My Fear About Compassion

Johnnie considers me to be one of the more compassionate and loving people he knows.  He marvels at my ability to "love my enemy" and show unconditional love to people in my family (of origin and of choice).  Yet the Universe insisted that I productively obsess about compassion. I try to follow the will of the Universe, even when it scares me as this does.

On the surface, there isn't anything scary about compassion. Treating people better and learning to love and honor them is a part of my core belief, so it isn't foreign or strange. It is simply a matter of going deeper into a state that I already achieve to reach. Still, I am terrified of compassion in one major arena: myself.

Like many people, or at least many women, in contemporary society, I have a great deal of trouble showing compassion or love for myself.  I am forgiving, understanding, and kind to the faults, mistakes, and suffering of other people -- even people I dislike or don't know.  My faults, mistakes, suffering, and even my very thoughts and emotions are suspect, judged, and found lacking most of the time.  I will admit that I am better now than I was twenty years ago, but I am still mired in, if not self hatred, then self disdain and distrust.

Learning to be more compassionate to myself seems to be selfish.  After all, compassion is about putting other people first, so compassion to myself shouldn't even enter the equation.  That is one of the many excuses I have used in the past to deny myself compassion.  Without compassion to myself I fail to be the person I am meant to be.  I do not pursue the paths, opportunities, relationships, and jobs that would feed my authentic self thereby making me stronger and healthier and more capable of showing compassion to others. If I want to be a force for compassion in the world, I need to be stronger than I am now. To be stronger, I have to stop intentionally causing suffering -- and that starts with not hurting myself.

What could possibly be scary about being nicer to myself? 

There are forty years of thought conditioning that must be addressed.  Conditioning that tells me I don't deserve success or happiness and that I'm not worthy of compassion or love.  Removing that conditioning means facing the pain and suffering that they have caused.  It means changing the way that I view myself and, therefore, the world around me.  It means taking away the comfortable patterns of behavior that I have employed for most of my life on this planet -- and it doesn't matter that those patterns cause pain and suffering, they are familiar.  Humans cling to the familiar and equate it with safety even when it is actually harmful and dangerous.

I am also afraid of the possibility that I will fail in this endeavor.  After all, I repeatedly tell myself that I'm not worthy of being happy, so if I am actually incapable of showing compassion to myself that will prove that I am a failure and that I'm not worthy.  It means the end of my dreams for my creative and professional life and for a healthy and happy household/family. Failure here seems to be much more final and encompassing than failing at any other endeavor.

There is also a part of me that is afraid of succeeding.  What if, by showing compassion and love for myself, I go too far and really do become selfish, arrogant, and prideful? What if I succeed in becoming a much more compassionate person and decide to relinquish the dreams I have held on to for so many years? What if, in becoming more myself, I turn into someone I no longer recognize and have to build a completely different life? I like comfort -- even when it blocks, stymies, and hurts me.  I don't want to let go of what I know. It's scary.

It's all so scary. 

In my heart, in that part of my being that is beyond emotion, intellect, even beyond thought, I know that I am deserving of compassion and love and fulfillment. I believe that I deserve the same forgiveness and consideration that I show others.  I also know that I am extremely strong and capable of doing what I need to do.  I won't fail at this. I can grow and change and adapt because I have done it over and over again in my life.  I just have to convince the rest of me, the ego, the inner child, the inner critic and all those voices that accumulated in my head telling me "no" and "bad" and "worthless" over the years.  They are the ones that are scared.  And, perhaps, they are the ones that need to experience compassion.