Soul Message: On Compassion
A Soul Message
An image from a trip to Ludlow Hotel in New York City. © Maggie Battista 2023
“Life, this daily life in this particular existence today, feels like it requires being in a constant flow of compassion. There are moments when it flows more readily; and there are probably far more moments when it is distinctly unavailable for yourself and for others. We see this, we understand this, and we want you to sit with that idea for just a few moments.
We ask you to sit with the concept of lack of capacity for compassion, for yourself and for others. Really, sit with this. Imagine all those moments of your life when your mind may immediately go to judgment, to fear, to worry, to anger, to frustration, mostly with yourself, almost always with yourself, instead of compassion. We imagine all those moments could fill up jars upon jars, boxes upon boxes, shelves upon shelves, with really not so great stuff. With wild tumultuous reckless stuff. Not the delicious stuff that is irresistible, but the stuff that just keeps you feeling low and making even lower choices or perhaps not making choices at all.
And then imagine that sitting there on the counter, among all the wild and tumultuous jars, is a lone jar filled with those rare moments of self compassion, the few moments of compassion for others. And to witness it is to witness the rose in the jar. To imagine the rose, let’s imagine the color, the fullness of the petals, the sweet scent, the firm stem, the prickly thorns, the radiance of this gentle beautiful rose, this rosiness.
If you allow it, could you let that rose spread to fill all other jars, turning the wild tumultuous feelings into equally wild but gentle garden roses, sweet and calm and peaceful, just there for you to appreciate in all its natural glory, just there for you to tend to it, in whatever way feels good.
We are not saying that to feel painful feelings around judgment is wrong, there is no wrong nor right. We are simply asking the mind to decouple from its programming, to find a way to automatically resist the judgment of self and others, to realize that life is sweeter when instead of filling our jars, our pockets, our mind, automatically, with the dark, the low, and the not so delicious stuff, that perhaps instead, we may first fill the jar with roses, we may first pause and witness the sweet, tender, peaceful capacity for compassion.
And we like the vision of the rose for this metaphor because the rose stands firm, gentle and soft and delicate in spots like the petals, firm and thorny and hard in other spots, like the stem. Our compassion is just like that, it has the capacity to hold both the soft and the hard simultaneously. It allows the time to tend to one thing and then the next and then the next, but slowly, deeply, gently. The rose is quite sturdy but quite tender.
The rose is like the word compassion. It brings a sweetness and tenderness and gentleness to the situation, but it also stands tall, blooming, beaming, glowing, passionate. We offer this because this is what we believe compassion is. Compassion is both the capacity to hold space for tenderness and toughness, but/and to also grow upward with passion. With passion, compassion, with passion.
And when you offer the rose or show the rose, it is not that you are required to do anything. You allow all the space for you or another to show up in their present tenderness, their sweetness, their gentleness, their pain even, and you also remain a beacon of growth, of hope, of creativity, of passion, of love through it all. And it’s in this metaphor that we provide the best example of what compassion is.
Compassion is not about bending over backwards or even bending over at all to help another person up. Compassion is about standing up, bringing all of your growth and hope and creativity and passion like the rose does, and allowing the self or another to bear witness so that they may also be the rose, for themselves and for others.
When one rose is bent or pushed over in a garden, the other roses do not bend over to pick it up or try to fix its petals. The other roses continue to beam and grow toward the sun, because the other roses know the best thing they can do for the bent rose is continue to grow and shine toward the sun, such that the bent rose may bear witness and find its own way back toward its own particular ray of sunlight.
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We are not saying to not offer help to anyone or yourself. A compassionate person may of course offer support if they have the capacity to do so. But what we are saying is far more important and that is this:
When you understand that the power to help, to heal, to pivot, to change, to transform is only within oneself, then you understand your place is to simply hold space for another and show up with your whole self, including all of your radiant passions. This is how we would describe compassion: to hold space for another and show up with your whole self. Period.
And in order to offer compassion to others, we must always offer it to ourselves first. We do not say *always* always, but we are saying it in this case. We have no capacity to offer compassion to others if we do not offer it to ourselves first in all situations. You cannot hold space for another or bring your whole radiant self or even help, without first doing all those things for yourself.
It’s a lot to hold, to realize that your role as a human being is to focus on yourself and to not automatically try to fix others. You all have been taught from a young age that you are here for service, you are here to help others, you are here to fix what is broken or who is broken.
But we want to reframe this for you. You do not exist to serve or fix or help others. You all often get so wrapped up in serving and fixing and helping others that you forget to serve and fix and help yourself. And while we don’t think you are here to work in any way, shape, or form, if you have a job, then it is your only job to serve and help yourself.
There are thousands, millions of people on the planet totally occupied with fixing broken people and broken systems and broken things around them. And we respect that, we honor that ambition and drive. And we get it, there are many moments to focus on just that path, especially when someone is bent over like the rose and others continue to stomp on them.
But/and we also encourage some gentle inquiry around that ambition. Because we know that you would all be better able to tackle the real problems and that in fact some of the biggest problems would vanish if you focused on serving and fixing and helping yourself. Period.
We offer this with a tremendous amount of gentleness when we say, broken people helping broken people is not a beautiful equation. And while we use the word “broken” here we know that most people are not truly broken, they are simply wounded or have been conditioned away from compassion for themselves and for others. For generations, humans have been told to get on with it; to patch it up and keep going; to just stop wallowing and get back to it already.
But we believe that the key to all this stuff called human existence is compassion. And we invite you to fully know it, to roll around with it, to create space for it within yourself, wholly, truly, deeply, before you even consider bending over to pick up the bent rose. Because it’s likely that you are the bent rose and with a little self-compassion, you may find your own way back toward the sun. In fact, we promise that you will. It only needs your love and attention and passion.
And this is the best gift we can offer you. And it’s a message that is perfection for all. You are your greatest comforter and your only job is to help yourself. And we wish you would do it with fervor, with zeal, with passion, and with all the compassion, for yourself at every moment.”
