COMPASSION

through most of my life, people have told me that i think too much. that i analyse too much. that i can be “too much”.

but here’s what i think. we all think, all the time, it’s just that i choose to concern myself with trying to understand things that have happened in not only my life, but in others’ lives too. because to understand, is to have compassion. it’s to be more open. loving. forgiving.

any time i’ve been “hurt” - i put my feelings aside and i try to consider why the other person might have done what they did. it’s easy to blame, to degrade, to state that this person is selfish, an asshole, a prick, but what’s not easy is to empathise. what’s not easy is to consider why they did or said what they did. this is not about excusing behaviour, it’s about explaining it.

sometimes though, you might not understand. you might not be able to explain their behaviour. how then, can you still choose to forgive? to let go? to love?

when i read the art of happiness by the dalai llama in 2012, it profoundly changed my heart. the fundamental lesson in the book is that we, as humans, all want the exact same thing. we all want happiness and we all want to avoid suffering. and if we could see each fellow human as just that, as individuals seeking happiness and avoiding suffering, we would feel connected in ways we never have before.

we are all human. we all want happiness. we all want to avoid suffering. but we also all want to love and be loved. and loving comes from understanding. it comes from forgiveness. it comes from compassion.

OUR NEED FOR CONTROL

as humans, we feel we need to be in control. we try to control our lives. we try to control other people. we try to predict the future. and we do so because being in control gives us a sense of security. it gives us a sense of autonomy. but our need for control, and our struggle to relinquish it, is one of the reasons why we suffer.

the truth is, nothing in life is predictable. and rarely in life does anything ever go according to plan - how can it? there are so many external factors that play into every situation, how can we possibly account for all of them and predict the outcome of something that hasn’t even happened yet? we can’t. and yet, we still try.

our need for control is really just our resistance to what is. any time something happens that isn’t what we anticipated, it’s an opportunity for us to move somewhere else. unfortunately though, we often become stuck on our idea of how things should be or how people should be, that our resistance creates pain and suffering.

i’m guilty of this too. i’m currently experiencing something that i’m having a difficult time accepting when in reality i should be asking, okay, where to from here? what can i learn from this? in life we always have three choices: we accept what is. and if we can’t accept it, we change it. and if we can’t change it, then we remove ourselves from it.

there’s nothing heroic about suffering. and often the suffering we experience is created not because of external circumstances, but because of our unwillingness to accept them.

so what are you having a hard time accepting and what can you learn from letting go of your need to control it?

THE POWER OF LOVE

love is a word we often throw around without ever thinking too much about what it really means. so what does it mean? and what can loving someone do for them?

love, to me, is about freedom. it’s about giving someone the freedom to be themselves without the fear of you leaving or punishing them. how do you give someone freedom? through safety. acceptance. non-judgment. non-reaction. and non-attachment.

often when we become controlling, whether that be in friendships or relationships, i’ve found it to be because we’re in denial with what is. we’re trying to make someone they’re not. we’re projecting our own insecurities and fears onto someone else, hoping they’ll fill the void that was never theirs to fill. this sort of love isn’t love. and you’ll find it will stifle both yours and their growth rather than catalyse it.

love is transformative. when you give someone the space to be nothing but themselves, when you give them the acceptance to express all of their sides, when you do all of this from a place of loving kindness, it transforms them. it heals them. it saves them.

so how are you choosing to love?