developing compassion

[Zoe Girl]

So I had a thought, if you want to know my background story it is in family matters and relationships but I won't repeat it. I have been having a hard time with being the helpee lately and not the helper, really struggling with it. I have had strange people come out of the woodwork to be a helping hand in my life, not always the way I would ask for but oddly enough it works. (okay today I am feeling a bit more positive) I see that my mom has had to adjust her ideas of mental illness to deal with me and my kids, my exhusband just started with taking care of some of the things the kids need instead of calling and telling me what to do with them. He was starting to use their school struggles to basically harrass me last spring, so this is very welcome. And I have to let go of being in charge of everything to let them do this. My kids who have been so difficult over the last few years are starting to say things to each other like 'mom spent all the money on food, don't bug her' or even 'we have to clean the house, mom doesn't have time'. Um wow, not all the time but a big change. If I could still do more for them then they would not learn this.

So maybe bad things happen to develop compassion, I am sure that someone has said this before and more eloquently. My life and all the lives it touches could be some giant cosmic lesson. I was very upset the other day and my mom volunteers at a food bank. There are people just like me there, who are educated and smart and capable but who cannot find jobs to afford to eat. My parents and other baby boomers are watching their own children working harder than they did yet lose their houses, not be able to do things for their children and even be hungry through no major life errors.

Okay out of total breakdown a few days ago this is what comes out of it, just sorry that it is exhausting to everyone around me.

[rodeosweetheart]

This seems to me a very sound approach, and if you can give that gift of compassionate eyes to your children,you have given them something wonderful.

[Stella]

I do think struggles, both our own and those of the people around us, serve to deepen compassion. I know that is how it has worked for me.

[leslieann]

Nice post, Zoe Girl. Isn't it amazing that we have to let go of control in order to make enough space for other people to help us? I struggle and struggle with this. I am so afraid of what will happen if I stop doing doing doing...until I just can't do any more and then what happens? Stuff gets done anyway. Just not by me, or not with all the struggle and suffering. Amazing.

Unfortunately I still seem to have to get to the place of impossibility before I can surrender all of this. But I can keep working on it.

[iris lily]

This post reminded me of the man who is getting a lot of attention in the local news. He was going for a degree in counseling until he failed his practicum and they kicked him out of the academic program because it was determined that he lacked empathy and wouldn't make a good counselor.

It is too bad that they grabbed $70,000 of his money before they decided that he didn't make the grade. He is suing.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2011/08/webster_university_empathy_law.php

[JaneV2.0]

That makes me laugh, as the people I've known who went into counseling/social work were anything but empathetic souls. (And I turned down a gem of a social work opportunity in Coos Bay, Oregon. I'm pretty sure. looking back, that my people skills, such as they are, would have been strained to the limit by that position...)

But yes, I think adversity (plus age and experience) makes you more sensitive to other people's struggles.