Getting into the Flow of Compassion

'This is not the way it's supposed to be'; 'If only things were different'; 'If only I had made a different choice'. These are all expressions of one of the most crippling beliefs most of us share; things should be different than they are. Even though we may accept most things, there's usually some place in the grand scheme of things where we hang onto an idea of 'if only...', or 'I wish I hadn't done that or they hadn't done that or this wasn't happening'.

The energy expended on this kind of thinking is enormous to say nothing of how much stress and unhappiness it creates. I know because I lived most of my life with some form of this belief in operation. It wasn't until I had enough of a contrasting experience of acceptance that I was able to fully realize how debilitating non acceptance of what is could really be. Most people are so accustom to thinking this way that they don't even realize that is what they are doing. Whenever we find ourselves regretting what we did or what happened or getting upset because of the way something is we are in the thrall of the concept that it should have been different. If you think about it for a minute you can see how crazy making that really is. Some people spend their entire lifetime locked into being unhappy, unable to move on because of something that shouldn't have happened in their childhood. We can speculate all we want about what it would have been like if it had been different but that will never change anything one iota. This kind of resistance can only bring more of what we are unhappy about because we are constantly reliving it even if there is nothing going on in our world today.

 The refusal to accept the way things are also has another effect I had not considered in the past, it blocks our ability to be truly compassionate. As I've mentioned before, the way I define compassion is a combination of acceptance and understanding. How can we conceivably experience that if we are caught up in non-acceptance which in itself speaks of a lack of understanding. It isn't really surprising then that we have a culture that is more caught up in acquisition and competition than it is in the well being of all.

So if that is the way it is in our culture, now what? We can't artificially manufacture compassion and we can't go backward. As I've said there's no point in not accepting the way it is so we are left with the task of first making peace with the way it is then reconnecting with Source and wondering about what is possible from here. Whether we are thinking personally or globally, we haven't begun to scratch at the surface of the possibilities that await us when we are in the creative flow of Life. It is in this creative flow that we naturally feel compassion for all and where answers previously unthought of  can emerge.

One of the things I used to find most frustrating when people spoke of compassion in the past was that they didn't really help me see how I could get from where I was to the place they were describing. The Liberation Process provides a way to do just that and I am eternally grateful for the awareness and the ability.