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but that, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.” Compassion reminds us that we do belong, as surely as we have been lost… Always remember to put your trust in compassion.”
The second principle of Buddhist psychology states:
“Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.”
I invite you to work with compassion intuitively.
If you were to stand in front of a mirror, and look into your own eyes, how might you respond to yourself? And I’m consciously not asking how would you ‘react’ to yourself. Notice the reactions, and then respond from a place of compassion.
How would you talk to yourself as if you were the Divine? Cognitively knowing very well that you are the Divine, how would you hold yourself? How would you support yourself in all of your daily living? How would you nurture yourself and your dreams?
Would anything be different than what you’re doing now in your life?
To see another through the eyes of love, we must first see ourselves as love.
As we see ourselves as love, we begin to treat ourselves and speak to ourselves as the Universal Consciousness.
As we recognize ourselves as Source; we begin to see that Source is all others.
Source is everywhere.
Source is everyone.
So as you work intuitively with compassion towards your self, know that this will support you in developing the most deepest connection with your truest nature. The best relationship with your Highest Self. And that in that relationship you will develop the trust and confidence that will become so unshakable. No one and nothing else can break it down, can separate you from that Light within your heart, can make you doubt yourself.
This does not mean that you will stop loving others and stop caring less for others, it just means you start caring more for yourself.
And it means, as Jill Wintersteen wrote, that you will have “…develop the trust and confidence in yourself that what you set in motion previously is correct, even if you go through some troubled times.”
I love how Jack Kornfield writes, “Eventually I discovered that unworthiness is not helped by striving. I learned that for real healing I needed compassion.”
Remember the definition of compassion and it’s “fierce sword” by reading my post from years past HERE.
And read HERE about my son’s shoe laces and going “right to the center of the knot”, how it correlates to our compassionate hearts and Buddhism’s four abodes.
It’s no wonder why I have written about compassion and used it as a theme time and time again. And each time something new is unearthed. A new way of seeing where compassion can be offered. Where it shows up. How we can use it in practice both on the yoga mat and off the mat. And, how compassion can heal and save our Self and others.
How will you share compassion and give compassion to yourself today, dear reader?
Here is one way to show yourself compassion to yourself:
Place the ahamkara mudra, “to do with Self” gesture, in your hands. Softly extend all your fingers. Partially curl in your index fingers, in each hand separately, and place your thumbs between the first and second knuckles on the outer edge of the index fingers.
Rest your hands, palm facing up, in your lap. Rest, breathe, and repeat these words to your compassionate essence:
“I am love.
I offer myself grace.
I give myself compassion.
I care for my wounds.
I nourish my Spirit.
I love my Truest Nature, for It is Good.”
Perhaps then you may turn it inwards in another way, and speak to your True Essence:
“I love you.
I offer you grace.
I see you through my compassionate heart.
I have compassion for your wounds.
I nourish your Spirit.
I love your True Essence, for It is Good.”
*Perhaps you say this to another person today.
All my love and compassion,
Shawna
Breathe and Believe.