Compassion (Part II) -- Well, what does it look like then?

I woke up with a few more thoughts in my head about this subject. (at 6:30 am no less! I set my alarm by accident last night..:))



I watched a very passionate speaker once and he said a quote that I never have forgot, "You only need ONE person to believe in you. Just one and that can change everything."
What a powerful statement! I have also heard the statement "Believe in yourself and you can change everything." My only trouble is sometimes my mind and thoughts are clouded by my painful story about them.

To add to my original compassion post, this is what I think compassion "looks" like. It is being that ONE person that believes in another. It is seeing that person as the person you know they can be. An example would be possibly seeing someone with an addiction who may be trying to find someone to empathize with them as someone who is already clean and sober. It is looking straight into the eyes of your lying teenager and seeing them as the amazing adult that they are growing to be. People are inspired by that. I am inspired by that. When someone I have looked to in the past for sympathy has looked at me and basically said, "You are much more than what your pain is causing you to appear as to be right now." I have lifted and I mean, I went back into the core of me and really looked at who I was and realized that I WAS more than the story I was telling myself. At the time, I was choosing the pain...I was CHOOSING to be in that story. Their belief in me caused me to turn and focus on a solution instead of reveling in my own sadness--which was getting me nowhere. That was true compassion in my eyes. And those are the people in my life that I go back to time and time again. The ones that inspire me, that refuse to believe in the norms.
Even if my "reality" truly looks painful and I am telling an extremely persuasive story about why they should feel sorry for me--they stay their own course of just loving me and believing in me and refusing to see anything but the already healed version of me.

When true compassion abounds, that is where true healing begins. I will admit that I am new to this changed outlook on compassion. However, in the experiences I have had thus far, I have seen nothing but amazing wonder come from it. Some may ask where does action come in? So, if I don't join them, what am I even doing there to help them? Great questions. My experience is that MORE action and MORE help comes from the lack of focus on the problem and the increase in focus on the solution. When you aren't joining their pain and commiserating with them, you are holding that open space of healing for them. What I have seen is that is when they start to think rationally and just automatically start focusing on the solution with you. It becomes this loving team of people who are basically holding the thought of how everything always works out and they just need to find their way past this one.



I have also noticed an increase in them asking for guidance from you. When this guidance is coming from a place of not needing to fix them and from a place of focusing on the end outcome (and the end version of them that you already see) it is pure inspiration. It catapults both of you into action. They are much more in tune with what they need as are you because the energy has been taken off the misery and pain and put onto a place that exists without the painful thoughts. True compassion in this fashion give them the power to heal themselves which is so powerful and is the kind of healing that lasts.

Those are the rest of my thoughts for now. I look forward to your comments!
E