Compassion

Compassion is knowing our darkness well enough that we can sit in the dark with others.

Pema Chodron

I think these videos make reasonable or even great attempts at describing the benefits of unpleasant emotions & how to embrace them.

Why so many videos? Well it takes some convincing to resist recoiling from pain and to get curious about our uncomfortable emotions so they neither control, own or define us. Thankfully we might find that knowing compassion for one uncomfortable emotion makes us more open and able to be present with other uncomfortable emotions - the skill is the same. In fact we might reflect on mild discomfort we have dealt with in the past and what helped- perhaps just reflecting on mild disappointment when our sports team loses or a good concert is over, a friend was disappointed but we felt present and available for them. Or perhaps we were slightly nervous about a doing something new but we were able to soothe ourselves at that time.

We know there are all kinds of uncomfortable emotions.
Furthermore we are very clever at deceiving ourselves into thinking we do not harm ourselves and others when we are not present for our own emotional pain.

Can we notice our fear, loss, cruelty, resentment, aggression, frustration, anger, blame and indifference but what's more the vulnerability and tender heart that we are trying to protect?

We strive to protect what is valuable: it is no wonder that many people believe compassion is our fundamental wisdom, kindness, courage, creativity, connectedness with all of humanity which is our richness that is uncovered when we take notice with kindness our shared and ordinary pain.

There may be times when you may wish to water the flowers in your garden, and at other times we may wish to look at the weeds. This is like nourishing ourselves with appreciation of the good things within and around our lives: Gratitude, but here in this article we want to discuss how to look at the weeds: Compassionate Attention. Often confused with pity, compassion is an extension of love- being honest and open to our experience even when it is painful.

Weeds are flowers too, when you get to know them.
A.A. Milne

NOTICE YOUR REACTIONS

We might notice our style of running away before we even notice our pain: ignoring, indulging, attacking or some combination. Some of us have been doing it for so long, we don't even notice this style.

When we feel poverty-stricken do we lose heart, feel hopeless and feel sorry for ourselves? Perhaps the thoughts are we "couldn't care less" or "poor me", "there's no hope", "I'll never get it right", "why bother", "I can't recover from this, this is too much". Wallowing can give us temporary distraction. We may be unable to get out bed, stop taking care of ourselves, be less available to others. Perhaps we numb ourselves with mindless TV, video games, eating, drinking, smoking. Or perhaps we do take much effort to socialise, work, exercise but inside we are holding a grudge, it takes more effort.

Perhaps we add a layer of avoidance like we feel overly justified and applaud our condemnation of our discomfort: "I don't deserve this", "this is unfair, the world is unfair" or "Of course I'm like this because of everything that has happened to me". We may use self-criticism and guilt- just another way of avoiding the naked truth: we say "I'm terrible, inadequate". Alternative we may just go numb, dissociate, space-out, go on auto-pilot -- anything to avoid looking at our pain.

Do we avoid inconvenience at all costs and oriented only to comfort. This is like turning on the heat at the slight sense of cold or the air-conditioner when it is only mildly warm. At the first sign of discomfort to we balk, cover our uncomfortable emotions with talking too much and saying little with others and in our own private-time consumed by our internal chatter rather than be present with our emotions. The flips-side is that we lose our cool, get irritable, frustrated and aggressive when we are rudely awakened by our car, our internet, our body, our mind, the world not working the way we want?

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

Pema Chodron

One day I was hammering a nail and my right hand was not very accurate and instead of pounding on the nail it pounded on my finger. It put the hammer down and took care of the left hand in a very tender way, as if it were taking care of itself. It did not say, “Left Hand, you have to remember that I have taken good care of you and you have to pay me back in the future.” There was no such thinking. And my left hand did not say, “Right Hand, you have done me a lot of harm—give me that hammer, I want justice.” My two hands know that they are members of one body; they are in each other.

Thich Nhat Hanh

What is the alternative here? Can we notice the futility of these patterns of behaviours? Do these habits keep us prisoner, make us unable to venture out of old habits afraid of trying something new? Rather then step out of the cage and face our demons we wear the burden of not confronting our pain. Perhaps year by year, we become more closed off, or find our hearts hardening, feeling less joy, more dissatisfaction or boredom.

Pema Chodron talks about coming to know our fear of inconvenience, our resentment, shame and dullness - knowing that this is not a small thing - that many others also feel this same hurt, inconvenience, resentment, shame and dullness. What a different world we might live in if we were all able to know our fears, uncomfortable emotions, shame and indifference? Think of the harms that come from fear, anger, loss, self-hatred, close-heartedness.We might then notice that behind these actions and restlessness is a raw and vulnerable feeling.

Perhaps it is why we call the heart a tender heart - because it feels both pain and great love and joy. We might notice the energy of trying to protect ourselves from pain and be able to transform this into openness, broadening our awareness, compassion and the ability to be there for ourselves.

"The 'secret' of life that we are all looking for is just this: to develop through sitting and daily life practice the power and courage to return to that which we have spent a lifetime hiding from, to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment- even if it is a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness."

Charlotte Joko Beck

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.”

-PEMA CHODRON

GET CURIOUS

We might find it helpful to really get in touch with our uncomfortable emotions in a nonverbal and direct way - noticing the taste, texture, location, size, shape of our pain. This is called physicalizing. Is it heavy or light, moving or still, getting bigger or smaller, is it dark or light in colour, is it within us in one or more places or is it outside our body?

Some people find it helpful to notice the space around their uncomfortable emotion.

Some people find if they put they're hands on that area of the body where the emotion is located they can direct love or healing emotions to that area and soothe an emotional wound.

Some people find that breathing in their discomfort along with strength, they can breathe out lightness and comfort, becoming less burdened by their emotions with each breath.

Or we may just sit with emotions, breathing from the heart whilst we are present to the unspoken discomfort within us.

This may be where watering our flowers well can come into play as well. We may like to experiment with sending the feeling of love, joy, happiness, receiving or giving a smile, being there or being with someone, supported, free and safe, to the area of discomfort we are feeling.

We can wrap that love gently around our wounds. Notice its effect. At first we may be clumsy, maybe our handle on either our discomfort is not precise or clear or maybe our positive emotions deserve more attention to allow them to grow.

“Cultivating joy: learning not to armor our basic goodness, learning to appreciate what we have. Rather than appreciate where we are, we continually struggle and nurture our dissatisfaction. It’s like trying to get the flowers to grow by pouring cement on the garden”

Pema Chodron

So we might notice times when what we need is getting to know our wounds, being curious, being present with the raw energy behind fear, hurt, anger or shame and at other times we want to build the muscles of kindness, joy, feeling connected, calm being able to love and be loved. There is nothing wrong with oscillating between the two. And even when we find ourselves avoid our suffering in old ways we might find that gradually we notice this more, that it hasn't produced more peace, taken us further away from the person we could be, made us less present to our lives, less available emotionally to others and less self-aware. We might then make notice the burden of carrying through the same old patterns and try something different, something new.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye."