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Finding Compassion
In these times of grief, fear, and contraction among many, what can we do to maintain our compassion?
We are all asking ourselves this. We are all in it together. We are all overwhelmed.
A whole month (April) has gone by, with all its horrors. A strange silence, a kind of emptiness of mind, has been pervasive within me. I could not find what to say here.
I thought possibly I was too self-involved (preparing for hip replacement surgery on 5/14, and struggling in the meantime with much physical limitation). Then I realized that I'd become emotionally shut down, even though I know better. This insight was prompted by a newspaper article describing a small town in Northern California, a place where people move to be "safe," where a young girl was murdered. It is reported that the town has pulled together to watch over the children, and to protect themselves by keeping all the guns in their houses loaded.
Despair and Empowerment
When we shut down our hearts, not being able to take any more bombings/shootings/building collapses/natural disasters/famines, it's a sign of despair. When we are in despair, we feel powerless.
When loaded guns become the bottom line, it is a sign of deep despair. Despite American reliance on guns as symbols of independence and self-protection--like John Wayne or George Bush, we'll fight them enemies--guns are a pretty limited option. Like George, we don't really know who the enemies are.
Our power to act comes from opening our hearts to both light and shadow. As Joanna Macy, John Seed, and so many other spiritual teachers tell us, empowerment comes from witnessing without attachment and without reaction, just seeing. It comes from being present to what is.
We are a society falling apart at the seams. Literally, with our crumbling infrastructure and no taxes to fix anything. Economically, with dwindling middle class and centralization of wealth among the few. Emotionally, with our denial of everything from global warming to evolution. Politically, with elected leaders mired in dogma and unwilling to agree on solutions. We all know what is there. When we see it, when we say it, the paths to engagement open.
What If I Am Too Weighed Down?
Energetically, the pall is getting pretty heavy, like dense smog. I see many of us (including myself!) taking on, and taking in, what does not really belong to us. I suggest these two useful strategies to shift the weight:
- Release the psychic hooks. At least once a day, close your eyes and scan your body for anything that feels like a hook. Unhook it. See it rolling away on a cord, rolling through a door. Shut the door. See a rose on the doorknob if you want, indicating that you mean no harm: you are simply releasing what does not belong to you.
- Every morning, set your psychic protection. See your energy body surrounded by blue light (or gold, or whatever color you prefer). Say "I intend to keep out everything that does not belong to me, and let in only what does belong to me." In this way, you set an intention to allow someone's appreciation or love for you, but keep out the anger or frustration that is theirs, not yours. Setting this protection does not keep out the pain of the world, or the pain in our own lives. Rather, it helps protect us from energetic invasions which sap our strength.
What Can I Do To Find Compassion?
As I mention more and more in these newsletters, energetic releasing and filling are key to being present, and being empowered. Whether we are facing a partner's rage, a disaster, a child's disappointment, or the state of the earth, these practices help us be as clear, present, and as filled with our natural radiance as is possible. I use each of these practices daily to navigate my life:
- Release the heavy and negative from your body. Let the energy of the pain or fear or grief, whatever you are feeling, flow out of you into the earth. Over and over throughout the day. It really is just energy!
- Fill yourself with lighter energy. Take in the glance of the beloved, the child's smile, the sunlight streaming down. Fill with the wind off the water, the beautiful blue sky. Fill with Reiki or the energy of the cosmos.
- From this filled-up place, open your heart. Connect with those suffering. Spread the love. Remember that the arising and falling away of all things is the nature of the universe.
Practicing Compassion
Try this: click this link to a beautiful forest lagoon filled with oil contamination in the Peruvian Amazon.
Look at the image (scroll down slightly on the page). Release, fill, and open your heart to this place. Let your love for the earth help you to feel what it is like, take in the ramifications, and imagine the outcomes. Let the rage and horror arise, and fall away. Let the sadness arise, and fall away. Breathe, and breathe again.
Keep your heart open in love for the water, the soil, the indigenous people having to drink from and live with this. Keep your heart open in compassion for the corporate and government people who cared so much about money that they blinded themselves to the costs. Keep your heart open for yourself, living in this world, and trying to take care of it. Let go of judgment (who is bad, who is good), and just be with what is.
This practice, in itself, shifts the energy in the world. And if you are passionate about an issue, the practice helps you act from a place of power.
Keep Dreaming!
We will create a different future for ourselves when we keep connecting, keep dreaming, and let go of our personal, egoic focus in favor of open-hearted aliveness. Our aliveness fuels our action in a far more sustainable way than our anger does. I want to repeat what I said last month. Remember:
"Many of us, around the world, are learning to shift our thoughts, behaviors, and hearts. We are releasing the heaviness and filling with lighter, less judgmental, and more connected energy. We are creating new energetic structures as we perceive through eyes of love, appreciation, and gratitude! We are creating new energetic structures as we flow into union with living energy.
We can make this like breathing! We can continue finding and linking to others doing the same. No matter where we start, we can deepen our connection with other beings, expand and shift our consciousness, and open ourselves to the cosmic field."
Meg Beeler/Earth Caretakers
Copyright � 2013
 | | Connection Despacho, Mt. Tamalpais |
"We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings..." --Hafiz
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