Grief and Compassion

The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible. ~ Francis Weller

As a massage therapist in 1991, I got my partner’s client with a broken back; she had 115 identified personalities according to the psychiatrist.  I was new to the business and needed the money so I continued to work with her.  It was an amazing experience to watch this same body behave so differently.  She could go out at night as one personality, play pool and get drunk and feel no pain.  Every time she showed up for her appointment with me, I asked who was talking.  Sometimes, as many as five different personalities showed up.  What I learned from her was the power of belief.  Each personality had different beliefs and manifested the same body differently!

Two years later, I added another trade to my Heartworks Holistic Services business: psychotherapist specializing in Alchemical Hypnotherapy.  My first four clients were women with cancer.  The first two healed their bodies by practicing the visualizations I taught them.  The third one died.  The fourth one did not heal herself.  She explained that having cancer brought her family closer together, and she gave me a beautiful weaving that I placed on my piano to remind me that I am not the healer, my client is.

I continued that practice because I thought psychotherapy was how I could help people the most. And then I got a client who said she had a perfect life but wanted to have an affair with her neighbor. I explained that I specialized in Alchemical Therapy to empower people to heal themselves.  She didn’t qualify for this practice because she was looking for permission to destroy her life and I would not be a part of that.  I quit being a psychotherapist because I could feel no compassion for her situation and didn’t want any more clients like her.  I was following “if it feels good, do it; if it doesn’t, don’t do it”, a concept I mastered when I quit my job as a professor in 1995.

My tolerance for other people’s grief is huge.  I express my compassion and listen to their story.  But if they aren’t doing their part to change their situation, I have to let them go.  I am not their healer; they are.

And then I became a Minister of Metaphysics.  What I learned from Hinduism, the Bible, and the Occult (Tarot and Esther Hick’s channeling Abraham) is that we create our experience with our thoughts, words, and deeds.  

In 2018, my horoscope said my life would be challenging through 2021.  I took that as a “heads-up” but I am the one who creates my experience of those notifications.  As a result of facing those obstacles with visualizations of what I wanted, my faith is stronger than ever, I have less mind chatter, I am more focused on the present moment, and I have manifested what I asked for in each of those challenges.

Your Turn

Do you believe you are helpless, that you can’t do anything about your situation?

Credits:

• art credit–C Lynn Reese
• image and quote posted by Frank James on Facebook

Till next time, Please be kind to everyone you meet for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi