Faster than I'm making my way through my book pile, I'm generating a list of more books I'm keen to read. Brene Brown is inspirational, so as well as the rest of her collection, she refers to a book by Pema Chodron called "the places that scare you" that sounds brilliant. I'm currently reading about empathy and compassion in Brene's book, and was struck by her comment that compassion is not always listening to someone's story, but sometimes sitting alongside someone in their fear about not being ready to share. I wonder if as I myself do a lot of sharing, weeping and reflecting on my darker aspects, maybe I'm sometimes not as patient as I could be with those less willing to soul search?
In the book I'm now ordered to read next, Chodron explains "Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with the emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance."
This sounds remarkably like the kind of counselling I do. And I like how Brene calls compassion a practice, as we have to keep practising, and make a commitment to it.
I've also been amused by a clip on the internet of a dog who watches their owner put a dog treat under one of two beakers, follows it as they are switched several times and successfully identifies which one it is so is rewarded with the treat. Then looks incredulous when the other beaker is lifted to reveal a mountain of treats. For some reason this really speaks to me. Not only how humans can be mean and superior (which I'm thinking about a lot at the moment in relation to climate change), but how I too perhaps slavishly follow what I think is the prize, keeping my eyes on what others set up for me to focus on. What if we too mistakenly assume the other options are less rewarding? Food for thought :-)
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