Issue No. 8

Finding Compassion

Question:  How do we find compassion for people who seem to have no compassion themselves?

Answer:  I really had to look this question over deeply in my life as a therapist working with all kinds of people. Most of the time I worked with the survivors of whatever ordeal my client had gone through. I didn't often get to see the "perpetrator".

I remember in my own therapy as I began reliving my own horrible abuse, the memories just kept bubbling up.  My therapist continually told me to love myself.  He taught me the meaning of phrases like "I'm worth loving", "I deserve to be loved" and so on. One day I looked at him and asked, "What do you say to people like my father if they come into your office?" My therapist smiled and said, "I tell him the same thing." I was shocked. How could a horrible monster like my father come into anyone's office and get told the same things about deserving to be loved, just like the person they had hurt?

As I healed my own wounds, and continued to see clients I did come face to face with a few perpetrators. I was actually surprised how easily I was able to find their beauty, their core of Love. I was amazed at how soft and vulnerable they actually were underneath their expressions of pain. I was intrigued at how their faces seemed to melt into softness as they understood that what they had done wasn't going to be judged by me.

My work continued to lead me to a place where I worked with many people who were the "outcasts" of society. Some of them had done awful things, according to most people's standards. I watched them "get it" as I released the pressure of judgment from them during the sessions so they could dare to look and understand how their actions had affected others. As I held up a structure for them that, even just for an hour, allowed them to honestly understand how they had chosen pain, not only for others but for themselves, they could find the courage to forgive themselves and choose to stop their own pain which eventually resulted in stopping the pain of others.

I learned to stop judging others, because I had plenty of shadows of my own.  For example, I was raised in a family who had no compassion for cats unless they were mousers. My dad regularly killed my cats, yelled at them one day and suddenly they were gone, "got ran over" was the typical answer. I grew up believing that animals had no soul.  When they died, they just died. We never gave cats shots or good food or even water. My mom always said, "Oh, they'll take care of themselves."

It wasn't until I met my second husband that I had a model of someone who adopted a pet and it was a big decision, like adopting a child. That pet doesn't get dumped because it gets on the table once. He used to give his cat a bath every week, and even brushed her teeth every night. She had very poor teeth and actually needed it. I had never given cats shots until he insisted. He always talked to his cat and I could see how she loved him. Until then I just thought cats were sort of like plants. Everyone I grew up with drowned kittens and did mean things to them because it was entertainment. I didn't like it, but I seemed to be the only one that didn't.

I learned differently because I had someone to show me a new way, and I allowed that new teaching into my heart. If no one had been able to do anything but tell me how awful I was, I might never have found the courage to begin a new way of being with cats.

So, my point is that judging doesn't seem to actually work if we want people to have an opportunity for growth. At the same time if we make an assessment (discernment without the negative spin) that someone is dangerous, then we need to do what we can to take care of ourselves and those around us.

When I can, I choose to keep myself at a distance from those I have discerned are in a different place than me because I am focusing on my own life at the moment. If it is my job, or my gift, to be with someone I'd rather not spend time with, then it's my choice to judge or not judge. I personally find that judging, in its negative sense, is actually my way of stepping on that person to help me feel better because they are less than me, so I must be better. I'm filling a need for self love in myself.

When I become aware that I'm using another person's energy to feed my own need for self Love, then I can release my judgments and go directly to my God/Source inside of me to meet my need for self Love.

Judging others is a way of distancing ourselves from others. Sometimes that distancing is part of the "judgee's" need for safety, and sometimes it's a way for the "Judger" to distance. So, all of this boils down to fear. We are afraid to connect to others who are different than we are. What is fear? The opposite of Love.