Category: compassion

Driving Miss Bliss

Teaching my son to drive was a hair raising (and graying) experience. It seemed as if I was constantly screeching at him to slow down, not drive so close to the parked cars, not stop so fast, not, not, not. Looking back, I realize that was exactly the wrong way to inspire confidence and teach him to be a good driver. However, at the time I was incredibly freaked out about the thought of my 16 year old son behind the wheel of a 3,500 lb chunk of steel. I kept envisioning us getting sandwiched under a semi like some scene from a high speed chase.

Four years later that perspective seems pretty silly as I’m realizing that even though I wasn’t behind the wheel and my foot couldn’t reach the gas pedal (unless you count the imaginary one I kept stomping on), I was still in control. I controlled when he went driving because I had to be in the car with him and I controlled the route that we were driving on.

Those lessons have stood me in good stead with my daughter as her driving experience is not quite so nerve racking as my sons. I’ve timed her driving so that it’s early in the evening when most folks are at dinner and we’ve limited her driving to sleep suburban side streets. I still get a little freaked out by how close the cars parked along the side of the road seem from the passenger’s seat, but I’m realizing that even if we hit the car she’s going slow enough that there would be minimal damage and that’s what insurance is for.
Cat is a very cautious driver who takes her responsibilities seriously and she is realistic in her estimate of her skills. We went driving last night and she did a very nice job at stopping at the stop signs, signalling, and overall being a conscientious driver. We even went to a nearby parking lot to practice fishtailing, but the gods of winter driving were not very cooperative and every time she slammed on the brakes to try and fishtail, we glided gently to a stop.
Despite the gray hairs and the claw marks in the dashboard, I’m happy to teach Cat to drive because the feeling of watching her develop a new confidence in her abilities is a blissful experience in and of itself.

Painful Bliss

Someone posted two very painful comments on my blog today that were personal attacks generated by something someone close to me had posted on a public message board. One of the comments was that I should kill myself and then the world should have bliss. My initial reaction was to curl up and cry both because someone would make such a painful and fairly random attack and because someone I loved had put personal information that could be used to hurt me on a public forum. My loved one’s intent was not to hurt my feelings and I’m sure that he had no clue that the comment would get back to me, but it is still very painful.

I have to admit that I started questioning myself after reading these comments because there was just enough truth in them to make me feel bad about myself. I started questioning my motives, my self worth, and everything about myself. I started feeling distinctly unlovable and as if there was no one in the world that cared about me.

That got old really quick and I realized that I had a choice at this moment in time: I could choose to let what some random person who didn’t know me impact me and shake me to my very core or I could choose to shake it off and feel compassion for someone with such obviously low self esteem. I realized that the person I was dealing with was obviously a troll who got some kind of pleasure out of attacking someone he/she doesn’t even know via the Internet. What kind of sick and twisted upbringing did this person have that they believe it is acceptable to randomly attack others? How much self loathing does this person have that the only way for him/her to feel good about themselves is to attack other people?

I choose to take my lesson from the gentleman in the concentration camp who in the midst of such horror and pain chose to thank god for not making him like the concentration camp guards who enjoyed inflicting pain on other people. I give thanks and count my blissings that I am a compassionate and loving person who believes in working towards betting the world instead of attacking other people. It is really hard to show compassion in the face of such an attack, but I have a choice and I choose to show compassion both toward the person who posted the attack and on the person who posted personal information online.

However, despite my compassionate bliss, I am not above posting a picture of the nasty little person who did this and I will not open up myself to such public attacks again and have chosen to turn on comment moderation so I will be reviewing all comments before they are posted.

Compassionate Bliss

Unfortunately for the people I love and those around me, I am one of the most impatient people on the planet and I get easily irritated when people take too long, when they disappoint me, or when I’m under stress and just generally in a bad mood. This has always been one of my weaknesses and something I’m trying hard to tame so that I can enjoy smoother relationships with those around me.

One of the most successful techniques I’m using recently is a technique I learned from the book “Ten Zen Seconds.” You find a phrase and slow your breathing down so that as you take a five second deep breath in you say the first part of the phrase and as you exhale you say the second part of the phrase. There are many good phrases in the book and you are encouraged to come up with your own. I tried “I am blissful” for a while, but it didn’t seem to work for me as it seemed too forced as if I was expecting results without doing the work.

The phrase I’ve found that works much better for me in stressful situations and brings me to a deep place of bliss is “I am compassionate.” Every time I find myself getting irritated and out of sorts, I take deep breaths and breathe “I am compassionate.” It is amazing the deep feeling of calm and bliss that encompasses me at this reminder to be compassionate. What I’ve also found is that this forces me to think about the other person’s point of view and see things through their eyes. Once I’ve done that, it’s very hard to go back and feel irritated again.

I was in the resale shop the other day and there are very few clothes available for larger women and there was a woman just standing in front of the one rack that had the clothes I wanted to look at. I tried wandering around the store and coming back, but even after perusing the rest of the store, she was still there and I found myself getting more and more irritated that she was right where I wanted to be. I finally started taking deep breaths and reminding myself that I am compassionate. It took a few minutes before the feeling of compassion sunk in, but then I started realizing that she was in the same place that I was: not being able to fit into “normal size” clothes, not wanting to spend tons of money on clothes, and wanting to look nice. The compassion finally took hold and I was able to smile at her and to feel real compassion.

Compassion is also not something I feel easily when people chatter on and on about things I really don’t care about and unfortunately, my 17 year old daughter often talks about her favorite bands, people at school, and other subjects that I don’t find scintillating. We’ve had a number of blowups lately because I got irritated with her chatter and asked her to be quiet. Being the sensitive sort that she is—and the fact that I probably didn’t ask too nicely—led to her feelings being hurt. I carried the irritation with her and my guilt over hurting her feelings into the next several hours until I remembered to breathe my compassion and as I started my deep breathing I was able to put myself in her shoes and realize that she wasn’t sharing everything with me to irritate me or to annoy me, she genuinely wanted to share what was going on in her life with me and maybe get some advice. Once I realized that, I was able to feel compassion for what I’d once viewed as really irritating behavior.

However, that led to my feeling a lot of guilt and beating myself up over my own feelings of having been less than kind to my daughter. Deep breaths and more compassion helped me to realize that I needed to exercise compassion towards myself as well as others and I was able to take a step back and see that I was feeling stressed out about my job (my company has been undergoing a lot of RIFs), my inability to quickly find a new job, and the feeling that there was always too much month at the end of the paycheck. Once I was able to realize what was really causing my irritation and stress, I was able to show compassion to myself as well.

Compassion is also something you need to feel for those who may have done you wrong. My boss and I are like oil and water and add in the fact that she is a very inexperienced manager who has no skills when it comes to managing overachievers and it is a very combustible situation. It lead to a pretty nasty blowup a few weeks ago, but once the situation had cleared and she set up a meeting to discuss it, I was able to breathe deeply and feel compassion for her and the situation that she is in.

One thing I’ve learned is that feeling compassion doesn’t invalidate my own feelings. I still have the right to be angry, irritated, and to my own opinions. What compassion does is let me see someone else’s point of view and realize that they really aren’t trying to irritate me, they’re trying to express themselves the best way they know how and that sometimes I need to get beyond the words and the behavior that is irritating me and realize that they are people too and that maybe we can find common ground.

So what exactly is compassionate bliss? It is the deep feeling of bliss that comes from exercising compassion for your fellow man. For seeing them as a fellow traveler on the road of life who might need a helping hand or someone to listen. There is a deep sense of satisfaction and bliss from getting out of yourself and becoming part of the larger world.