Compassion
I’ve had things come up in the past few weeks where the solution appears to be that I do a fourth, fifth, six, and seventh step on my judgmental instincts. The answer of course, becomes turning over my judgment to the HP of my understanding and prayer.
What then happens the next time I encounter the individual in question – or a situation where people are saying the same sort of things, is that I experience a wave of what I can only call compassion. It’s not pity – I don’t feel sorry for the other person. It’s not resignation – I don’t have the feeling of “giving in” to something. Instead, it feels like tolerance, acceptance, and a form of love that isn’t the romantic kind or something “sweet.” That “something” that I’m thinking feels a bit like something new and kind of nice I can’t call anything but a touch, a hint, of a sort of unconditional love. Maybe unconditional acceptance. Anyway…
What I know is that I want to somehow fit myself to feel this more and more often. I don’t think I can force the situation or feeling. I want to find ways to fit myself to my HP’s will so that particular form of inner peace, that serenity, comes to me more and more. I think it’s the state that HP would like me to walk around in the world with.
Anyway, I’d love to hear more about what you have discovered about compassion in your sober journeys.