Meeting the World with Compassion
Written by Jessica Gibbons-Benton
“Don’t take your eyes off the bandaged place; that is where the light enters you” - Rumi
There is a lot of suffering happening in the world right now. We are approaching two months since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and as in every conflict, everyday people on all sides are paying a terrible cost in the fear and reality of violence. We are still in the midst of the pandemic, with a new strain of COVID gaining traction in the US and other parts of the world, and our relationship to the ongoing nature of this health threat ranges from experiencing it as a constant low-grade stressor, to a source of strain in relationships, to the well of grief from losing loved ones to the disease. The cost of food, housing, and gas continue to increase, which hurts all of us and threatens to push our most vulnerable neighbors over the edge. I imagine you, dear reader, are carrying a measure of stress, numbness, hurt, or loneliness, that feels heavier after the past few years. Each of us at Elevate certainly feel that our burdens have become heavier. Even at a time when the company is growing and we all feel connected to our work, we also each struggle with some version of malaise, some days more than others. At Elevate we typically view the world through the lens of systems, and this is a story about how our internal system is impacted by and can impact the external systems that we inhabit. This is a story about meeting yourself and then the world with compassion, not because compassion magically makes everything better, but because it is a loving, connected path to walk through the real pain we face individually and as a global community.
The general malaise began for me at the onset of the pandemic, starting off with sharp fear but over time settling into things like lack of motivation, feeling like my work isn’t “real”, avoiding tasks, and feeling completely exhausted at the end of the day. All of these I think are rooted in numbness, choosing to turn off rather than feel what is going on, and all of this still comes up for me now. It’s been over two years now, and something like this pattern has been happening to everyone I know. It has been long enough that I have cycled through many different ways of relating to these internal experiences. Early on I ignored them and tried to push through, forcing myself to stay busy and denying that I was struggling; as it became more difficult to ignore them, I added more hobbies to distract myself. The hobbies helped (watercolor painting, art journals, birding, the list goes on) but couldn’t actually heal anything because I wasn’t being honest with myself about what was going on. Eventually I just embraced numbness and floated through my days. Then in the summer and fall of 2021, big unexpected challenges arose in my personal life, and I realized that the ongoing stressors outside of my control over the past year (the pandemic, the murders of unarmed people of color, the election, the insurrection at the Capitol) and my responses to them had depleted my resiliency. My inner resources were no match for the pain and uncertainty suddenly present in my immediate life.
Last winter I turned toward two practices that I had encountered before and really began treating them as a discipline: accepting things as they are rather than denying or trying to control, and offering myself compassion for my pain. The discipline of acceptance for me looks like feeling what I am really going through, and I rely on my body to be my truth-teller. My mind is a champion story teller, and if I believe the stories, I miss what is happening right here, this minute, in real life. If my traps are up by my ears or my chest is tight, I know I am stressed even if my mind is saying “Everything is fine! What stress?” The discipline of compassion for me is pausing and allowing myself to be moved by my own pain, which when I started felt so scary. I was sure it would overwhelm me and sweep me away, and that fear does still come up for me - it is another thing to accept just as it is, without trying to change it, and by accepting it, it starts to life. Once I am in touch with my pain (which could be fear, sadness, anger, bitterness), I allow myself to feel it fully and repeat a set of phrases adapted from the book Self-Compassion: This is a moment of suffering; suffering is part of life for all beings; I am so sorry this is hard for you right now; May I accept things as they are and care for myself. If I am having a hard time feeling compassion for myself, I imagine all the other people out there in the world who have struggled with whatever is in front of me. I can easily feel compassion for all the other humans on this planet who have struggled with financial insecurity, or who have difficulties with their partner, or face loneliness. Imagining this both immediately helps me feel less alone and allows me to extend myself that same compassion.
Doing these practices does not make my pain go away, but it did stop the spiraling. As I have become more skilled at not getting caught in the stories my mind spins and instead staying rooted in my physical reality, I have found that difficult emotions pass faster and with more ease. I have grown a lot in my ability to feel real pain without heaping on lots of extra fear, anxiety, or judgment. Really feeling my feelings led me to be more connected with myself, reducing my numbness. I also started to actively reach out to people I care for, working to see people in person, and being willing to be vulnerable about what I was going through. As Brene Brown would have predicted, folks responded with kindness and shared with me the burdens they were negotiating - everything from challenges with spouses and kids to the insanity of buying a house in Nashville. I used the same approach with others, offering them acceptance of things as they are or gently pointing out where they may be caught in a story (I call them “bad tapes”), acknowledging how hard it is to just be a human on this earth, and sharing my compassion. I always left these conversations feeling so connected, like we really are all in this together, and validated in my own struggles. Sitting with other people’s pain did not overwhelm me, and instead seemed to make me more resilient.
The magic that I wasn’t expecting is that these tools, which are so focused on my inner experience and navigating the personal challenges I am going through, have led to greater capacity to face the suffering of the world. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I was shocked and sad. Seeing the coverage of their cities destroyed and the civilian and military casualties on both sides is heartbreaking. While I am not wallowing in the news feed, I am noticing when I reach for a band-aid solution and choosing instead to pause and feel my feelings. The fear of being overwhelmed by the pain of the world comes up, but from my experience with my personal pain I know that by feeling the pain and extending compassion, I will be better equipped to take action and feel more connected to the very real struggles we are grappling with as a national and global community.
Recommended Resources:
Heart Wisdom podcast by Jack Kornfield, especially the Peace is Possible episode
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
Dr. Kristen Neff’s website on Self-Compassion, which includes a handy research backed self-compassion assessment
