Component Two--Compassion

"In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience--our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror.  It has to be this way.  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."  --Pena Chodron (quoted by Brene Brown)

The second tool in the journey to living a WholeHearted life is compassion.  I thought I knew a lot about compassion from my time working in summer camps and on poverty issues.  Well, according to this, I have MUCH to learn.  SO much that I have to break it into two parts.  Because there's compassion and then Brene's perspective that a big component to compassion is setting boundaries--Yikes.  More on that tomorrow.

The quote above really resonated with me.  Because, truly, my divorce is the hardest thing I've been through yet in my blessed life.  Yes, I have dysfunctions and challenges, but I was born white and upper middle class, I'm smart and goal-oriented and everything has come relatively easy to me.  My children are healthy and I am surrounded by wonderful people.  When I was trying to be compassionate with people going through troubles I was trying to be equals, but you truly can't be equal unless you've felt pain or hurt like theirs. 

I have a friend with a child with cancer.  And I have a friend who's child has a severe disability.  And I have friends who's children have died.  Baby, I don't have struggles.  A measley divorce?  Pshaw.  But for me, the divorce (and what went with it with the kids) has been painful and evoked the levels of dispair that I didn't know I could reach.  And the people who were compassionate to me were most effective when they were coming from their respective places of pain.  And I'm starting to understand that for myself.  I need to tap that, be vulnerable and open to it in order to feel compassion for others.  And of course, you can't have connection without compassion. 

So, I'm not saying that I am glad I went through this so that I could be more compassionate.  But I am saying that having gone through this will result in me being more compassionate.  See, I'm still blessed!