Compassion – A Different Kind of Pain

Aggression says ‘get up from there’ while standing on top of you.

Passive aggression says ‘let me help you get up from there’ while standing on top of you.

Sympathy says ‘it looks awful down there’ while standing beside you.

Empathy says ‘it sucks down here’ while laying beside you.

Compassion says ‘get out of here’ while taking your place.

Compassion is the deepest form of love and shows no regard for sex, age, race, or religion. It offers no resistance to abuse or trauma or dysfunction because it knows those who are in the greatest pain cause the most pain.

Living in the moment fills you with intense compassion because if you are not holding on to the past nor grasping at the future, you are able to treat the present moment with love, curiosity, hope and joy no matter how badly you’ve been wounded by those spending that moment with you.

Both living in the moment and living with compassion take incredible strength, courage, and endurance. The drain of allowing yourself to be vulnerable to exploitation is at times overwhelming and isolating. Keeping faith that all will be well and perseverance rewarded by peace and joy can be so excruciatingly wearisome.

But the reward always comes. You cannot ask or expect a certain form of reward – that’s a transaction, not compassion- but the pieces needed for fulfillment in your life will follow acts of brave compassion like rainbows follow rainstorms.