(I'm going to read the RAM article after posting this. I agree, how perfectly timed. )
fairyfaye:
.. and waiting for your story, tim !!
Well, I think it’s worth telling because it was such a surprising shock to me when it happened. If it qualifies as idiot compassion it is/was perhaps a much subtler, sneakier form of it than I was previously aware of. But none the less it was a real lesson.
I went through the whole process of forgiveness, felt all the pain, recognized, felt and allowed all the anger and so on and it took about a year. After that time period there really was not much left, it was time to start letting it all go and to move on.
What we’re talking about, really, is nothing other than the release of the self-contraction. I was aware not to repress or disown all the hurt and pain and resentment, etc., and basically the point came –as it naturally should, especially if you have some kind of practice (mindfulness, etc.) to do so-where spending another minute on it would be nothing but unnecessary continuation of something already over and done with, and be nothing other than useless ego solidifying self contraction.
(ACIM makes this so painfully clear IMHO; we so often tend to LOVE our pain and our hurt, to cling to it, because it makes us something and/or somebody special; we complain about it the whole way but that complaining is nothing other than loving and cherishing it and contracting around it. Another way of saying it is that it’s the “having syndrome”- Look at me! Hey, guess what? I have something! like a broken heart, a broken limb, a disease, some “serious shit” in my history and the self contracts all around that. Amazingly, this process-I think we need to recognize- is natural and begins with childhod. It can be seen in children all the time. "Look at my cut!" and the child will show it even to stangers becasue it is such a big deal and, really, I'm so proud of it! And this is fine too. It's part of growing. Carried forward to adulthood, letting it go-especially the much bigger hurts- means death. We may even continue to compare it with others. “Oh yeah, you think your suffering is bad? Guess what happened to me!” And now maybe I have “won” the horrible suffering competition . . . . . . anyway . . .)
It was clear that this had run its course and it was time to let it go and start looking into other perspectives on the situation, now with the clarity to do so.
It seems like once all your pain is gone it is then very easy to start looking into the other person's perspective, perhaps in ways deeper than even that person can. (In fact, probably so.) To me, I think this is the ultimate practice of forgiveness and then the cultivating of true compassion. Into the other person’s shoes, what is really motivating them? What hurt? What unbearable pain? Who or what was merciless with them? What has been their suffering on the brutal playing field of life? Etc. It shouldn’t be hard to find, I think, if the First Noble Truth has any validity at all. And so all of this worked great and then time simply moved on.
Three years past. And the bottom line is, suddenly . . . I found myself right back into the same situation all over again! Although this time it was even worse! Not only was I now ten times more vulnerable but I was now involving other people with me (i.e. I dragged them into the situation as well). What in the Hell happened?! I asked myself. How!?
All I can say is, it was truly as if I had 100% forgotten! It was and has been one of the more profound lessons of my life. I remember saying, my God, I allowed myself to be “stupefied” by what seemed like genuine forgiveness and true "letting go."
Idiot compassion is basically a lack of discriminative awareness. I remain in a state of inquiry over this whole thing, but it just seems like "idiot compassion" somehow slowly welled up or crept in without my realizing it. Or maybe it just felt better not to be thinking about "bad things." I was too willing to "make it all better." Or, perhaps subtly contracted around the belief that my (! ?) “love and compassion” could magically heal the situation. I am not sure, really. But I do feel certain of one gigantic mistake that I made and perhaps that is the most valid and genuine answer.
Somehow it seems as if I mistook my growth for the other person’s. Does that make sense? I unconsciously thought that since I had grown the other person did as well.
Either way, here I am, unbelievably, literally walking right back into the lion’s den –and again, literally with, like, NO memory of what had occurred before! (That's what was so shocking.)
It was awful. One of the biggest mistakes I have made in my life. (If you’re like me and have a list of those doosies, this is definitely in the top three if not two.) And quite frankly I still do not know what to make of it, except that . . . don’t allow yourself to truly forget!
Maybe that is the hardest part. And maybe that is the mistake I made. Somehow we have to be able to hold whatever the "bad thing" is in mind without contracting aroud it; just hold it in a discriminative yet compassionate awareness. But that might be much more difficult for those who are truly close to us, or easier for people or situation we don't really know so well.
There is another part of this lesson too.
Although there was much in the actions and intentions and behavior of this person to be angry about, this time, I couldn’t blame him for all that happened. My own involvement was so clear this time . . . because I KNEW! It had a history of 12 years that I had previously been so ell aware of!
Yet somehow I had pretty much just about literally completely forgotten and waltzed my way right back into it with intentions of peace and love . . .
So, a shock.
I'm not sure what the moral of thi story is . . . but there is certainly one there. Right?
Peace, Tim
"With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
. . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
"You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
-Constantin Stanislavsky