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In a moment of frustration with the recurring anxiety I’ve been feeling over the past month, I angrily asked my anxious mind, “What do you want from me!” leading to the following conversation…
What do you want from me!
“I want you to forget.”
Forget what?
“Who you really are.”
Why?
“So you can experience what you’ve come here to experience. “
And what is that?
“Awakening.”
As in, remembering who I really am?
“Yes.”
But why does it have to be so hard? To feel so hopeless. So . . . torturous?
“The answers to your questions are on their way to you.”
When will they arrive?
“When they do.”
Well, that’s a shitty answer…You’re not very comforting.
“No, I’m not. That’s not my job.”
Whose job is it?
“Yours.”
To comfort myself?
“Yes.”
So compassion is my job.
“Yes.”
And it starts with me.
“Yes.”
So you’re here to give me something to feel shitty about so I can be compassionate in response?
“Something like that.”
Seems like a dumb game.
“Perhaps, from your current perspective. But you chose this experience. And I chose to accompany you.”
Why?
“I’m here because you asked me to join you on this adventure.”
And you said yes?
“I did.”
Why would you agree to play the part of someone that tortures me?
“Because I love you.”
You do?
“Yes.”
You have a funny way of showing it.
“What I’m doing that you are calling torturous is loving and beneficial from an expanded perspective.”
Why don’t I have this perspective?
“Because you’ve forgotten.”
Because you keep making me forget?
“Yes.”
And you tormenting me and making me forget is helping me? It’s for my benefit, and I asked you to do it?
“Yes. Everyone and everything that causes you discomfort is helping you.”
So your part, and the part of many others, is to express their love for me by causing me agony?
“It feels like this at times, but it is under such conditions that you may experience yourself as compassionate in response. It’s part of a process you will come to feel incredible gratitude for.”
What process?
“The process of awakening.”
…How do I skip to the part where it feels better?
“By not wanting to escape where you’re at.”
Say more, please.
“As long as you’re wanting to escape a feeling, it will keep showing up. Internal thoughts and external reflections will continue to arise that bring up these feelings until you show yourself compassion.”
But why? What’s the point of all this?
“The point is to experience yourself as compassionate.”
And once I do this, the pain goes away?
“It’s no longer relevant to experience discomfort once it’s served the purpose of bringing you to compassion.”
Why does this part have to take so long?
“In cosmic terms, this part of the process is quite brief. And well worth it.”
Well worth what?
“The feeling that comes next.”
And what’s that? Bliss? Ease? Joy?
“All of this and more.”
And I’m going to experience this at some point?
“Yes.”
It’s guaranteed?
“It is.”
So the lesson here is patience . . . and to have faith.
“Yes.”
Why?
“You cannot be compassionate with yourself until you are willing to be present with your feelings. And you will not be willing to be present with your feelings until you develop the capacity to be present with your feelings.”
And patience is needed to develop the capacity to be present.
“Yes.”
How do I develop the patience to be present? Through meditation?
“Yes.”
Are there other ways?
“Anything can be a form of meditation. So, in this sense, meditation is the only way.”
What makes something a meditation?
“The quality of presence that is brought to the experience.”
And the more patient I become, the more “quality presence” I bring?
“Yes.”
But aren’t you the one causing me to not be present? Aren’t the messages you’re feeding me the reason I’m impatient?
“I’m providing you with opportunities to be compassionate with yourself.”
It always comes back to opportunities for compassion, doesn’t it?
“Yes.”
Ok, I see the importance of patience in developing the ability to be present so I can be compassionate with myself. But what about faith? Why is this a necessary ingredient for developing compassion?
“Faith has to do with knowing who you are, and knowing the power of your compassion.”
Knowing who I am and my power? I thought faith had to do with a higher power.
“They are one in the same. You are the higher power, and it is you. You are All That Is. Therefore, you are all that exists to have faith in.”
So all faith is ultimately faith in myself.
“Yes.”
And faith has to do with understanding who I really am.
“Yes.”
But you’re preventing me from doing this by causing me to forget.
“Yes.”
Why?
“I’m pacing you.”
Pacing me! Why? I’m tired of not knowing. I’m ready to wake up!
“You have yet to develop the patience and faith necessary to consistently have compassion for yourself and wake up.”
Why would I do this to myself? Why would I choose this experience?
“So that you may experience yourself as compassionate and awaken to the glory of who you really are.”
And I’ll remain in the unknown until I stop resisting where I’m at?
“Yes.”
How do I develop the patience and faith necessary to be compassionate with myself and wake up?
“By letting go of your attachment to what this process might look like, and how long it may take.”
Say more, please.
“Your attachment to what the circumstances of your awakening might look like and how long the process may take are serving as an obstacle to your awakening by creating resistance when the process doesn’t unfold in the way you expect. You become impatient and lose faith. The truth is, EVERYTHING is part of the awakening process. Everything is an opportunity to remember who you really are. Every experience, every interaction, every thought, every breath. It’s your judgment that it is not that makes it so.”
This is good stuff. Please continue.
“As long as your goal is to wake up now, you will continue to manifest WANTING to wake up. You will experience the wanting, not the actual experience. This is why cultivating patience and faith is so important.”
So if awakening isn’t my goal, what is?
“You will awaken to your divinity when you surrender your attachment to how and when your desires will manifest and instead choose to focus on being compassionate with yourself RIGHT NOW. Whenever you feel sad, disappointed, hopeless, devastated, remember that this is another opportunity to be compassionate with the one within you that feels this way. Feel into your heart. Feel the power of your compassion. Know that there is nothing more powerful in all of existence.”
So what about the moments when I don’t have the patience and faith to be compassionate? What do I do in these moments?
“Allow yourself to feel your feelings, then choose compassion as soon as you are able.”
Easier said than done.
“It becomes easier over time. As you allow yourself to be with your feelings, you naturally develop more self-compassion, and you feel less desire to escape your feelings. Less of a need for something to change, and more willingness to be with the process. Willingness soon becomes desire. You go from accepting that part of you is calling out for compassion to wanting to provide this for the hurt or scared part of you. And over time, you become more patient, because there’s no longer anything to resist or avoid.”
From willingness to desire.
“Yes. Because when you’re no longer resisting the feelings, you find that your true desire is to be compassionate with yourself. And as you become more compassionate, and more patient, you begin to have more faith in yourself.”
Say more please.
“You develop faith in yourself through witnessing your ability to nurture yourself as you move through your feelings. And you begin to feel the incredible power and ecstasy of your compassion. As your inner world becomes more harmonious, and your outer world follows, you remember that the external world is simply the expanded, collective YOU. And now that you’ve learned the power of your compassion, developed the skill of nurturing your Self, and discovered that love is who you really are, you want to spread compassion to the rest of you – that which you thought was outside of you, but you now understand is a part of you.”
So all compassion is self-compassion.
“Yes.”
Compassion is the answer to everything, isn’t it?
“Yes.”
A version of this post was originally posted on TroyCohen.Wordpress.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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