Entries Tagged 'Love and Compassion' ↓

 
 
19melissa68. Creative Commons license.

I’ve never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.
—Daniel Boone

At the moment I can identify with this rat in the maze…I’m exploring new territory and expanding my mental map of the world of blogging. In the process I’m going through a period of confusion. But like Daniel Boone I’m not lost…I’m just a bit “turned around” for a while.

Why the confusion? I just switched to a MacBook from the PCs I’ve been using for years. I also installed a more recent version of WordPress, which has a different interface from the old one. Neither of those changes are difficult, but it takes some practice to be able to work without having to think of the mechanics.

And if that weren’t enough to keep me amused, I decided to change my blog themes from three columns to two. That means going into the inner workings of my WordPress files and learning something about PHP (a scripting language for building web sites) and becoming more adept at CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). When I developed my sites last year, I took an open source theme and hacked around until my site looked the way I wanted it to. The resulting coding wasn’t very elegant, and I knew someday I would have to spend a lot of time understanding how to do it correctly. That time is now. It’s a big job, but I’m breaking it down into bite-sized pieces and am learning a lot. Being confused in the process is a small price to pay for a bit more mastery. All it takes is the courage to be confused and the courage to be patient.

What about you? Are you trying something new at the moment? How do you feel about it? Please share your experience in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe for commenting on last week’s post.

I am thrilled by Linda’s work. As well as offering us extraordinary guidance toward reconnecting with the animal world, she shows us how to be more fully alive as human beings, by reawakening our faculty for touching. This is a great healing gift — to humans, to animals, and to Mother Earth.
— Paul Winter

The above quote refers to the work of Linda Tellington-Jones. I’ve used her Ttouch method at the local animal shelter, most recently with Clyde, shown in the before and after pictures on the left. As I mentioned in Finding and Bringing Joy over at Cheerful Monk, Clyde was vulnerable but trusting when I first gave him the Ttouches. He trembled the whole time, but he leaned against me for reassurance rather than trying to pull away. By the end of the first session he was smiling, and by the second session he was asking for more. That’s a common reaction, and I’m happy to oblige. The fact is, I get as much out of the sessions as the dogs do. They make me feel centered and fully alive.

Another nice thing about the touches…I can give them to myself when I start losing that feeling of centeredness and I don’t have time to go to the shelter. That isn’t as satisfying as connecting with another creature, but it’s a great method of self-care. You might try it yourself and see if it works for you.

What methods of self care do you use? What do you do to feel fully alive? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Clairity. Creative Commons license.

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.
—Anonymous
 
 
The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen.
—Anonymous

This month the topic for Robert Hruzek’s group writing project is What I Learned From…Odd Jobs. Robert wants to hear about the strangest, most unusual job we’ve ever had. Since I’m a volunteer at heart, I’m not restricting myself to activities I’ve been paid for. I figure if it was something that required commitment for a reasonable length of time, it counts.

My most unusual job, then, was listening to an acquaintance for at least two hours a session, two or three times a week for several months. The woman in question was in her late 60s, had worked most of her life, and was facing retirement. It was time for her to move on, but she couldn’t imagine what she would do without work to structure her life. So she tackled the problem by talking through it. And when I say talking, that was it. She wanted no comments or other interruptions from me. My job was simply to listen the whole time.

MicheKerr. Creative Commons license.

If you’ve ever been in a situation like that, you know how hard it is to be just a listening post, with all of your own experience, thoughts and talents pushed aside. I sometimes felt I could easily have been replaced by a tape recorder or by a friendly pet.
 

How did I get into that situation?
I didn’t expect it to be like that. I assumed she would be thinking on her own and wanted someone to bounce ideas off of. That’s what works for me. I find changes are more fun when I try things and share the results with someone else. When I discovered she didn’t want that, I did try to make the interaction less mind-numbing for me. I actually brought a timer and suggested we take turns talking and listening. That idea lasted about ten minutes. Then she ignored the timer and kept talking.

Why Did I Continue?
So why didn’t I just call it quits? I asked myself that question more than once, and the answer was always: it felt like the right thing to do. The sessions were clearly doing her a lot of good, so I decided to keep going until she had made her transition. She wasn’t talking for the sake of talking, she was seriously working towards something. The process wasn’t going to go on forever. And, in fact, after several months she was started in her new life. She signed up for some courses at the local university and became involved in causes that she cared about.

What I Learned From the Experience
What did I learn? I learned how much I care about making a contribution, something to make this world a slightly friendlier, more loving place. I had always believed that one of the best ways to do that was to listen deeply to another person. But after this experience I learned that I have to pay attention to my own interests and talents, too. So I started looking for situations where I could be more than just a warm body, a listening post. I’m not at all sorry I had this experience, but I don’t feel obligated to ever do it again. Instead I’m living by my motto,

Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.

There are all sorts of ways of making a contribution. And there’s no rule that says you can’t have fun doing it.

What about you? What has been your most unusual job? Do you have an urge to make a contribution? If so, how do you go about it? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe for commenting on last week’s post.

This post is also part of Marcus Goodyear’s Lessons From Odd Jobs group writing project.

Activities like knitting and crochet can cause a relaxation response similar to meditation.
—Knitting for Stress Relief

Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.
—The Cheerful Monk

I used to love to knit, but I haven’t done it for years because it hasn’t integrated very well with my present lifestyle:

Still, I’m about to go on a trip which will involve a lot of sitting. So that eliminates the first reason. And…I’ve discovered Knitting for Charity. I was especially taken by the Mother Bear Project, which provides homemade stuffed bears for African children with AIDS/HIV. What better reason to knit than to show a child he/she is loved?

With permission, Mother Bear Project.

To simplify things I’ve ordered a complete kit for one of the bears. So I not only have a chance to knit again, I have a chance to make this poor old world a slightly more loving place. I can’t pretend I’m being altruistic…projects like these soothe my nerves and warm my heart. But hopefully I’m not only giving myself a double dose of happiness, I’m giving some to someone else too.

What about you? How do you give yourself doses of happiness? Do you find it increases when you share it? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe for commenting on last week’s post.

One of the main reasons I teach stress management is it forces me to practice what I preach. And what I’ve been practicing the past couple of weeks is Item #10 of the traits of stress-hardy people:
“They know how to mourn the inevitable losses in life. They know how to let go of things they have no control over.”

So, letting go…. That doesn’t mean trying to push feelings away. If I’ve learned anything in this world, it’s that if I just hang in there through difficult times and stay open to life… including the dark feelings …there is joy at the end of the tunnel. That doesn’t mean wallowing in those feelings, rehearsing the stories that feed them, getting caught in a downward spiral. It means quietly being with them, seeing what’s behind them, and being gentle and compassionate.

Does that mean being a passive victim? No, not at all. It just means being gentle and patient. It means having faith in the process. It means not fighting reality. Losses do occur. They do hurt…they hurt a lot. But that’s not the whole story.

As Richard Bach puts it, “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.”

Or, in the words of Carl Jung, “The greatest problems in life are fundamentally insoluble…. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” By outgrown he meant the person’s perspective changes. “Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient’s horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It …faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge.”

And that’s the main thing, don’t try to rush the process, but keep in mind that if you stay open to life…if you nourish yourself with music, inspirational quotes or literature, or whatever connects you to your deepest values…you will find you have gained more than you have lost in the trip through the tunnel. Have faith you will experience the joy at the end.

Flickr photo by oneras. Creative Commons license.

And did you find what you wanted in this life even so?

The Dalai Lama once told a group of professors at Columbia University that the greatest teachers in the world aren’t the lamas or professors or gurus. The greatest teachers are the mothers, for they’re the ones who give children their first experience of being loved and valued as human beings.

I would expand that view of teacher to fathers, grandparents and any other person who has a compassionate and loving relationship with a child.

And this teaching isn’t just for children. It is for ourselves and everyone we come in contact with. When we practice love and compassion we bring more peace and happiness into the world. As the Dalai Lama says, “The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. This helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the ultimate source of success in life.” It is our human nature to want love and connection with others.

One of the greatest sources of stress and depression in modern life is the over-emphasis on material things and not enough on the deep need for affection and connection with our fellow human beings.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “We must be the change we want in the world.” Every day we have opportunities to put more love and compassion into the world. Becoming a “great teacher” by taking advantage of those opportunities is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves and for everyone else.

For more on the Dalai Lama’s views, click here.

And to explore another view of the search for purpose, see Adam Kayce’s post