Thoughts count

It’s the thought that counts. Except when it doesn’t.
If thought is as far as it goes, sometimes that thought is downright torturous.

I knew it was crisis time when the baby was screaming at the breast and I had no compassion to give. All I had was the thought “just take the breast damnit!”. I can’t give what I haven’t got in me to give.

I needed some time to refill, to recoup.

Hubby took the baby and went for a walk. He hoped to give me time to regroup whilst he walked the baby to sleep. I intended to make he most of my brief window of peace. I ran a bath, lit candles, undressed and dipped my toe into the steaming water. Que my preschooler waking from a nightmare with a scream.

I soothed him gently. Though my mind was elsewhere, on body image to be honest, seeing as he rushed into my arms even before I found a robe. I attempted to indulge in my bath a second time 5 minutes later, before I gave up and let the water go cold and the candles burn down.

My luscious bath products swirled down the drain with discarded leg hair later that evening. Unable to waste the bath water, I had boiled the kettle to add some warmth and quickly shaved my legs. I’m nothing if not utilitarian.

The thought didn’t count, at least not towards returning my sanity. I am not rested, restored or regrouped. I thought about me time and all it achieved was giving me an opportunity to lament the time before children when I had to escape to a hotel for a bath, because all we had was a shower.

Sometimes, patience is more effective than ‘the thought’. Patience, perseverance and acceptance. Patience to wait, perseverance to not give up and acceptance that bathing alone (even a lowly shower) is out of the question.

Compassionate lies

Is a lie ever the compassionate choice?

When the truth isn’t pleasant, we often placate our loved ones with lies. We think that by not addressing the uncomfortable truth, we are somehow being loving or softening the blow. Do we really think those around us don’t know the truth? Do you think your friend can’t feel the difference between your faked ‘compassion’ and genuine love?

Case in point: an old friend has been documenting her first pregnancy on social media. Every month she posts a photo of her growing belly. She makes a great pregnant woman, by the way; her golden curls got thicker and bouncier, her curves softened, her smile became magnetic. People posted messages gushing about her pregnant radiance and sharing in her excitement.

The last image she posted was another image that beautifully captured her journey. But it wasn’t an image of pregnant radiance. Her shoulders were rounded, from the weight of her curves, her body swollen from the strain of carrying an almost full-term baby, dark shadows encircled her eyes, probably from frequent night wakings and she looked tired and uncertain. The messages posted on the photo still touted the, now absent, pregnant radiance.

Perhaps it is just me, but I hated people telling me how good I looked when I was clearly green with nausea, bloated and exhausted which was all of my first pregnancy, bar a blissful 4 weeks in the 2nd trimester. It felt like those around me were just going through the motions and not ‘seeing’ me at all. Would I have preferred they tell me I look like a sea-sick jabba the hutt? No! (though it was the truth.) I would have preferred they not comment on my appearance at all and simply ask me how I was feeling. Or remark on how my belly was growing. Something that didn’t invalidate my experience for the sake of social convention.

Over a hollow statement I would prefer a genuine question. Something real. Something true.

If we are honest we are lying to ourselves, first. We tell the ‘compassionate lie’ because we are uncomfortable with the truth. We want to make ourselves feel better. We are unwilling or incapable of the truly compassionate action; witnessing, without judgement, the journey of another.

For my money, no, a lie is never the compassionate answer. Unless of course someone asks “does my butt look big in these”, in which case all bets are off.

Surrender

It is after 11pm on a random weeknight. I am holding my baby in my arms. I use the term ‘baby’ to refer to him as often as possible because he grows like a noxious weed and I am clinging to his infancy with all my strength.

The baby should be ‘dream feeding’; breastfeeding in his sleep. Instead he is alternating between smiling at me and blowing raspberries, all the while gently fingering my hair.

Three years ago, when his older brother was in his place, I would have been furstrated. I would have (or more accurately, did on an almost daily basis) judged myself as lacking, clearly incapable of mothering the ‘right’ way. I would have wished for something different.

Thankfully, experience is the most amazing teacher.

Instead of frustration I feel gratitude. I relish moments of maternal bliss, when the world is quiet. I am aware that I am blessed with the child I feared I would never see. I am thankful for the mindfulness to be present with his innocent joy. There is something divine about being open to receive the love of a child.

Savoring these moments of infantcy is more than a blessing. It is an act of love for my son, a practice of meditation for me and a gift of deep compassion to my future self.

There will come a day when this bubble of infant dependence bursts. When the time comes that his world is bigger than just us, I will mourn the passing of night-time breastfeeds and raspberries in the dark.

My gift to my future self is surrendering to the moment now, so I can treasure the memories then.

Ritual

I was told on my wedding day that ritual is not to be underestimated, that rituals change a participant. I didn’t want to believe the assertion, yet it resonated within me.

I never wanted to get married. But I did. It strikes me as devastating that some people who want to get married, can’t. But that is a post for another day.

I felt like a freak for never dreaming of the Cindarella wedding. I know now that I belong to a growing category; women who marry their long term partners because the ceremony is important to their man. Are our men assuming the ‘Prince charming’ role as quickly as we abandon the tortured Cindarella?

I didn’t eneter into marriage lightly. We didn’t exchange rings. (Our sons, the eldest of which was sitting on my hip during the ceremony, join us without end.) We exchanged tantric vows. I don’t wear my engagement ring on my ‘ring finger’ because it’s too big now- it sits on my ‘rude finger’. The irony isn’t lost on me. I lost my voice the eve of the wedding.

I did it for him, or so I thought. Perhaps he really did it for me.

Ritual changes the participants. The change found me, through all my smoke and mirrors. Somewhere deep inside the ritual took root. The change has been subtle, profound and inescapable.

I told my friend on her wedding day last weekend that ritual changes people. I saw the doubt in her eyes & yet she squeezed our hug tighter. It resonated with her too.

With the power of ritual weighing heavily on my mind, I have begun to wonder; How can we harness the power of ritual for compassion? Could we join families cross continents in a ceremony so they support each other? Could we have compassion rituals in private to be more gentle to our selves?

How has ritual changed you?

Compassion void

If I am honest with myself compassion isn’t my first response. Not to injustice. No, injustice draws my anger, wrath, righteous indignation. Injustice makes my blood boil. When it cools to a simmer I then struggle to find a compassionate response.

That is where I find myself this evening, on the low road, struggling to find the compassionate action.

Facebook is refusing to take down a page that endorses rape culture, instead stating in an official comment that the page is akin to a ‘pub joke’. Yet Facebook famously banned breastfeeding pictures for fear of offending people.

I for one am offended that Facebook, with more than 800 million active users (according to their own stats) can find breasts more offensive nursing a baby than being violently assaulted. The salt in this gaping wound is that over 192,000 people ‘like’ the page, and only 3,300 have signed the petition to have the page removed.

I stopped by the page myself, to verify the articles I had read and was tempted to post comments, to school and scold the commenters. To not-so-politely ask the ‘likers’ which of their mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends they think will be one of the one in 5 women raped in her lifetime.

Meeting ignorance, ambivalence & disrespect with aggression, hate & righteousness isn’t going to achieve anything other than more hate.

So I am left with the question, what is the compassionate response?

Here is the petition to have the page removed if you care to sign it.

Compassion & Listening

The very definition of compassion is a deep sense of sadness and sympathy with the accompanying desire to take action.

For most of us compassion is an action. It is doing something for someone. Sometimes we get so caught up in the doing (and our good intentions) that we forget the listening and the asking.

My children demonstrate this most clearly to me. When I hear a cry of pain I immediately move to cuddle, kiss, pacify. I don’t stop to consider that the child actually wants or needs. I assume that I have the answer to their unarticulated problem. More often than not my 3 year old says “Mum I don’t need cuddles. I need you to…” in his case chocolate is usually the answer.

Without stopping to ask permission to help, or listening intently to how we can best serve, our compassion becomes an act of ego.

Unleashed women

I am a big fan of The Hunger Project Australia. They epitomise the hope I mentioned in my post last week.

THP (The Hunger Project) are unimaginably efficient. So much so that they leave many other agencies and NGOs in the dust. The key to their efficiency? They leverage women. They recognise that empowering a woman benefits a family and a community. They create powerhouse leaders of local women by giving them resources to help their local sisters. They enable women to do what we do best; communicate, network, support and serve.

Can you tell that THP makes me warm and fuzzy all over?

If you want a part of the warm and fuzzies too, go check out their Unleashed Women program. If that doesn’t fill you with hope, nothing will.

I am not alone

Today I was the 76,334th person to affirm the Charter for Compassion.

Compassion is at the very heart of my mission. Compassion, towards self and other, is in my opinion THE answer to the myriad of problems we face personally, locally and globally. If I raise 2 compassionate young men I will be contented, yet I hope to spread compassion well beyond my own family.

I encourage you to read the Charter. If you feel so moved, make your own commitment.

How will you bring more compassion to the world?

When you have nothing left to give

When I was two years old my mother would walk me through an inner-city park each morning on our way to day care and work. Wide eyed and open I absorbed the city the way a child does- I saw everything. Equally.

One day, after letting my hand go to fish some sultanas from her bag, my mother turned to me to discover I was no longer at her side. Ever the talkative and curious child, I had wandered to introduce myself to a new friend.

When my mother found me I was sitting on a homeless mans lap deep in conversation. Panic subsiding, as I was clearly unharmed, my mother removed me from my perch. She reached for her wallet to offer him money and he waved away her generosity. Instead he reached into his pocket, presenting to me his last dollar coin.

Being seen that day, really seen, was worth literally everything to a man who had nothing.

I saw a gentle old man who looked sad.
My mother saw a homeless stranger.
We both saw that listening is sometimes the greatest gift we can give.