“I love you enough,” Compassion whispers.

“But, you are not helping!” I cry.

How many times have we silently or vocally uttered those words when someone was attempting to be compassionate? That compassion was seen as lacking. So mired in suffering, our wish was for someone to fix us, make our situation better, or just make the suffering go away.  Instead, we were left to learn the lesson that created our suffering. 

Over the past week I have had several opportunities to speak with others about compassion.  And, while “compassion is not a reward for good behavior” (Matthieu Ricard), it is not a get out of life lesson free card. Suffering brings opportunities for growth. It holds us gently in a palm of love and understanding. Compassion encourages us to find a way through our suffering. Walking this path through suffering is accomplished by learning our life lessons.

Compassion says, “I love you enough to listen to you, help you understand the resonance of compassion in your being, and guide you through your challenge.  I am a companion not a savior. I empower not create co-dependence.  I am a partner in the dance of your suffering.  When you are ready to give up, I am the encourager.”

“I love you enough,” sometimes translates into, “I do no know how to alleviate your suffering, but I will not diminish the reality of your anguish.  I will be with you in your time of need.  You are not alone. You are not crazy. The suffering you feel is really there.  I am with you.”

Through compassion’s eyes we begin to see a way to release the suffering and enter into a new way of being.  This way is not a lack of suffering, but a way paved with the richness gained by embracing suffering.  We become stronger for the journey.

“I love you enough,” says Compassion. “Even when you think I am not helping, I am.” 

Vanessa is Compassion Officer at Intent & Action.  She is an Intuitive Coach, Community Builder, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action.

More from Vanessa: www.intentandaction.com

In The Time Before: Remembering Who You Are

In the time before our birth, in the moment we began to create the blueprint for this life, a group of spirits gathered round a table.  Here, we, with the help of our trusted allies, decided our life lessons and chose the challenges that would bring us fully into our life purpose. 

With our first breath, we rushed into this world with knowledge of the plan. We believed that we had all the skills to learn the lessons, overcome the challenges, and walk our life path with purpose. What we did not realize is that becoming physical means that we don’t always hear with clarity what the spirit is saying.

If you peer into the eyes of a newborn, you see the wisdom that sparkles within them.  I have often wished that we could communicate with a newborn.  What would it be like to breach the communication barrier; to speak and to hear of the wonders waiting just beyond this life? Hold a baby, take a few calming breaths, and feel the connection to the sacred radiating from that child.  (I held a newborn girl in 1988 and, 28 years later, have never forgotten the connection to her spirit.) A connection to a newborn’s spirit is simply amazing.

Holding a newborn, we feel the connection to the extraordinary and see the wisdom in the babe’s eyes.  We are nudged to remember—remember who we are.  We are reminded that we have a great purpose in this life even if we are uncertain of the message.  This elusive knowing of who we are floats just outside our grasp.  If we could hear the message, we would understand the reasons behind challenges and life lessons and recognize our purpose.  The message can be found.  It is packaged within our intuitive nudges.

Our intuition whispers, “You are a wise being aware of you who are. But, as you grew older, your body more fully resonated with the energy of Earth.  Your connection to Spirit muted.  You forget who you are.”

We reached a point where we could no longer hear the messages of spirit above the distractions of today.  Living in this vacuum does not have to continue.  Part of the journey requires that we wake up; we become aware of those nuggets of knowing.  When we begin to listen to our intuition, we connect to the wisdom available before our birth. We know who we are. Through our intuition, we begin to live with purpose.

The wisdom that we arrived with was not lost; we discover it hidden in the folds of our connection to the physical world.  We discover the lost treasures by growing acclimated to life in the present moment.  We form a bridge between our spirit and our body through our heart and mind.  Through our emotions and thoughts we discover the way back to the spirit.

Our challenges and life lessons invite us to use the intuitive wisdom that dancing just outside our consciousness.  It invites us to align our body, mind, spirit, and heart to become one being with four interconnected aspects.  With each challenge met and life lesson learned, we wake up a bit more.  We access our innate wisdom and connect more securely to the sacred.  We understand.  We grow into our soul purpose.

Somewhere along this path of learning, we wake up and realize that compassion is all there is.  We shower our self with compassion as we miss the learning inherent in our lessons and successfully meet our challenges.  Each learning or failure deserves our compassionate essence.  We share compassion with others as they suffer through challenges.  Our soul purpose sparks with the message of compassion.

The way to reconnecting with the recollected wisdom is through compassion and intuition.  In this path of awareness, we draw closer to our soul purpose.  We transform our self and the world along the way.  Our life echoes with the joy of our spirit.  We act from the message of our soul purpose.  We are the spark that spirals compassion into a wounded world.

Vanessa is Compassion Officer at Intent & Action.  She is an Intuitive Coach, Community Builder, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action.

More from Vanessa: www.intentandaction.com

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The Eyes of Our Soul & Tears of Compassion

The Buddhist concept of shenpa resonates with me.  

Shenpa is getting hooked by the stuff in our life. The more we twist and turn trying to escape it, the more deeply we are entrenched in the web created by shenpa. We all have that stuff: emotions, people, words, and things that catch us in a sticky web. Words and phrases are perhaps the subtler forms of shenpa.  We find our self stuck by the description found in the dictionary and are unable to get beyond those words to the nuanced meanings. 

Alleviating suffering, the definition of compassion, is a phrase rife with opportunities for shenpa.  We know that alleviate means to make easier or to mitigate.  That part of the phrase seems straightforward. The meaning of suffering is what catches us. In an effort to define suffering, we may use the specific examples of suffering instead of trying to understand the energetic nuances of the word.  We judge experiences of suffering using absolutes that are formed from cultural, societal, and familial understandings. 

The definition for suffering at www.dictionary.com is agony, torment, pain, torture, and distress. We experience suffering from acts that span the spectrum from heinous torture to nebulous distress.  In order to be compassionate, we must understand this definition while being open to how suffering is experienced.  And, through experience, we learn the subtle nuances that may otherwise be missed.  We gain a clearer picture of how we, others, and the world suffer.

For me, life is less about definition and more how we, individually and collectively, experience it.  The words in the definition of suffering are intellectual descriptions.  It seems to me that, to some degree, torment, pain, and torture are all forms of distress.  Maybe the way to navigate through the question, “What is suffering?” is to ask yet another question: “As we share compassion, how do we gain a greater awareness of distress so that we can alleviate it and, in doing so, create opportunities to thrive and flourish?”

To answer that question, let’s begin with yet another. “How do we feel distress?”  Perhaps we are distressed when physically experiencing the pain of an acute or chronic condition.  We may suffer mentally when ruminating over a regret or perceived lost opportunity.  Grief, sorrow, angst, and fear may all be emotional forms of suffering.  And, the absence of a deep connection to the sacred or to our anam cara (soul friend) creates spiritual suffering.

Letting go of our expectations of what suffering should be opens us to experiencing our suffering and the suffering of others at the deepest level—within our soul.  In the ground of our being, we understand that suffering has a poignant, energetic presence that tugs at our compassionate heart.  When we intuitively respond to the suffering in the world, compassion flows like tears from the eyes of our soul.  These tears have the ability to gently wash away distress.

By not defining suffering in black and white terms, we open our self to the many faces of suffering.  As our tears of compassion rain down upon those faces, suffering is washed away; the ground of our being is nourished.  And, in the residue of compassion, hope and peace are sown.  With each successive sharing of compassion we are reminded that we are not alone.  We are the pieces of compassion that, when shared, make the world whole.

Part of a compassionate whole, Vanessa

Vanessa F. Hurst is Chief Compassion Officer at Intent and Action.  As an Intuitive Coach, Community Builder, and Author, she encourages others to engage their compassion through intent and action.

For more information: www.intentandaction.com

Compassion: From Crowd to Community

This weekend I re-proofread my book, Engaging Compassion Through Intent and Action.  What began as an exercise is catching printing errors became rolling moments of reflection.  The phrase “through compassion we live in conscious relationship; we are community,” resonated with me.  Compassion is the power to transcend differences and celebrate diversity.  Through the lens of compassion, we peer past illusion to clearly see and act upon the suffering of another. 

Relationship is connection. How does viewing relationship as connection shift the way you connect?  Each time we interact with another, we enter into relationship — some last minutes while others span our lifetime.  When our mindset is relationship no matter how brief the contact, no one is a stranger.  Everyone has within them the potential to be a friend.  (Repeat that , “Everyone has within them the potential to be a friend.”  Allow that to resonate in your body.  Reflect upon that.  How does that phrase change you? How does that shift the way that you look at others?)

Compassionate sharing becomes natural when we no longer objectify or ignore others.  Opening a door, offering a smile, initiating a conversation happen with ease. Through compassion we enter into the community.  Each person in this group has one common thread — compassion freely shared.  The thread of one twines around the thread of another.  A vibrant tapestry — a community of connections — is created.

Compassion in Practice:  On Tuesdays Fresh Market reduces the price of chicken breasts and ground beef.  I usually arrive early to beat the crowds.  This week was different.  In an effort to add a new event to Facebook and to manage another Facebook event, it was almost 11 a.m. before I got to Fresh Market.  Of course, there was a line at the butcher counter.  And, the woman in front of me was purchasing what appeared to be a half a cow.  I could feel my angst ratcheting as not one but two women left in a huff. 

Moving into awareness, I did what has become my new normal — I engaged others. First I smiled at the woman behind the counter and then began to talk with the woman who was in front of me. Those next moments were transformative. I discovered the butcher had only been there a week and the second butcher, who came later to help, was able to weigh meat in his sleep!  The line didn’t suddenly evaporate, but the mood of the crowd shifted.  We formed community.   And, I remember what Thomas Merton tells us — we can be in community or we can be in a crowd.  

What would happen if we looked past our judgments, agendas, and illusions and peered deeply into the eyes of another?  Try this: for one day commit to really looking at another person.  You do not have to make eye contact but do look the person in the face.  Unless you feel inclined, you do not need to engage the person verbally.

Here is what happened to me:  I began my day filled with trepidation.  “What if someone caught me looking at them and thought I was strange?” I fretted.  It took me a bit to get past that fear.  What began as quick glances at another became spontaneous smiles that not surprisingly were returned.  By midday I was filled with joy and began to have conversations with strangers — we connected in joy-filled community.  Of course, when my son arrived home from school later that afternoon, this joy overflowed into my relationship with him. 

How is compassion the glue of your conscious relationships?  How do the strands of your compassion twine with the strands of others to form community?

Wishing you a beautiful tapestry woven with vibrant strands of compassion,

Vanessa is an Intuitive Coach, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

More from Vanessa: www.intentandaction.com