Transformation Through Compassion

Transformation Through Compassion

Being an Empath is not a coping mechanism, how we learned to use our empathy as justification for self-abandonment and codependency is. Our ability to feel and understand deeply is not only something we very often learned to do, but who we are. We feel the world through our hearts, which is an intelligence that integrates understanding with love and forms compassion.

What has caused us immense pain and exhaustion, is our own unhealed wounds. Our own adopted beliefs that we are meant to bring healing to the world by sacrificing ourselves for the sake of healing others.

Our depth of energetic and emotional perception was never meant to be a burden, but to allow us to find truth and light no matter how deep it's been buried. To heal within ourselves the cycles and patterns that have been engrained and avoided, keeping the world running from places of fear and pain for centuries. We are here to see through it and heal what's long been avoided.

We are intended to feel and trust our empathic wisdom in order to navigate a world that's made to disorient us and hide truth in order to control us.

When we're told over and over to empower ourselves by using different senses or turning our sensitivities down, to instead try navigating the world the way someone else does… this is shaming us for being who we are. This may not be anyone's intention but we need to address it for what it is- not helpful.

Feeling is not something we do. It’s who we are. It is who we are meant to be and embody. There's unfortunately many people who claim to understand or have the answers, but don't and they can make us feel broken again and again for not fitting into their ideals. We all navigate and translate the world differently, and the more clarity and wisdom we can bring to it? The better!

When people are in search of their purpose what they’re often saying is, “I want to take what comes naturally to me and figure out a way to make it work for me not against me!”

That’s all we’re doing here.

So please don't let anyone ever tell you that feeling and understanding so deeply is wrong or unhealthy. Those same people fill their homes with paintings, sculptures, poetry, novels, and record collections by who? People who feel so deeply they must express it beyond words. 

Sometimes we fear what we can’t completely make sense of. It’s still hard for us to understand kindness and compassion coupled with shrewd observation. Empathy and open hearts are often portrayed as being synonymous with naivety and meekness- which they are not. It takes more strength to empathize and feel than it does to shut down and avoid discomfort or the pull to forgive.

We heal by accepting ourselves as ourselves. When we’re no longer fighting against emotions? They don’t feel the need to beat the door down every time they come for a visit. No matter which ones or how many show up, we can put the kettle on, sit with them, hear everything they’ve got to say, and send ‘em on their way. This is how we gain wisdom and become more at home and whole in ourselves. This is how we naturally invite others to feel at home and whole in themselves.

We learn that allowing others to take responsibility for things they did or didn't do is not punishing them, but acknowledging that they have the strength and ability to address and heal just as we do and we stop coddling them. In doing this, we expand our ability to accept them for all they are rather than who we needed them to be.

The more we do this, the less we have run-ins with situations and people who bring attention to our denied wounds again and again. Just like a math problem we've already found the answer to, we may come upon it again, but it won't stump us when we’ve already found the answer. We begin to see the healed aspect reflected back to us, and new channels of opportunity presenting themselves.

When we create a place of healing in ourselves, our empathy becomes a spark of instantaneous understanding, compassion, and wisdom. Rather than our pain serving as familiar space to hold another's suffering, those spaces now immediately recognize the light buried beneath them. That’s when we experience ourselves observing the wound in another and feeling compassion for it rather than the pain itself.

So, let me give credit where credit’s due. Because I can see where this whole “Observe, don’t absorb” line came from good intentions, but I think a lot of those protocols are kinda putting the cart before the horse. Kinda like practicing positive affirmations but internally thinking they’re complete bullshit.

It’s an inside job first. And from our own internal transformations of pain to liberation, we can then practice something more along the lines of, “Observe it, and feel it healed.” Does that make sense?

I think the alchemy that happens has way more to do with the change of perspective than changing the thing itself. It’s more of the observer affect.

How we interpret things gives them meaning. So when we personally learn to feel compassion and understanding for the darkest corner of ourselves, through that lens, they transform. Not by force, not by being told they’e wrong and need to be something different. But kinda like the way a beam of light can pass through a prism and an entire spectrum of colors are revealed that we couldn’t see before.

Think about how fast a heavy weight has lifted from your shoulders when you’ve expressed something you’re struggling with and someone says something along the lines of, “Oh absolutely I’ve been there too, and I agree…that part blows. But don’t worry, it’ll make sense later and it doesn’t last forever I promise. It’s just part of the trip.” Right?! That’s how fast your view of an obstacle can become just another mile marker on the road to freedom! That’s how pain and struggle can connect us in hope and love rather than isolate us or connect us through misery. When we’re reminded that it’s part of the human experience and also just part of our healing and joy.

In Module 1, we discussed the Narcissistic Family and how the Scapegoat of the family will be made to carry all the blame and shame in order to allow the rest of the family members to project their patterns of pain without accepting responsibility and going through their own healing.

Just as the overt narcissist will show visible signs of grandiosity while the covert narcissist practices manipulation and ulterior motives behind a mask of martyrdom, as children we can experience trauma and abuse both overtly and covertly.

While some will be highly visible, others go undetected, integrated as completely normal and internalized as faults within ourselves.

If you're struggling to justify emotions within yourself or find the root of shame that seems to have no source, it is often from the absence of something rather than the presence of it. Many of us learned to love ourselves from people who simply didn't have it to give.

Neglect and abandonment are wounds that run deep throughout society, but they often go undetected because people go looking for what was taken from them and can't seem to find it because it was never there to begin with. They only know they're missing something and eventually come to the conclusion there's just something wrong with them.

Time and time again I've seen within myself and others, even when it comes to experiences of sexual abuse, it isn't so much the abuse itself that leaves the deepest impression, but the lack of acknowledgement and help from others that solidifies our own shame.

As a child, the lack of response leaves us to our own deductive reasoning, "If they didn't care to help me, I must not be worth caring for and the fault is mine to carry."

Many people will have an easier time forgiving their abuser than they will the enablers who stood by and did nothing. Even as children, we can recognize that when an adult is in enough pain to hurt us then their own suffering must be unfathomable. We will often do our best to be loving and good by taking on the responsibility of healing the pain inside them that caused them to abuse us and others. 

Each conclusion drawn as a child becomes an internal belief, then a truth, then a pattern, and then our repeating experience of the world.

If we are not welcome to discuss and find healthy broad perspectives of these conclusions as children, we may find it hard as adults to bring our belief systems into question even if it means positive change.

In order to allow compassion to sink in for yourself, I want you to feel into those uncomfortable spaces where you may find yourself becoming impatient and frustrated, "I don't know why I do that! Why can't I stop feeling this way about myself?"

This isn't about placing blame or shame on any family members or people you've had close ties with, but instead relinquishing your loyalty to holding up an idealized image of everyone else in order to take care of all the homework yourself as a way to instill a sense of worth and belonging. 

To love yourself fully by no longer abandoning aspects you don't like so much, you must do the same thing with others in your life. They’re adults, they can handle it. I promise.

Because we generally practice self-love the way we were parented and the way we observed our parents love themselves, let's go through some questions to bring some more up to the surface- 

-How were your emotions and self-expression accepted in the home? Were they validated and welcomed or hushed and criticized?

-Did you pick up on depression or unresolved pain in a parent that they tried their best to keep hidden? How did they address themselves and recognize their own strengths and weaknesses?

-Did you do ever find yourself trying to bolster a parents confidence by praising them or overlooking their hurtful behavior at your expense?

-Did you find a parent didn't have the excitement or joy to celebrate your accomplishments the way you wished they could have, so you learned to stop asking for it?

-Did you have healthy competition and bickering with siblings, or did you feel bullied in the home?

-Did you feel supported to succeed, or find yourself supporting other's successes in order to feel accepted?

-Did you ever feel a parent was coveting your youthful experiences or mourning the loss of their own freedom by picking apart your good times?

-What do you know about the home life both your parents grew up in? Did they ever heal and end any cycles to your knowledge or have you only seen where they're repeating them?

-What things are you not able to give yourself now that you learned to do without as a child?

-Were you loved and accepted just as you were or did you find yourself creating safety and inclusion by doing something for family members?

-Can you picture a time in your childhood where you felt completely content and at peace? Picture it. Where are you? Are you with anyone else or alone? If you're with anyone else, are you doing something you love, or something they love?

-When your parents were most commonly proud of you, was it because of something you wanted to accomplish, or something they wanted to see you accomplish?

Use the answers to these questions to observe the framework of your present, how it may reflect your past, and how you’d like things to look in the future.

One of the most common things I hear from people is, “I don’t even know what I like…” That’s one of the simplest but most impactful places to start building your own identity and bringing your focus back to your own healing and wellbeing first. What do you like? What would you like your life to look like? How do you want to feel? And allow yourself to move toward those answers one step at a time. Before you know it, your spirit will be giving you constant nudges of inspiration and excitement just because you started asking, and listening.