Right Here Beside You

In the practice of compassion, we often skip over the most difficult parts. It’s easy to say the words, “I’m so sorry for your loss”, but we often miss out on the idea that part of compassion is holding pain and suffering for another individual in pain. We talk about compassion to heal our own hearts. To learn how to carry pain and suffering for others who are not currently able to carry that burden on their own.

Transcript

Welcome.

Today's talk is dedicated to Ahmed Arbery.

Today we talk about compassion,

We talk about love,

We talk about empathy,

And we talk about justice in this world that so deeply needs to be healed.

We talk about compassion to heal our own hearts,

To learn how to carry pain and suffering for others who are not currently able to carry the weight of that burden on their own.

Let's begin here by bringing your right hand onto your heart and your left hand onto your belly.

Soften through your teeth,

Soften through your jaw.

Together we inhale for a count of four,

Three,

Two,

And one.

Together we exhale for a count of four,

Three,

Two,

And one.

In this practice of compassion,

We often skip over the most difficult parts.

It's easy to say the words that I'm so sorry for your loss,

But we often miss out on the idea that part of compassion is really holding pain and suffering for another individual.

Without understanding the shadow side of compassion,

Or the opposite of compassion,

It's very hard to understand compassion itself.

You may recognize the far enemy of compassion,

Which is cruelty.

This one is easy and we understand it.

What you may not recognize is that the near enemy of compassion is pity.

We call them the near enemies or the shadow sides because they're often lurking in the background.

They're confusing because sometimes pity looks like compassion on its exterior,

And pity looks like disconnect and separation on the interior.

Compassion is about connecting my heart to your heart,

Connection that allows me to carry pain and suffering for you when you cannot carry it alone.

Compassion and empathy are qualities and traits where we feel with a felt sense with someone else in deep pain and suffering or feeling.

Compassion is connection.

Compassion is a willingness to sit with discomforts.

Compassion is a willingness to stay and to be.

Compassion is a willingness to reach a hand out to somebody else,

Someone who you may not understand,

Someone who may not look like you.

Compassion is an act of saying,

I know that you're suffering right now and I want you to know that I'm walking beside you.

Compassion is the art of telling somebody else,

I know that you're hurting right now and I'm willing to stay here with you for as long as you need me.

Compassion is a connection of the heart.

Pity is a distancing.

Pity is a disconnect.

Pity is a I feel so sorry for you.

Pity is a I'm so glad that I'm not in your position.

Pity is that silent sense of relief that the pain and the suffering that someone else experiences is not yours to carry right now in this moment.

Pity is saying you're so sorry for Ahmed Aubrey's mother and then silently slipping back into the safety of your own home without reaching a hand out to fight for justice for this man and for his family.

Pity is making an automatic judgment that someone in pain or suffering needs or deserves the suffering that they're experiencing.

Pity is an act of fear.

Pity is an act of separation.

Pity is saying the words I can't carry what you're feeling right now and therefore I'm going to retreat.

Pity is stepping back into your own shell when someone else desperately needs a hand or a heart to hold them.

True and authentic compassion and empathy requires allowing our hearts to be vulnerable enough to feel pain and to feel suffering and simultaneously be able to sit with the discomfort of holding that space and that support and that warmth for somebody else.

If we do not settle into carrying this for our dear friends and for our loved ones,

We will not have anyone to carry our own pain and our own suffering when we're in a moment of need.

This is where the real work is.

This is where the real work is of living in this human experience.

It is not closing the door and walling off your heart.

It's not turning off the news.

It's not closing your door when a black man is killed on the street and thanking God that it wasn't your son.

This is our practice.

It's not turning off your phone when another friend is going through a divorce or a heart break and someone you know has lost the dearest person and love of their life.

And I know that feels that is hard burden for your heart to carry sometimes.

But this is why we are here weaving this web of support together.

This is why we're here just holding each other up.

This is why we have the idea of community,

Of love,

And of connection.

Sitting in pity does not protect you from feeling the deepness of emotion.

Sitting in pity simply presses that emotion deeper and deeper into your body,

Forming a hard pit in your stomach that you can't seem to shake.

Pity is giving someone else the message that you're not really there for them when they need it.

This is why we practice.

Mindfulness and meditation are your portals and your gateways to these practices.

Meditation is a bridge to compassion.

This place of meditation is where we practice sitting with our own discomfort.

It's where we start to learn the vast depth that we are capable of holding and carrying.

It is where we learn that we can bear witness to someone else's suffering and not collapse under the weight because we know how to carry ourselves.

It is trusting that we can hear this information and hear the news of another one's suffering and still get up the next day to move through the world,

To make a difference,

To live our passion,

To reach out and connect to another heart and another being.

Settle into your seats as we begin to flow into this meditation of compassion for ourselves and for those whom we love.

Close your eyes and call to mind a visual image of someone that you love deeply.

Allow yourself to see their face smiling back at you,

Smiling with their eyes and smiling with their lips.

From your deepest and most truest self repeating to them,

May you be held in compassion.

May your pain and sorrow be eased.

May your difficulties be held with kindness.

May you be at peace and may you know that you are loved.

Together we inhale for a count of four,

Three,

Two and one.

Together we exhale for a count of four,

Three,

Two and one.

Bringing to mind now a friend,

Someone who you like,

Someone who is an acquaintance,

Who you feel a deep sense of warmth and bliss.

Bring a visual image of this friend to mind,

Greeting them,

Feeling how you feel in your heart and in your body while you're in their presence.

And repeating silently to yourself,

May you be held in compassion.

May your pain and sorrow be eased.

May your difficulties be held with kindness.

May you be at peace and may you know that you are loved.

Bringing to mind now a stranger,

Someone who you know is suffering deeply.

Maybe someone whom you've seen on the news.

Someone who might be experiencing loss or grief,

Heartbreak or illness,

Trauma or injury.

Bring together a visual image of this person in your mind.

Feel the feelings of them and of their family.

Feel the feeling so deeply as if you were in their place.

Can you tune into what you would need and what you would want for love and support?

And repeating in your mind,

May you be held in compassion.

May your pain and sorrow be eased.

May your difficulties be held with kindness.

May you be at peace and may you know that you are loved.

Now turning your attention and your reflection to yourself.

As if you're gazing at yourself in the mirror at a moment when you are at your happiest.

A moment when you feel free,

You feel as though your body is at ease.

What does that feel like inside your own body and inside your own breath?

Turning your most genuine heart towards yourself and repeating,

May I be held in compassion.

May my pain and sorrow be eased.

May I allow myself to receive real and authentic empathy and compassion.

May I trust that I will be held with kindness and with love.

May I be at peace in this moment.

And may I know that I am deeply loved.

Allowing your body and your breath to absorb the feeling,

The energy,

The ease that comes with feeling connected to another at the level of the heart.

May you allow yourself to absorb the felt sense,

The understanding that we can settle into trusting that our worries,

That our pain,

Our trauma,

That our suffering will be carried with love and with kindness and with support.

Together we inhale for four,

Three,

Two,

And one.

Together we exhale for four,

Three,

Two,

And one.

More along.

Good.

You you

Reviews

Excellent important teachings. May we all wake to better understanding of compassion.

Lovely and thought provoking! Carla’s voice is so calming and she full of wisdom.

Carla, this was a beautiful, moving, and heart-filling meditation. Can’t wait for your next one! ♥️

This was thought provoking and beautiful. Thank you.

I'm so happy to have found this. We are coming up to my friends husbands first anniversary and I feel her pain every day but have never told her🤷‍♀️. I've been told I am too sensitive😔 Will listen again. Thank you🙏💖

This was a very interesting practice that I am very grateful to have found tonight! Thank you.