Ahimsa Week 4: Compassion
The prompt for this week was:
“For this whole week, pretend you are complete. There is no need to expect anything from yourself or to criticize or judge or change anything about you. No need to compete with anyone, no need to be more than you are (or less than you are). Note your experience.”
Easy, right?
Last week we took a look at how we might run interference into the lives of others. This week we look at how all of that love and concern worrying about others might be a distraction from the real work: loving ourselves. For most of us, giving ourselves this amount of compassion, peace, and unconditional love is a challenge, maybe even more so than loving others. Deborah Adele encourages us this week to “grow gentle eyes” in order to see even ourselves, of whom we know the darkest corners, with compassion.
Our physical yoga asana practice may come in handy in this endeavor. Adele says,
“we learn compassion as we stop living in our heads, where we can neatly arrange things, and ground ourselves in our bodies, where things might not be so neat.”
She defines compassion as a fundamentally physical experience, citing the New Testament in which the Greek word splagchnizomai is translated as “compassion” but connotes a feeling viscerally felt deep in the belly that incites one to action. In this sense, compassion is the person who runs toward a catastrophe when everyone else runs away.
Remembering that everyone we meet has faced someone we could not endure can help us to see others with gentle eyes. Remembering the compassion we feel toward our loved ones when they are suffering can help us see ourselves with gentle eyes and offer the self the same compassion we give to those we love.
Be both of the penguins in this chibird comic.
While this concept might seem simple or over-explored, especially in today’s “self-love” pop-culture, the true exploration of self-compassion can be quite radical and difficult. Particularly when we strip away the idea of “self-love” as a spa day, or eating kale, or any other performative expressions of loving oneself and doing the real inner work: spending a whole week pretending you are complete. Because you are. Not one single things needs to be changed or judged. Not your past mistakes, not your triple chin, not your work ethic, not your food choices, not your thoughts or opinions. You, here, in this moment, are complete. You are enough. Now take action on that belief.
Much love to you, my friends.
This week we close out Ahimsa and next week we’ll start exploring Satya, Truthfulness.