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Radical Compassion
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 682186" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>Remember Dr Phil, IC? And he would always say, "How's that working for you?" And the person would say, "Not too well, actually."</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>What I say is that our task, once everything is lost and then, some horrible somehow, we learn there are levels of Hell unimagined, is to learn how to bear it. How is it possible to hold what we hold. How is it possible to know the things we know.</p><p></p><p>How do we live with the pain in our children's eyes. In the eyes of our beloveds? We are helplessly, hopelessly not enough and yet, here we all are. </p><p></p><p>WTF</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Elie Wiesel wrote that to speak of certain experiences in words profanes the sacred horror of what is, of what we now know. </p><p></p><p>That is what happened, to us. And to our families and our children.</p><p></p><p>There are no words.</p><p></p><p>So, once we acknowledge that, then we know where we are.</p><p></p><p>Alone, in the dark, in a strange place where everything seems to be on fire.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Like in the movie Armageddon. The movie star, played by that handsome blond man, wants to know how bad is it going to be, on that asteroid. And when he learns it is going to be the worst environment imaginable, then he is okay. He knows where he is going and what to expect: It's going to be really bad.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, he does die, in the movie.</p><p></p><p>Not everyone can be Ben Afleck. </p><p></p><p>Who gets the girl every time, that handsome devil.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>I think we cannot alleviate pain. What can happen though, is something like the warm comfort of touch. Mostly without words, we believe ourselves to have been understood. Somehow, because of that, we are no longer alone. There are others trapped here in this hellish place, too. Some of them have somehow survived what is happening to us, to our children and our marriages and our lives. We know then that there is a way to incorporate these things that have happened to us, and to our children and our husbands or wives.</p><p></p><p>We just have to find it.</p><p></p><p>That we understand this to be our position gives us a goal. Now, we have a frame of reference. We have a place to fix our intellectual eye, as Mary Shelly is supposed to have said. So, that is better than not having those things. We glimpse sanity, the potential for creating again a world and a life where there is meaning. We have lived so long in the seemingly meaningless, chaotic, shockingly painful places our lives have somehow become.</p><p></p><p>Our children are missing or, worse yet, they are home. Or some weirdly horrific combination of both, and only the parents here on this site will know what I mean. </p><p></p><p>But there are no words to say what I mean.</p><p></p><p>It's like a freaking nightmare where nothing makes sense and everyone is screaming and we are supposed to be the heroine but we keep doing the wrong thing somehow and no one is saved...and our child is not saved.</p><p></p><p>And it's really dark. And everything is on fire. And someone at work says good morning and we just want to stab them to death and stick their good morning right...oh, excuse me.</p><p></p><p>Wool gathering.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>One of the mothers here on CD described compartmentalizing the horror of what was happening into something represented by the painting "The Scream". In her mind, that was where the horror and hopelessness were kept. She lived her life around that acknowledgment. She refused to allow what was happening to all she had dreamed define her, her life, or her children.</p><p></p><p>It just was what it was. Nothing more. </p><p></p><p>Radical acceptance.</p><p></p><p>She was a very strong woman. She taught us how to face what was without judging either ourselves or our children. Which was a good thing, having to do with efficient use of energy. What is it that helps us survive. </p><p></p><p>That is what it gets to be, really.</p><p></p><p>She taught us, because she was doing it herself, that it could be possible to not be defined by what was happening ~ to not be defined, or define our lives, by marking the increments of our suffering.</p><p></p><p>Even when that seemed to be the only thing that was real. </p><p></p><p>What has happened to us is part of our lives, but it does not define our lives. </p><p></p><p>She would post things like that.</p><p></p><p>She helped me come to terms with my suffering. I say that pain is when we still believe that what is happening to us and to those we love is some kind of mistake. We still believe we can pull ourselves and those we love out of the fire. Pain is an active thing. Pain has to do with hope. Suffering is something else altogether. That is what all of us need to accomplish, really: How to come to terms with the pain. How to see the human suffering in children who are so willfully self destructing and pulling their families down with them.</p><p></p><p>What else are we going to do?</p><p></p><p>Those are our beloveds.</p><p></p><p>If they are prison bound, if they are unhappy, if they are living on the streets or in mansions with gold floors, we are there with them, body and spirit and soul.</p><p></p><p>The children are our beloveds. How to hold them, how to parent them, when they suffer? When we suffer a thousand times over for them, for their paths, for their pain and confusion. <em> But here we are. We have not left them, and we never will.</em></p><p></p><p>They are our beloveds.</p><p></p><p>*** </p><p></p><p>I think it is rare to find true compassion.</p><p></p><p>True compassion, radical compassion, is acknowledgment that we all are human. That every animal, every living thing, is an intrinsic piece of what all of us are doing here. </p><p></p><p>So, wait. </p><p></p><p>That is compassion. </p><p></p><p>That thing I just described is true compassion. </p><p></p><p>To recognize one another, whatever shape or mood we are wearing. Radical compassion would be to choose true compassion as our go to mood, as our go to defiance about how to see both the suffering and the joy suffusing everything around us and not blink. Lest we close our eyes to it altogether. </p><p></p><p>Radical: To choose. Compassion. Or acceptance. Or self care.</p><p></p><p>The wonder of the thing is that we can choose that response in the face of what is happening. Most people do not. They choose to judge and self elevate. We cannot blame them for this. They literally have no way to understand what has happened to us. There is no frame of reference inside them for the horror of what we each have come to know with such shocking intimacy.</p><p></p><p>To stand helplessly, almost hypnotized in the horror of the moment. Watching our eyes, our beloveds self destruct, taking our lives with them.</p><p></p><p>Over and over and over again.</p><p></p><p>That's what we do. That is what is happening to the parents here every day, every night, every minute. Some of us are fortunate. The child pulls back. The destruction stops. But hope is a cruel master. We will do almost anything to keep hope alive, to keep love alive.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, everything is burnt away.</p><p></p><p>There is us, and whatever is left.</p><p></p><p>And the destruction goes on or it does not, but the dreams we held for the beloved are only the memories of so many beautiful things we believed in, in a gentler time.</p><p></p><p>But here we are.</p><p></p><p>And that we are here, and that we do love, and that we stood in the fire...that stuff matters. We did that. Love did that.</p><p></p><p>And we are still standing.</p><p></p><p>And that stupid fire is still roaring and spitting sparks. But we are well tempered, now.</p><p></p><p>That is what enables us to make that choice of radical compassion.</p><p></p><p>When we have seen so much that we easily make room, welcoming and assuring the others that whether they ever discover the purpose or meaning of what is happening to themselves and their children and families, we are here, and we hear them, and they are not alone with it, anymore.</p><p></p><p>They will stand up. There is no other choice, really. Not for any of us. Those children are our beloveds.</p><p></p><p>We have no choice.</p><p> </p><p>The only question then becomes how to survive it: Radical compassion, that's how. <em>For ourselves first, IC.</em> Compassion whether we believe it or not, whether we can feel it or not, whether we want to or not.</p><p></p><p>Radical compassion. A choice to self value and to self nurture. It has nothing to do with anyone else.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>This is the other thing I know, this morning. We can learn to suffer without being devoured by it. If you will google paintings of The Mary, you will see it, there. How to accept what turns out to have been poured to overflowing into the cup passed to you.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Laughter. We have to be able to laugh, maybe with our animals if not with our people. Radical compassion and radical self care go together. If we are going to come through this intact, we need to be like warriors. We need to tend to ourselves. Eating well, sleeping well when we are able, comforting ourselves through the terrible pain of it.</p><p></p><p>Laughter. But you know, I was just thinking about laughter. My sense of humor is a very different thing, now.</p><p></p><p>I am so separate from everyone I know.</p><p></p><p>I am okay with that, though.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>After daughter was beat, I watched Beverly Hills Housewives by the hour. Just sat there, and watched that show. In the beginning, it was about beautifully done dinners and beautifully groomed women, and the ring of crystal. </p><p></p><p>I was so hurt by what had happened. I lost even my faith. Nothing made sense.</p><p></p><p>Nothing still makes sense.</p><p></p><p>I am different. I no longer expect or demand that anything make sense. I am so frequently hurt, so appalled at what has become of all of us.</p><p></p><p>I am like La Loba, the Wolf Woman in Clarissa Pinkola Estes book <u>Women Who Run With the Wolves</u>. La Loba wanders the desert, collecting the bones. She sings life back into the bones, sings the skin and the thick, shiny fur and the heart and the desert back to life.</p><p></p><p>You will come through this, IC.</p><p></p><p>But you will be different.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p><p></p><p>Here is the story of La Loba.</p><p></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]0IU60fRlCYo[/MEDIA]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 682186, member: 17461"] Remember Dr Phil, IC? And he would always say, "How's that working for you?" And the person would say, "Not too well, actually." *** What I say is that our task, once everything is lost and then, some horrible somehow, we learn there are levels of Hell unimagined, is to learn how to bear it. How is it possible to hold what we hold. How is it possible to know the things we know. How do we live with the pain in our children's eyes. In the eyes of our beloveds? We are helplessly, hopelessly not enough and yet, here we all are. WTF *** Elie Wiesel wrote that to speak of certain experiences in words profanes the sacred horror of what is, of what we now know. That is what happened, to us. And to our families and our children. There are no words. So, once we acknowledge that, then we know where we are. Alone, in the dark, in a strange place where everything seems to be on fire. *** Like in the movie Armageddon. The movie star, played by that handsome blond man, wants to know how bad is it going to be, on that asteroid. And when he learns it is going to be the worst environment imaginable, then he is okay. He knows where he is going and what to expect: It's going to be really bad. Unfortunately, he does die, in the movie. Not everyone can be Ben Afleck. Who gets the girl every time, that handsome devil. *** I think we cannot alleviate pain. What can happen though, is something like the warm comfort of touch. Mostly without words, we believe ourselves to have been understood. Somehow, because of that, we are no longer alone. There are others trapped here in this hellish place, too. Some of them have somehow survived what is happening to us, to our children and our marriages and our lives. We know then that there is a way to incorporate these things that have happened to us, and to our children and our husbands or wives. We just have to find it. That we understand this to be our position gives us a goal. Now, we have a frame of reference. We have a place to fix our intellectual eye, as Mary Shelly is supposed to have said. So, that is better than not having those things. We glimpse sanity, the potential for creating again a world and a life where there is meaning. We have lived so long in the seemingly meaningless, chaotic, shockingly painful places our lives have somehow become. Our children are missing or, worse yet, they are home. Or some weirdly horrific combination of both, and only the parents here on this site will know what I mean. But there are no words to say what I mean. It's like a freaking nightmare where nothing makes sense and everyone is screaming and we are supposed to be the heroine but we keep doing the wrong thing somehow and no one is saved...and our child is not saved. And it's really dark. And everything is on fire. And someone at work says good morning and we just want to stab them to death and stick their good morning right...oh, excuse me. Wool gathering. :O) *** One of the mothers here on CD described compartmentalizing the horror of what was happening into something represented by the painting "The Scream". In her mind, that was where the horror and hopelessness were kept. She lived her life around that acknowledgment. She refused to allow what was happening to all she had dreamed define her, her life, or her children. It just was what it was. Nothing more. Radical acceptance. She was a very strong woman. She taught us how to face what was without judging either ourselves or our children. Which was a good thing, having to do with efficient use of energy. What is it that helps us survive. That is what it gets to be, really. She taught us, because she was doing it herself, that it could be possible to not be defined by what was happening ~ to not be defined, or define our lives, by marking the increments of our suffering. Even when that seemed to be the only thing that was real. What has happened to us is part of our lives, but it does not define our lives. She would post things like that. She helped me come to terms with my suffering. I say that pain is when we still believe that what is happening to us and to those we love is some kind of mistake. We still believe we can pull ourselves and those we love out of the fire. Pain is an active thing. Pain has to do with hope. Suffering is something else altogether. That is what all of us need to accomplish, really: How to come to terms with the pain. How to see the human suffering in children who are so willfully self destructing and pulling their families down with them. What else are we going to do? Those are our beloveds. If they are prison bound, if they are unhappy, if they are living on the streets or in mansions with gold floors, we are there with them, body and spirit and soul. The children are our beloveds. How to hold them, how to parent them, when they suffer? When we suffer a thousand times over for them, for their paths, for their pain and confusion. [I] But here we are. We have not left them, and we never will.[/I] They are our beloveds. *** I think it is rare to find true compassion. True compassion, radical compassion, is acknowledgment that we all are human. That every animal, every living thing, is an intrinsic piece of what all of us are doing here. So, wait. That is compassion. That thing I just described is true compassion. To recognize one another, whatever shape or mood we are wearing. Radical compassion would be to choose true compassion as our go to mood, as our go to defiance about how to see both the suffering and the joy suffusing everything around us and not blink. Lest we close our eyes to it altogether. Radical: To choose. Compassion. Or acceptance. Or self care. The wonder of the thing is that we can choose that response in the face of what is happening. Most people do not. They choose to judge and self elevate. We cannot blame them for this. They literally have no way to understand what has happened to us. There is no frame of reference inside them for the horror of what we each have come to know with such shocking intimacy. To stand helplessly, almost hypnotized in the horror of the moment. Watching our eyes, our beloveds self destruct, taking our lives with them. Over and over and over again. That's what we do. That is what is happening to the parents here every day, every night, every minute. Some of us are fortunate. The child pulls back. The destruction stops. But hope is a cruel master. We will do almost anything to keep hope alive, to keep love alive. Eventually, everything is burnt away. There is us, and whatever is left. And the destruction goes on or it does not, but the dreams we held for the beloved are only the memories of so many beautiful things we believed in, in a gentler time. But here we are. And that we are here, and that we do love, and that we stood in the fire...that stuff matters. We did that. Love did that. And we are still standing. And that stupid fire is still roaring and spitting sparks. But we are well tempered, now. That is what enables us to make that choice of radical compassion. When we have seen so much that we easily make room, welcoming and assuring the others that whether they ever discover the purpose or meaning of what is happening to themselves and their children and families, we are here, and we hear them, and they are not alone with it, anymore. They will stand up. There is no other choice, really. Not for any of us. Those children are our beloveds. We have no choice. The only question then becomes how to survive it: Radical compassion, that's how. [I]For ourselves first, IC.[/I] Compassion whether we believe it or not, whether we can feel it or not, whether we want to or not. Radical compassion. A choice to self value and to self nurture. It has nothing to do with anyone else. *** This is the other thing I know, this morning. We can learn to suffer without being devoured by it. If you will google paintings of The Mary, you will see it, there. How to accept what turns out to have been poured to overflowing into the cup passed to you. *** Laughter. We have to be able to laugh, maybe with our animals if not with our people. Radical compassion and radical self care go together. If we are going to come through this intact, we need to be like warriors. We need to tend to ourselves. Eating well, sleeping well when we are able, comforting ourselves through the terrible pain of it. Laughter. But you know, I was just thinking about laughter. My sense of humor is a very different thing, now. I am so separate from everyone I know. I am okay with that, though. *** After daughter was beat, I watched Beverly Hills Housewives by the hour. Just sat there, and watched that show. In the beginning, it was about beautifully done dinners and beautifully groomed women, and the ring of crystal. I was so hurt by what had happened. I lost even my faith. Nothing made sense. Nothing still makes sense. I am different. I no longer expect or demand that anything make sense. I am so frequently hurt, so appalled at what has become of all of us. I am like La Loba, the Wolf Woman in Clarissa Pinkola Estes book [U]Women Who Run With the Wolves[/U]. La Loba wanders the desert, collecting the bones. She sings life back into the bones, sings the skin and the thick, shiny fur and the heart and the desert back to life. You will come through this, IC. But you will be different. Cedar Here is the story of La Loba. [MEDIA=youtube]0IU60fRlCYo[/MEDIA] [/QUOTE]
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