December 01, 2018
The Gift Of Listening
Tags: Compassionate Listener, Talking Sticks, The Perfect Gift
It is that time of year when we give gifts and share from our hearts. What about a giving something very few others do this year, the act of listening? Most of us hear, and engage in conversation, but how often do we put our motives, and opinions aside, put our discomfort in park, and just listen? Usually when someone speaks it is open season. Either party can throw into the ring whatever they have going though their minds. The other then reacts, or takes the conversation someplace else entirely. More often than not we cut each other off mid sentence and rush in to prove our point. We judge, we one-up. When we are struggling, however, we don’t want feedback, we just need to feel heard and held.
If someone is expressing feelings that make us uncomfortable, we may put the breaks on and try to shut the conversation down. We find ourselves wanting to fix them, or the situation, or perhaps we start intellectualizing about the circumstance to make the moment more abstract. It isn’t easy to really listen to someone’s pain. The question we need to ask ourselves is, are we helping them by trying to alleviate it... or are we shutting them down because we are uncomfortable with it? Perhaps their floundering makes us feel helpless. Alternatively, we may have been exposed to unpredictable emotional outbursts in our families that make us wary of instability. If we were taught to put all “darkness” aside, however, we may never have learned how to navigate these realms.
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December 01, 2017
Intimacy: Bridges Not Walls
Tags: Compassion, empathy, pity, judgement
It is often said that what we do on a personal level defines how our lives play out as a culture as well. After all, every culture is a reflection of the individuals within it. If we look at our communities right now, we see many people grappling with hate and fear. Divisiveness and anger are erupting within them, lines are being drawn, walls erected. Even weapons are being drawn. At the root of all this divisiveness is fear.
Fear permeates our personal lives as well. It can cripple emotional intimacy if we let it, much like it is undermining our country’s ability to unite. In our personal lives we usually seek out relationships that we can be “ourselves” in. We begin this process from behind a friendly facade we have constructed. It is an amalgam of the parts of ourselves we think are socially acceptable, and the fear based coping mechanisms we have developed to ensure we will not be hurt again. While this persona is safe, it is also lonely, as it negates our vulnerabilities.
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November 01, 2015
Judgement As A Form of Violence
Tags: Judgement, Violence, compassion, self development, responsibility
I am looking at the energetics of Judgement this morning...
While each judgement we entertain feels like a private thought, judgements have an aggressive energy to them that is directed outward toward the judged.
Most of us do not take responsibility for this little piece of violence that we send out into the world, thinking it is shrouded within the privacy of our own minds...
But judgement has a palpable energy, one that creates distance
And one that is felt when it is directed at you.
We all know this...
Because we have all felt it...
I'm not saying any of us have mastered the knee jerk reaction to protect ourselves by judging...
But I am asking that we all take a step back into compassion
And take responsibility for what we are putting out there.
May 26, 2015
Are You Listening Or Reacting?
Tags: Compassion, Healing, Human condition, Listening
Looking at the frailty of our human interactions... at how challenged we are to simply listen, to let someone else really sink in so we can understand them.
So often we are running what someone else says through our own filters and reacting to it instead.
So often we are looking for the opening, the way to get an upper hand, the hand grip that we can hang from to swing the interaction back to ourselves.
How often a conversation that could lead toward great connection through compassion goes astray into positioning, advice, judgement and accusation.
Do you ask questions to find out what your friend is trying to communicate, or do you make assumptions and step in to take the lead?
Do you let yourself feel what they are feeling?
Do you hold a place open for your friend to be in confusion and find their way or do you jump in with analysis or advice?
All of us are guilty of this.
At the very base this is a reminder to myself.
If it helps you remember too, so be it.
When we can listen with our hearts.. instead of our heads, we will find the connections we all so deeply want.
March 02, 2015
Owning Our Emotions
Tags: Emotions, shadow, compassion
Having feelings of loss, sadness, hopelessness and fear are part of the spectrum of emotions.
While they are feelings we want to process and overcome to come back into balance, they are not "shadow" unless we put them there....
Shadow is in NOT owning them in yourself and seeing them only in someone else... and judging them for it.
Behind every judgement is a fear.
Ask yourself, instead, why the expression of these emotions scare you....
January 18, 2014
Imprints and Spiritual Materialism
Tags: Communication, compassion, Emotions, evolution, imprints, judgment, Kindness
After several recent incidents, I find myself wanting to address the difference between expressing real time emotions and having imprints or issues....
Those of us who have learned about imprints in our energy fields have realized that when these imprints are triggered we get derailed into emotions from the past. We realize that to be the best healers, or even friends, lovers and colleagues we can be, we need to look into our own selves and heal these imprint driven issues that keep us from being in the present.
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October 27, 2013
Dealing With Shadow Elements In Another
Tags: compassion, Empowerment, forgiveness, Gratitude, imprints, Negativity, Shadow
Reflecting on how to navigate the emotions that arise when dealing with another person's shadow actions. We all have things we cannot see in shadow, things that, if they are not brought to light, can come out and nip at others when we least expect it. Being on the receiving end can hurt and/or make us angry, but often the other person does not even know they are doing it. Forgiveness, compassion and gratitude are the high vibration emotions that take us out of defensive positions and put us in that more mythic, Hummingbird state, allowing us to rise out of the muck of being hurt. An eye-for-an-eye begets another eye... Compassion, for you know you have done it too... and Forgiveness, allow us to drop it and move into neutrality and joy again.
