The Space of Compassion

Many times people who believe themselves to be full of compassion, with the best of intentions, when seeing someone in pain will attempt to ease their suffering. They will make suggestions, offer distractions, will make comparisons and more. There may be times when this approach brings a temporary relief to the sufferer, but it is not always the balm that is appropriate or needed. As author John Gray states in the following quote, “When we experience the pain of another person, we instinctively want to take away that pain. But by taking away the other person’s pain, we also take away his or her opportunity to grow. To be truly compassionate, we must be able to share another person’s suffering and pain -- knowing there is nothing we can do to relieve it and that we are not responsible for it, and yet knowing and understanding what that pain feels like.” Holding someone in compassion and stepping aside in your need to fix things or make them feel better is often exactly what should be done. It opens a doorway for the person in pain. It allows them to be their own truth. It creates opportunity of support as they lean into a life lesson. Offering compassion offers an understanding, it offers a witnessing, it offers love and it offers room for the person in need to be whatever they need to be in that moment…it could be in pain, it could be in anger, or it could be in acknowledgement that things need to shift or change. It could be all this and more. But when we remove ourselves from any other role than that of compassion, they are given the supported freedom to be whatever it is they need to be.

Compassion is a quality of the soul. The soul can hold this space comfortably. It does not need to be anything more than loving witness. Our ego sometimes wants to be the hero and soothe the pain. Our minds may want to solve the problem. But our soul understands that there is beauty in all that life brings our way, even our pain. And in the expansion of this beauty we grow into more of who we are to become. Compassion welcomes this unfolding beauty. This is part of the soul’s journey. It glows with the energies of life, the highs and the lows, the joy and the sorrow and the wonder and the disappointment. And in each of these spaces it finds the beauty, the gifts, the lessons, and the depth of love and understanding of the truth that is revealed.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

The Sounds of Life

There are times when I seek silence. My soul needs quiet time. My heart wants to beat to a slower more gentle rhythm. My body seeks to be still. I find great strength in these moments and these types of days. I am able to within this stillness find a resource that is often buried in the noise and motion of the day. Sometimes the vibrancy of life adds so much to the layers of my expansion that I cannot always find the chord of connection. But then there are those times that the life I am living is big, large and vibrant! My life becomes full and alive with color, sounds and relationships. My body responds with a vigor and a force that reaches into the depths of my soul and pulls up, like the harvest of rich ripe root vegetables, gems and gifts to nourish me. A recent quote I have been introduced to has sent me reeling and whirling among the beautiful essence of life.

“Once, when you thought no one was looking, I saw you open your heart so wide that the earth fell in. Once, when you thought no one was listening, I heard you sigh so deep that the oceans roared with support. Once, when you thought no one was around, every atom in this universe rushed forward to embrace you. Again. Thank you for existing so intensely.” -Sera Beak

And so life is from time to time, like a chasm so large and deep that my soul grows to enormous proportions. Sometimes it is so full that I cannot hold it all in my cupped hands. Sometimes it is so loud that the beating of my heart cannot drown out the glorious musical crescendo it creates for me. Sometimes the Universe offers me gifts so brilliant that I cannot even begin to express how moved I am. And all I can do is live this life as intensely as I can until the next time I need to find myself in the silence.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

Senses of Life

How do you show up with your senses each day? These are tools for you to use to be fully present in each moment of the day? When we are fully awake with our senses, bringing them to all the delights that life showers upon us, bringing them to all the experiences we are meant to live through and hold, then we are fully alive and in union with all that is sacred. The following quote inspires this within me each time I read it. “May you be peaceful and joyful and recognize that your senses are sacred thresholds.

May you realize that holiness is mindful, gazing, feeling, hearing, and touching.

May your senses gather you and bring you home.

May your senses always enable you to celebrate the universe and the mystery and possibilities in your presence here…”

-“A Blessing For The Senses” by John O’Donohue, Excerpted from Anam Cara

We have access to so many valuable gifts and lessons, but we have to be open to receiving them. We have to be willing to be vulnerable, intention filled and willing. Being vulnerable means we do not worry about what others are thinking or saying about us. It means being soft enough to experience pain, pliable enough to change and exposed enough to allow all the life we are meant to experience greet us. Many times we close ourselves off from it, we run in fear of it, and we resist and we distance ourselves from exactly what we are meant to have in our day so we can become more fully our brilliant self!

We have to be aware of our intentions too. Blindly going in and out of our days, unable to differentiate one from the next means we are not in alignment with our intentions. It means we may have lost focus. When we set intentions for our life, we heed our calling and we seek connection to Source. We long to move onward and experience our life fully.

When we are willing, we tend to be present and in the moment. Living in the past or fretting about tomorrow keeps us from being in a place of willingness. Instead it keeps us stuck and so we miss the golden opportunities, the chance meetings, the abundance that is waiting for us. Take notice the next time you are having a particularly good day. I will bet you are in a place of openness … your heart and soul willing to experience the moments.

When we bring these parts of who we can be to the day our senses become alive with wonder. We find beauty in everything. We are able to feel and remain whole and intact. We evolve more and more into the amazing union of our physical and spiritual self.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade

Successful?

I have had recent conversations with several clients that have circled their way around not being able to find success. We explored all the different definitions that we hold for success. You can imagine the topics ranged from income, to skill, to effectiveness, to education and so on. What always seems to stop everyone in their thought process is what is shared in the following quote: “The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful people”. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and human, and these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.” ~David Orr

What if you never meet the definition of what you think successful is? What if society never sees you as a success? And so we then begin to explore a new way of viewing what we would or could consider successful. First I challenge you to find a new word. Words that have presented themselves are thriving, fruitful, positive, fertile, abundant, rewarding, flourishing, booming, blooming, or blossoming! How fun are these options? How much different energies they hold? Think about it…thrive means to grow well! Flourishing….means to be healthy and whole! Rewarding…means satisfying! These simple words change EVERYTHING about what you originally believed about success. I would rather be any one of these words any day!

Suddenly you feel a shift in the possibilities and choices that you can make. Amazingly the things you were focusing on that felt like blocks or failures have lost some of their weight. Let’s think about our selves with different labels of what makes us unique and thriving. We often fail to recognize the value of the restorer, the peacemaker or the healer within our society. Yet without them our lives would be broken, chaotic, and unwell. Our society needs the courage of those of us who are ready to be everything we are meant to be; alive and vibrant, beautiful and giving, compassionate and healing, calming and wondrous and if it turns out that someone sees that as successful…well so be it! Celebrate the qualities that set you apart, honor the gifts that others cherish about you, utilize the strengths that empower others and love who you are fully.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade