Trusting My Soul

Sun and Clouds — New Years Eve Morning

Self-compassion is paramount. When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do. John O’Donohue (Interview by Mary NurrieStearns on https://personaltransformation.com/)

Trusting my soul. Ahhh … that feels so very rich, right, nourishing. Aligned with my highest aim. Shooting for the stars, not as a goal to accomplish, but to remember that I came from stardust (as did we all) and my soul knows the wisdom of this cosmic connection. The connection that maps the geography of my destiny.

How do I know when I’m trusting my soul? I wonder, and …

Compassion. I’ve been sitting with you, contemplating your nature for a bit. Compassion – ‘with passion’. Passion from the soul which feels, perhaps fills, the heart of my being.

So, compassion, you are of the heart, and that heart must throw off the shackles of numbness that hold illusions of protection.

Protection. From what? From whom? Being numb is no protection at all! Indeed, in my numbness I cannot see the world, another, or even myself and behold the beauty that is Life. And I cannot see the suffering, the pain, the degradation … Wake up!

To feel compassion is to care. Self-compassion is self-care. Daring to dwell deep in the heart and care for the heart of the matter. The matter of Life. All Life. Sacred Life.

These words, these thoughts seem jumbled as if they are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box to guide me. What pieces are missing?

What, if any, action flows from compassion? What is mine to do, to act upon? The question burns. Our culture demands action, doing. Surely it is not enough to simply feel the pain of another’s suffering. Or of Mother Earth being trampled and abused as a resource until we use her up. Or of callous killing in the guise of being secure.

But how will my soul answer?

What IS mine to do in ending these cycles of violence? What needs to awaken in me?

I shudder a bit, and, with a gulp, ask Muse, “Is this jumble what is to be shared today?”

“Trust your soul,” comes the reply, likely with a wink and, perhaps, a nod.

Soul suggests there is a bit more. In opening to deeper compassion and honesty about the world, I must not let that world drag me into its morass. Mine is to discover the geography of my destiny and then to trust the map. My map, drawn in communion with the cosmos, and present in my soul. Mine is to know that my, indeed our, greatest task is to BE above the fray, even when events bring that fray to our doorstep.

Beyond the world’s chaos my soul envisions the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. My task, soul seems to say, is to hold that vision in the darkest of times, especially for those who are suffering or in survival mode and those whose misery leads them to foment discord and more. To lift them up in my heart and see them, indeed all of us, IN that more beautiful world. To behold love as the standard by which humanity will thrive and to hold myself to that standard. The puzzle pieces begin to fall into place …

A Colorado Blue Sky Day!

Pivot to Compassion

Grandmother Tree in the Woods Out Back

The greatest evil and destruction arises when people are unable to feel compassion. The beauty of compassion continues to shelter and save our world. John O’Donohue

The heart is the mother and father and origin of all creatures: the one who knows the heart from the skin is blessed. Rumi

This morning as I moved toward settling in with Muse to reflect and write, I feel drawn to Beauty, a favorite John O’Donohue book of essays, and as I move to find where I left this frequent companion last, I think of Rumi. A few more steps bring me to both, stacked together, just the two of them. Settling in I wonder ‘who will have the words of wisdom to guide the unfolding this day?’ ‘What wants to be shared?’

After writing a bit more, I opened O’Donohue. Then Rumi. I opened to pages where the words went straight to this heart, stirring a recent exploration into compassion that led me to recognize places where I could replace animosity or a quick harsh judgement with compassion or its companions – kindness, grace, tenderness – along with a sprinkle or two of curiosity.

When I’m fully present, conscious, aware and take time to drop into my heart, compassion or its kin are most always my choice, even in those events where a boundary needs to be drawn or a misunderstanding needs attention. Heck, even when I think I’ve been wronged by another. I aim for the heart to rule.

Alas, I don’t always make that mark. When I’m moving too quickly through a multitude of choices, decisions, projects, concerns, the mind grabs the steering wheel of the bus of life until I come to my senses, the deeper knowing of my heart.

Life offers opportunities moment to moment to choose who is driving. Will mind take over? Will heart prevail? Will I be compassionate about and toward the contractor who is incommunicado weeks after a project was to start? Mind wants the project done. Now! Heart says, ‘what if you trusted the timing to be perfect?’. While mind blames and abuses, heart wonders if he and his family are okay? Has something happened that I’m not aware of?

What if I met every situation where I feel disappointed in this same way? How might I more fully embody the belief I wrote about a few weeks back: Everything is connected to everything else. Everything operates on behalf of everything else … (find it here)

For it is the small things, our moment-to-moment choices that loom large in how we experience our world, our personal satisfaction or lack thereof. And it’s those same things that are our contributions – for better or worse – to the future we are creating by those very choices.

Let’s choose love!

Art of the Inner Tree