One of the truest, highest, expressions of love we can give, compassion. To be a vessel for compassion is to be open to seeing the pain in others and experiencing it with them for a time. At moments in our lives when we hear of suffering and pain we may want to help, try to fix, end the suffering somehow or perhaps we’d rather choose to ignore it altogether and avoid the person or situation. Yet the biggest gift we can give is compassion, just being a space of love for someone to share their heart, for us to be a witness to it from a space of love, without judgement or opinion is all we need to do.
As humans we all just want to be heard, felt, understood, witnessed, that is healing all on its own, to know another has witnessed and felt our pain makes us feel like we are not alone. We can bring compassion with us everywhere we go, when we look at the world and the trouble it’s in, we need not try to go out there and fix it, just being compassionate is part of the healing of the collective. Knowing of the pain in the world and having a moment for it is healing in ways we can’t even imagine. Compassion isn’t pity, for pity brings with it some kind of ‘I’m glad it’s not me’ vibe, it is condescending in nature. Compassion says ‘we are the same, your pain is my pain, your suffering is my suffering’ compassion says ‘we are in this together, you are not alone.’ Where in life can you make room for compassion to flood through and heal someone, yourself and the world? Not forgetting most of the time the person who really needs our compassion is in fact, ourselves.