Compassion
I drew an angel card today: Compassion. One simple word with so much meaning behind it, and so much light and beauty in the picture. This angel message is BIG! It’s not just a call to extend compassion to others, but to also give compassion to ourselves.
Every. Single. Person I know has something - or some things going on in their life right now. I’m sure you do too! My brain is ticking things off: caring for aging parents, a car that quit working and too expensive to fix, unemployment, HUGE medical bills, fighting with a roommate, an unexpected death of a loved one, an expected death, health problems, moving, staying put while a loved one moves away, a break-up…and so on…and so on…and so on!
The angels are reminding us to have compassion. And the first place we need to aim that compassion is right at ourselves. If you’re like me, you can always immediately think of someone who has things worse off than you. And yes, definitely have compassion, kindness, and empathy for that person, BUT!, don’t think that just because someone is going through something you think is way worse than what you’re dealing with that you need to just “buck up” and “get over it”. Pain is pain! Flight attendants remind us to “put our own oxygen mask on first”; sometimes what we need to do most is give ourselves grace. It’s okay to feel sad, or angry, or exhausted and honor it: really feel it. In fact, I’ve recently taught a visualization technique whereupon you feel the uncomfortable feeling and imagine it as a color, and then imagine it as something solid. (For example, if my adult child was not coming home for the holidays, the feeling I might feel would be sadness and anger because of my disappointment of missing her, and frustration at the unfairness. I imagine those mixed emotions as a combination of black/gray/red, kind of like a log in a fire pit that is partially solid, partially ashy, and partially embers.) Next, imagine that colored object over the thing that is making you feel uncomfortable (it can be a person, place, or thing). (I would imagine my red-hot log over a Christmas Tree for this visualization.) Now that I have that image in my mind’s eye, I imagine sending out pink, sparkly love light from my heart center to that log. The pink sparkly light encompasses the whole object and my red/black/gray log changes to pink and sparkly, and as the love infuses it, the whole thing starts to dissipate…and with it my feelings of anger and sadness. I just gave myself the gift of compassion -allowing myself to feel my feelings fully, and then transmute them into love. And then what happens? I’m able to switch from anger and sadness toward my daughter to a state of compassion for her mixed feelings around not coming home.
Ultimately, compassion is key to healing hurts and division among us, but first we need to have compassion for ourselves. By allowing ourselves grace to feel however we feel based on whatever our “stuff” is at the moment, we automatically extend grace and peace to those around us. And, the angels say, “if you’re struggling, ask us for help!”
