The Virtue of Compassion
10 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Compassion, Forgiveness, Peacefulness Tags: Compassion, Self-Empowerment, virtues for well-being
Compassion
Compassion is understanding and caring when someone is hurt or troubled, even if you don’t know them. It is wanting to help, even if all you can do is listen and say kind words. You forgive mistakes. You are a friend when someone needs a friend. (52virtues.com)
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When we are trying to better ourselves or our condition, compassion is often times a gateway to emotional freedom.
It is easy to have compassion for a child who has fallen on a playground, or to write a kind email to someone getting out of the hospital, but what about having compassion for someone who has done you wrong? This is much more difficult. But this is where compassion can lead to healing.
Compassion can replace feelings of anger, resentment, hurt and then compassion becomes the gift we give ourselves in that we are released from the chains of those negative thoughts and feelings.
This is sounding a lot like forgiveness, right? Sure — compassion and forgiveness are cousins. But the difference is that compassion takes over where forgiveness ends. When we forgive someone for an injustice done to us or others we essentially chose Peace over anger. But when we then allow ourselves to have compassion we can have a greater understanding of where the person was coming from when they did what they did that hurt us. In this process, our hearts become further connected to theirs and a bond becomes stronger.
This is all in the context of a relationship with someone to whom you care deeply for and desire to have a fuller bond, of course. Compassion makes the heart grow stronger.
Let’s not forget the most important person that needs our greatest compassion of all — ourselves! When we are compassionate towards ourselves then we release ourselves from feelings of judgement or low esteem. Compassion is a gift we give ourselves when we can reflect on our shortcomings, have compassionate forgiveness for them, and then redirect ourselves towards growing in these areas in the future.
Keep on smilin’
Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. ~Hans Christian Anderson
Day 198: The Virtues of Infinite Possibilities
11 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment
in Assertiveness, Caring, Compassion, Daily Log, Enlightenment, Generosity, Peacefulness, Trust Tags: healing, health, personal growth, self development, virtues blog
Wow — as I wrote Day 198, it occured to me that this virtues blog has been a part of my life for quite some time now. When I started doing the daily count the idea was that I was going to count the days, like a captain of a ship would, on my journey into health and well-being through the virtues.
Interestingly, last week I came across another inspirational website of people who are also on journeys of 100 day cycles. They call it the 100 Day Challenge (at www.cocreatingreality.com) and the idea is to define a goal at the beginning. It can be any goal — to be healthier, to get a new job, to watch less TV, to eat more veggies, to start an art class — anything…and then they take steps throughout the 100 days to achieve that goal and blog about in on the site.
I’ve joined the 100 Day Challenge group as of March 1 and so I am on day 11 there. My goal is to increase abundance in my life, especially abundance of love and prosperity. My strategies include using my writing strengths to increase my income and putting a focus on my physical body’s well-being and needs in order to remove old toxic build up and increase my physical health.
To align my virtues blog with my 100 Day challenge, on day 201 I will bring it in line with my 100 Day Challenge which will be Day 14.
On this virtues blog I will continue to write about using virtues to overcome challenges and what strategies can be useful in doing so.
In the meantime, I wanted to address the Virtue of Infinite Possibilities and answer what does that mean anyways?
Here is why having an idea of Infinite Possibilities is useful in the journey towards replacing negatives with positives:
When we look at something and say, “this is the way that it is” a flower is yellow or this person is mean or this job is terrible, whatever the case may be…when we say that we close ourselves off to peace and happiness. In order to have the hope for peace and joy we must, must, must have the idea that something can be different than what it is. This flower will look blue at night time, this person has just lost a child and is greiving, this job would be better if you talked to your boss about your need for a raise and got one. You see…there are possibilities for everything.
INFINITE POSSIBILITIES? Really? You ask? How can that be? And what does that even mean and how does it apply to me?
In terms of virtues, it means that there is no end to the ways that we can improve ourselves, our lives, and the lives of those around us. It means that if we release ourselves from limiting thoughts and we allow our heart to guide us, we will begin to see the world in an entirely new way. We may have a renewed sense of hope or faith, we may begin to trust ourselves, we may begin to trust others. We may begin to be more assertive, more caring, more gentle…whatever we need in order to approach the situation differently is at our disposal.
When we even make one small step to re-direct our intentions towards things that will improve our peace of mind, our personal well-being, and the happiness of those around us, then we open ourselves up to more possiblities. And the possibilities are endless.
The idea of infinite possibilities is appealing to me right now because I am giving a lot of thought lately to Abundance. Abundance is not a virtue, per say, but it is a sister to virtues such as Mercy, Grace, and Generosity. When we trust that there is a Merciful, Gracious, and Generous Being that has our best interests at mind, then we begin to let Peace in. And it does not matter what name we give this Being — Do you call it Universe? God? Creator? Blessed Beauty? Allah? Higher Power? These names are all names for the same Divine and Ancient Spirit of Life that created us, loves us, nurtures us, and moves us in our lives towards a greater and greater Peace.
The possibilities for Peace are endless. And what a beautiful gift that is.
Day 196: The Light of Compassion
09 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment
in Compassion, Forgiveness, Uncategorized Tags: Compassion, Forgiveness
Debbie Ford writes that, “A compassionate heart will lift you out of the pain and suffering of your own world, because it knows that everyone is doing the best they can, given their state of consciousness and the histories they’re dragging behind them. The divine heart knows that people don’t decide at age 3 to grow up and be an abusive parent, a bullying neighbor or a mediocre couch potato, so it forgives easily. Compassion knows that choosing the higher road in any situation is the most loving option for you.
So when this agent of change is activated in your awareness, you are finally free to stop taking everything so personally and look beyond the myopic view of your individual self. Compassion enables you to reach to the heavens and look through the heart of God. What an astonishing view…and what a profound relief.
It is here that you will finally find the peace you are looking for. It is here that you will be free to surrender your judgments. And it is here that you will experience the liberation of your soul.” (21 Day Consciousness Cleanse www.oprah.com)
Compassion — accepting everyone for who they are, even yourself, and forgiving past mistakes by realizing that everyone, even yourself, is doing the best they can at any given time.
May God grant that I may have a more compassionate heart and rise above all that keeps my heart hiding in the shadows of regret. Compassion can remove the veils and let the light of forgiveness in.
Day 180: The Gift of Self-Awareness
18 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Compassion, Forgiveness, Love, Peacefulness, Truthfulness Tags: self awareness, self-actualization, self-improvement, Spirituality, virtues for well-being
Self-Awareness
This truly is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. Why they don’t teach us that in Kindergarten I really don’t know! My goodness, why did I have to strive for 32 years to find out who it was that was in my heart all along — Myself!
Today, I was thinking that it might be useful if I design these Virtues entries in a way of meditation, so that when you come on the site, or when you receive this blog in your inbox it can be a meditation for the day.
Meditation helps us to discover or uncover our True Selves that is buried, for so many of us it’s buried, beneath the coverings of who we think we should be or who we have been told to be. Discovering our True Self is difficult because, and this is just my opinion, but it is difficult because our True Self is our Highest Self or our Most Virtuous Self, our Soul, so to speak. Our True Self desires only Peace and lives in Peace.
So, if we had a lot of experiences that were not Peaceful in our lives then our thoughts and feelings became reflections of those events and reflected the opposite of Peace — this could be manifested as fear, loneliness, addiction, self-damaging behaviours, aggression, criminal activity, depression, anxiety, etc. The key to finding our True Self is to accept these feelings, accept the history that brought them there, and then let them go. Forgiveness, Compassion and Acceptance are needed. Without these there can be no inner peace.
What does all this have to do with Self-Awareness? A lot! Because “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues.” (Quoted from the Baha’i Writings)
TRUTHFULNESS! Such a challenging concept in a culture that values deceit. We live in a culture of hiding, covering up, making excuses, passing off responsibility, seeing what we can get away with without “getting caught”! We do. And so to begin to be Truthful with oneself is to begin to go against the grain. The benefit of doing something that not many others are doing is that you know of a certainty that it will bring you to your True Self. The challenge is that it will not be easy and you will confront confrontation along the way.
The Reward? If you can become truthful with yourself then you will gain true self-awareness. Debbie Ford says that “Self-Awareness is the Key to Freedom.” So — to step out from whatever “prison” you are in…to embrace the freedom to “BE” that is rightfully yours…the very, very, very first step is to become truthful to yourself.
I would recommend that in your actions towards becoming more truthful that you also carry with you compassion or love too because without it you may just find yourself so upset with yourself that you get yourself stuck in cycles of negative thinking (believe me, I’ve been there.) Compassion and Forgiveness are on the same team as Truthfulness and together these three virtues will begin you on the path towards Freedom — which is Inner Freedom — which is the Freedom to LIVE fully awake to yourself and your life — which is to live the life that you were meant to have — which is a life of Peace and Fulfillment. Nothing less.
Day 178: The Light of Compassion
16 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Compassion Tags: personal growth, self-actualization, virtues for wellbeing, Virtues Project
For the past 20 days I have been doing Debbie Ford’s 21 Day Consciousness Cleanse. (Thanks to my friend and life coach Susan Gammage’s recommendation!) The change in my entire being has been amazing.
On day one, I was filled with emotional and mental clutter from years of striving but not ever feeling like I had accomplished. Now, on day 20, after doing some major overhaul to some of my emotional garbage bins that were full and over-flowing, I feel free.
Free at last. Free to be me. Free to write fully from my place of inner peace and absolute acceptance with this moment and all that is in it.
The message for today in that Consciousness Cleanse was “Compassion” so I wanted to write about compassion.
When I first reflected on it today I couldn’t even describe to myself what compassion was! I had to look it up! Apparently, it means to show kindness especially to show forgiveness for a mistake. To have acceptance of oneself and others without judgement or evaluation.
An event happened today that gave me the opportunity to practice compassion. A dear friend visited me this afternoon and in our conversation I offered to lend them some pencil crayons that were needed for a project. After I showed this friend where the pencils were, right beside the sciccors, I left the room. When I returned, I saw that the friend also had taken sciccors and commented on how we had enough sciccors for every day of the year. I said yes we did I guess. And it occured to me afterwards that the friend had taken the sciccors in their hands.
At first it felt as though they had been stolen, because the friend didn’t say, “Can I borrow these too?” But they weren’t stolen because it was a friend and in my heart I allowed the sciccors to go. This was the moment of compassion for me. Instead of judging that this friend did “wrong” I just accepted it. Sure, it would have been nice if they had have asked, but hey, what are friends for if you can’t take something you need without asking.
Okay, fine, all friends would not get away with this. But I chose compassion rather than justice and it felt good.
Is there a situation in your life that is asking for compassion? Who can you forgive today? What expectation can you let go of that will make your heart lighter in the glow of this wonderful virtue?
