Session 8
MORE POWER WITH COMPASSION
COMPASSION AND (SELF-)HEALING ABILITY
Compassion training can have a major impact on our self-healing ability. Health and healing are, superficially, equated with reduction of signs and symptoms, removal of a diseased organ, repair of a broken leg, or the elimination of harmful bacteria or influencing chemical processes with medication. We can reduce symptoms psychologically by influencing our thoughts and behaviors and by dealing differently with emotions and our relationships with others. Despite that, we still can’t feel ‘whole’ inside. Even when we are superficially healthy and go through life in an adjusted way, we can be twisted and broken in our wholeness on a deeper level, because we ignore or repel large parts of ourselves, or are constantly striving for forms of self-improvement that are beyond our reach. On a deeper level, that of our general humanity, health and wholeness take on a different meaning than in the language of doctors and psychologists. Even when, according to them, no cure or recovery is possible, we can still experience wholeness. Where cure for primary suffering is not possible, care can provide relief, at least from much secondary suffering, that stems from unhealthy ways in which we deal with primary suffering. When we restore the relationship to our primary pain, no longer flee from it or fight against it, but restore the connection with loving attention, we become whole again in the deeper sense. Both accepting what we can’t change and taking responsibility for what we can change can help us move forward with our lives in a worthwhile direction. In the midst of the limitations, we can connect with all the possibilities we have within us and we can train our new brain functions to work for us.
Mindfulness practice and compassion training heal us on the deeper levels of our humanity. You could say: mindfulness opens the eyes and compassion the heart to the suffering as it is present. Each individual form of suffering is special and unique, but as a general given from being human, suffering is a shared experience that no one is spared from.
Session 8
Mindfulness and compassion are universal traits, and the more they blossom, the more our attitudes toward our suffering and that of others can open up in gentleness. Instead of shutting out, criticizing, or manipulating our suffering, we can embrace it lovingly, as a mother embraces her child when it is in pain. In this way, through the practice of mindfulness and compassion, we actively contribute to our (self-)healing capacity. In doing so, we vitalize the connection with ourselves, others and the world as a whole, and deepen our sensitivity to giving and receiving the right care.
ATTENTION TO PAIN
Vidyamala Burch developed a mindfulness-based method for people with chronic pain in England. She has been an expert by experience for many years after severe trauma to her back, which eventually put her in a wheelchair. She describes in her book ‘Attention to pain’ (2010) how, while superficially things were ‘worse’ with more pain and limitations in her functioning, she started to feel ‘better’ with more quality of life: ‘I have experienced a deep turnaround in which my life in its wholeness, including the pain, has become a point of connection with others. When I fought with my pain and ran away from it, I was constantly preoccupied with myself, and that put up a wall of isolation. There was no silence and therefore no inner space through which I could peer over the parapet of myself and glimpse a radically different perspective on life, When I finally did, it was like I turned 180 degrees: instead of moving away from life in search of a ‘better’ existence, I now returned to it. I had felt like a lonely person in the wilderness, but now the image is full of color, variety and different people. I call this change ‘getting better to being human’ and for me it is the deepest recovery of all. It has helped me to take my place among people just as I am now: flawed, but alive, just like everyone else.
It’s such a relief that I can let go of the idea that I have to be perfect, and be able to choose every moment as an opportunity for empathy and connection in which my pain and joy, my ability to love and be loved, are reflected in others. Being whole is all-encompassing. If even the smallest particle of you is excluded, the whole of being is broken.
Session 8
If you shut your pain and difficulties out of your life by resisting them or dispelling them into the cold of non-consciousness, you cannot be whole: you cannot get better or be happy in the deepest sense of the word. But if you let life in without resistance or clinging, you can be healthy and whole, no matter what kind of injury or disease process you are living with.”
Hopefully this course has been of value to you and the tools that have been offered will assist you on your further path and you can develop them in your own way, adapted to your situation. Maybe you regret that this was the last session, maybe you thought it was enough as it was. Just like after the mindfulness course, we also say here: the last session was not this one, but is the rest of your life. It is up to you to further integrate the mindfulness and compassion practice into your daily existence, with or without the support of others. Either way, the rest of your life begins now.
Live now, there is no other time to live. May you come home again and again, in this moment. May mindfulness and compassion be your faithful companions wherever you go.
Session 8
RECOMMENDED READING
For those who want to continue reading, the following books are recommended. These have been used as sources for this training.
Erik den Brink and Frits Koster Compassionate Life Boom 2012
In this book the many practical exercises from this course are described and theoretical background information about compassion can be found. The exercises in the compassion training that you have done at Rebalance are inspired by the modules that have been developed by Frits and Erik.
Erik den Brink and Frits Koster The four life friends melinda 2013
This audiobook introduces you to the four states of mind: kindness, compassion, (sympathetic) joy and equanimity. Guided meditation exercises to develop these states of mind.
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance, Bantam 2004.
Personal book by a psychotherapist/meditation teacher with valuable exercises, cultivating a kind, loving attitude that heals inner fear and shame.
Vidyamala Burch: Attention to Pain, Altamira-Becht 2010. She wrote a book from her own experience about a method she developed to deal with (chronic) pain with mildness and mindfulness.
Christina Feldman, Compassion, Rodmell Press 2005. Listening to the cry of the world. Written by an experienced meditation teacher.
Christopher Germer: The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, Guilford Publications 2009. How to free ourselves from destructive thoughts and emotions with gentleness and compassion. Written by a psychotherapist who works a lot with mindfulness and selfcompassion.
Session 8
Paul Gilbert: The Compassionate Mind, Constable and Robinson 2010. A wide-ranging book about the power of compassion with both scientific theories and many practical exercises. Written by a British professor of clinical psychology who also applies his Compassion Focused Therapy to more serious forms of psychiatric problems in which shame and self-criticism play a central role.
Rick Hanson,:with Richard Mendius, Boeddha’s brein, Ten Have, 2012. An accessible book for those who are looking for more explanation about the workings of our brain and the neuroscientific arguments for meditation, loving-kindness and compassion practice.
Kristin Neff: Zelfcompassie, De Bezige Bij, 2011. EAn accessible, scientifically substantiated and at the same time personal book by this American psychologist, who did a lot of research on self-compassion. Gives a lot of understandable explanations and practical exercises.
Sharon Salzberg: Liefdevolle vriendelijkheid, Asoka, 2009. Throughout our lives, we yearn to love ourselves and experience an intense sense of connection with others. Fear of intimacy – both with others and with ourselves – causes feelings of pain and longing. However, these feelings can also give rise to a search for freedom, and give us the willingness to walk a spiritual path. Written by an experienced meditation teacher.
Session 8
Hour after hour, day after day we try to grasp the unreachable, determine the unpredictable. Flowers wither when we touch them, ice cracks suddenly beneath our feet. In vain we try to follow the bird’s flight through the air, we chase a silent fish into deep water, we try to anticipate the deserved smile, the gentle reward, even we try to grasp our own life. But life slips through our fingers like snow. Life cannot belong to us. We belong to life. Life is king.
The practice of compassion is to (self-)healing ability what sunlight is to a flower. If compassion does not concern ourselves, it is incomplete. If compassion does not concern all living beings, it is incomplete. And... even our lack of compassion needs compassion.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Leonard Cohen
8
PRACTICE
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVE
FORMAL EXERCISE:
1. If you see the added value and if you notice that it supports you in your life, do not hesitate to keep practicing, with or without the use of the guidance. Choose a time when you are open to practicing.
2. Read a session from the book every now and then. That is how you keep the course alive
INFORMAL PRACTICE:
1. Practice the breathing space with compassion regularly, at a time of your choosing, while embodying compassion mode
2. Practice breathing space compassion – coping as often as you want when you sense unpleasant feelings or are stressed.
3. How can you take care of yourself after training? How do you shape what you have learned in your daily life?
This workbook was created by using the compassion training course book made by Erik den brink and Frits Koster.
Source and copyright: Erik van den Brink and Frits Koster, Centre for Integral Psychiatry, 2012