When I was younger, sickness would come routinely as it does for most children. It would start as sneezing, coughing, and a runny nose for a few days at school. By the third or fourth day, my symptoms would worsen, and a strong fever and generalized pain would overcome my body. I was hot then cold, my head pounding, my arms and legs shaking and aching, and maybe sweating too. I would eat dinner and take medicine before bed. My mom would decide what I would take…Nyquil, Tylenol, Motrin…but in my young mind it was the sour, poison-like tasting liquid, the nasty red cherry liquid, or the not-so-sweet bubble gum-tasting liquid in a small plastic cup. I guess things in miniature cups were never meant to taste good… just to be swallowed quickly, as I learned early on.
In the middle of the night, I would wake up with terrible sweats and chills, severe pains head-to-toe, and feeling out of control of my body. I would be tearful, sad, melancholy, and anxious about my reality. All of my worries and fears of life would come up to the surface and expose themselves to move out of my body and mind. After the attack of overwhelming thoughts, I would fall into a deep sleep for the remainder of the night.
The next morning would bring a feeling of clarity and renewal. My calmer mind, sighing after the emotional rollercoaster that was the night before. Back to normal…until the next purification crisis.
As an adult now, I practice intermittent fasting. This is time carved into my usual rhythm to allow my body and mind to detoxify and regenerate. Over time this has become easier and easier, but every now and then when I find myself (and therefore my body) under-functioning for a variety of reasons, and especially at the beginning of implementing this practice, I would experience much pain.
This fasting practice is to induce deep detoxification, it is a forced purification crisis. When I practice fasting, I am deciding to consciously deal with difficult emotions so that I can improve my understanding and tolerance for them in other parts of my life. It is me purposefully creating that uncomfortable experience of me as a child, lying in bed with aches and pains in my body, toxins let loose, fears and worries at the forefront, in order to eliminate the old waste and make room for peace and joy. Same experience, just as an adult now.
These “after-effects” of peace and joy are our normal states of being. It is only due to the mistakes of man that led us to the worlds of disconnection and suffering. But there is room for healing. Mornings after fasting are when I feel most clear and peaceful on all levels of my being. They are my precious moments of enhanced creativity, focus, and repaired understanding. And yet, this uplifting experience occurred because I endured discomfort and learned to embrace it. I had to go through the prior day’s physical and emotional aches and pains to get to that point.
The discomfort of undergoing a short or long-term fast occurs because the body is eliminating the built-up acids from years of poor food choices and other exposures to toxins. Old emotions once stored in the cells as memory arise to the surface and are expressed stronger. Instead of waiting until a cancer diagnosis to start questioning my poor life choices, I’m choosing to face the effects of those choices now and in the safe rhythm that my body allows. I’m sure most who are reading this could relate to my experience of sickness, discomfort, and recovery.
I believe a life without some pain and discomfort is an unfulfilling life and quite a numb one. This isn’t an argument for masochism, that pain should be actively sought out. It is instead understanding the role of pain and discomfort in one’s life and the growth and opportunity that can spring from such experiences. Cultivating a greater sense of compassion, in particular, has occurred through my experiences with pain, including fasting. Compassion for those with less, for those who anger easily, for those chained to conscious or unconscious addictions, for those who lack patience, for those who suffer from depression or grief…I recognize my unity with them as I have been there before.
Of course, one will surely experience discomfort in life whether they safely seek it or not. But we must acknowledge our innate human desire to maximize pleasure and minimize discomfort. Nothing is “wrong” with this tendency of ours, but a life with no discomfort at all can ironically lead to depression and dissatisfaction. In a sense, that is where many of us stand today as we are constantly bombarded by temptations and distractions in our daily lives. These distractions stray us away from searching within, often requiring discomfort, to reconnect with our true selves.
By avoiding this work we get temporary relief which produces a false sense of energy. By taking the pain medication, our pain is masked, the mind relaxes and the body moves freely again. But as we know, this only makes the body store and accumulate the energy instead of releasing it, creating disease and an even stronger effect when given the chance to finally be released. By eating cooked food, we put a blanket on our difficult emotions, only to later on, feel the accumulated energy of that emotion come out stronger. Repeated suppression of a particular emotion leads one to never connect with it, to never feel at peace with it. Then when one witnesses another person feeling that emotion, they cannot relate. They don’t know how to help and put up a mental wall.
Everyone can be compassionate to life and all of its forms. For some, such as those with a narcissistic personality disorder, it is much harder to cultivate this feeling or even gain the motivation to begin searching within themselves where a hint of potential can be. For others, it can be very easy to feel for another person, to “suffer with” another person, even a stranger. The average person is somewhere in between these two opposing points: they may not feel compassion for all of life, but they can feel compassionate when exposed to obvious and innocent suffering, such as a young child who hurt their finger in between a closing door and doorframe or witnessing someone slip on sidewalk ice.
No matter where we start on our potential for compassion, there is always room for more growth. Yes, while it is an innate feeling within us, it is a feeling that can also be learned and enhanced. I believe that humans started out with endless love and compassion for all, and our fall led to a slow dimming of that light within us. When one feeds this light, it simply becomes a way of being, similar to other higher conscious emotions (joy, acceptance, forgiveness).
Cultivating more compassion and being able to tap into it easily is like the practice of meditation. The more you practice it, the more you become the essence of that energy force, and the more you transmit that energy to others. The best opportunities to practice compassion arise in the presence of suffering. By going through our suffering, the power of compassion becomes clear. By going through our suffering, we can better relate to others and understand what they need when they suffer. As changing the world starts with changing ourselves, cultivating unconditional compassion is powerful.
Today’s society often feels like a neverending theatrical performance of our lower, ego-centric minds and we’re all taking turns losing ourselves in playing our favorite character. Despite good intentions for cooperation, the average person displays many signs of disconnection. Along with attachment to certain emotions, attachment to the things that uplift our identities creates more division rather than unity. These are our beliefs, religion, political positions, self-narrated childhood stories, race, gender, sexual orientation, occupations, ethnicities, physical features, abilities, and more. Holding and protecting these precious identities and their meanings is spiritually exhausting.
Do you create, hold, and protect certain identities about yourself?
Are they separating you, hindering your ability to feel compassion?
What would happen if they were taken away from you?
The more one can surrender to the ultimate truth that is our oneness, our connectedness, that your role or identity is meaningless in the realm of the universe, the more one can realize that there is not one stranger out there, but simply different reflections of the same energy. Many of us have heard the saying stating that what we see in others is a reflection of ourselves. If one feels very little love for others, they most likely do not feel much love for themselves. One who is quick to anger and resentment is emitting the same energy as a mass shooter. One who craves force and control is emitting the same energy as the money-hungry politician. One who lives in fear emits the same energy as climate change protesters or the man in line at the grocery store wearing gloves and a respirator gas mask.
This isn’t saying that one who holds onto anger is automatically a potential mass shooter, it is only to point out the shared emotion of anger between these two people, one socially accepted and the other socially ostracized. In my life, I’ve been fearful, angry, and controlling before…why should I feel superior to others who express the same energy? Have you ever mistakenly gotten lost somewhere? Do you kill the spider that mistakenly ends up on your bathroom wall?
While our society stamps us with labels and allots us social points the moment we pop out of the womb, this belief system is only an illusion and a reflection of our animalistic-driven minds, the mind that prefers separation and survival over altruism, connection, and understanding. Understanding that we are all from the same source provides us with the ability to tap more into our natural tendencies for connection.
If the level of compassion for ourselves reflects our compassion for others, looking at one’s level of self-compassion is essential. Being compassionate to yourself is to “suffer with” yourself, it is being our own best friend when we feel weak or inadequate. What self-compassion looks like is not being afraid to be honest when an uncomfortable feeling arises, and perhaps even embracing it. It’s to sit in that feeling of suffering, to get comfortable with it, swaddle it in a soft blanket, and rock it until it falls asleep. It will wake to notice that life is still there to greet it.
Self-compassion provides the ability to distinguish the difference between one’s inner and subjective experience of suffering and the bigger context that is reality. It helps us realize our silly labels, restrictions, and criticisms of ourselves, how that stretches out to others, and the power we have to improve this relationship.
Ways to enhance one’s capacity for compassion:
- Elevate your electromagnetic energy levels – This is done by adding more raw foods (fruit contains the highest levels of energy), fasting, eliminating heavier cooked foods, avoiding environmental toxins, walking barefoot on natural ground, and soaking up sunlight. See my post “What is Raw Veganism?” to learn more about the lifestyle which fosters an improved connection with oneself and others.
- Kindly ask yourself,
- “Is developing more compassion for myself and others important to me? If so, why? If not, why?”
- “In what ways do I lack compassion for myself (and others)?”
- “How can I be more compassionate to myself (and others)?”
- “Am I compassionate to all life forms, or just some?”
- Speak to yourself as you would to a close friend – We wouldn’t want a previous friend to neglect or invalidate their own needs or feelings of an experience. Why do that to yourself?
- Practice mindfulness, meditation, deep breathing, and reflection – These will help you feel grounded and tranquil. Clear thinking and understanding usually go out the door when our sympathetic nervous system (“fight-or-flight”) is activated. Our abilities to understand and appreciate compassion are best accomplished when we are calm and unconcerned about our safety.
- Prioritize your well-being – You cannot help others if you cannot help yourself first
- Write down your thoughts – This can help you notice the impact they have on your experience and behavior. Doing this during stressful times or tense moments can bring more clarity of the event, compassion for your and others’ reaction, and understanding to learn from it.
- Welcome discomfort – This will assist you in expanding your mind to new territory, removing blocks that are stifling your growth, and celebrating the gift it is to be human.
When one can then see pain and suffering as an opportunity, one can start to see rapid personal growth. This shift in perspective has powerful effects on the mind as they are moving closer to the understanding that life is not happening to them but for them. In my experience, reflecting on a past hardship, practicing compassion for myself and anyone else involved, and reframing this event into a purposeful lesson have been some of the most impactful catalysts to begin profound changes in my life. I think to myself, “Where would I be in life, and more importantly, who would I be in life had that painful experience not occurred?”
This reminds me that pain and suffering are truly subjective experiences, neither “good” nor “bad”, simply an event, an opportunity. One time I accidentally stepped on a dog’s paw, to which the dog expressed a short, loud cry then went on about its day without any emotion attached to the experience. The trauma came and went…no subsequent complaining or resentment from the dog, just more tail wagging.
What if anger was a choice?
Is there room for compassion in all instances of suffering?
My favorite way to deal with pain and practice compassion is using a method shared by Buddhist teacher and author Pema Chodron. She explains the steps to a Tibetan Buddhist practice of meditation called “Tonglen”, a “sending out and receiving” practice that fosters the expansion of one’s space for compassion in the presence of suffering. The following passage of steps was taken directly from her book When Things Fall Apart.
- First, rest your mind briefly, for a second or two, in a state of openness or stillness. This stage is traditionally called flashing on absolute bodhicitta, or suddenly opening to basic spaciousness and clarity.
- Second, work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy – a sense of claustrophobia – and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light – a sense of freshness. Breathe in completely, through all the pores of your body, and breathe out, radiate out, completely, through all the pores of your body. Do this until it feels synchronized with your in- and out-breaths.
- Third, work with a personal situation – any painful situation that’s real to you. Traditionally you begin by doing tonglen for someone you care about and wish to help. However, as I described, if you are stuck, you can do the practice for the pain you are feeling and simultaneously for all those just like you who feel that kind of suffering. For instance, if you are feeling inadequate, you breathe that in for yourself and all the others in the same boat, and you send out confidence and adequacy or relief in any form you wish.
- Finally, make the taking in and sending out bigger. If you are doing tonglen for someone you love, extend it out to those who are in the same situation as your friend. If you are doing tonglen for someone you see on television or on the street, do it for all the others in the same boat. Make it bigger than just that one person. If you are doing tonglen for all those who are feeling the anger or fear or whatever that you are trapped in, maybe that’s big enough. But you could go further in all these cases. You could do tonglen for people you consider to be your enemies – those who hurt you or hurt others. Do tonglen for them, thinking of them as having the same confusion and stuckness as your friend or yourself. Breathe in their pain and send them relief.
Take time to reflect on when you have experienced pain or suffering in your life.
Where is there room for love and compassion for those involved?
What emotion do you associate with this particular experience? (anger, envy, self-pity, desire, grief, shame)
Is that emotion still there?
How has this experience shaped your character? Your behavior?
Is there a lesson to be understood from this experience?
…
Pain and suffering are opportunities to rekindle our commitment to ourselves to make our soul’s path clear again. Our soul’s path will always include some discomfort and growth. Are there ways you can safely and consciously practice discomfort to grow? At the height of discomfort is the best moment to test your compassion. As you practice over time, you will be amazed at the capacity to which you can be there for others in difficult times. I often remind myself that every moment is an opportunity for love. Similarly, every moment is an opportunity for compassion.
References:
Chodron, Pema. When Things Fall Apart. Shambhala, 1997.