Phenomenal Compassion

I've been participating in the latest 21 Day Meditation Experience by Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. Today the topic was radiating compassion. I was excited about this meditation because I believe compassion is where we find the courage to see ourselves in those we are often encouraged to refer to as the other. As I meditated, my heart ached with a longing to see and feel more compassion in the world around me. I was reminded of compassionate people I've known and times when I've found compassion easy to express and other times when I found compassion almost impossible to find in my heart.

Part of the meditation experience involves answering questions built around the day's topic. Things got interesting as I delved into my thoughts on compassion. Lately, I've been witnessing such a lack of compassion in the world that I have moments when I can't help but wonder who benefits from pitting us against one another. The more others we create, the more discord we orchestrate. Hate, violence, and discord hurts us all including the perpetrators and the victims.

One of the questions in the writing part of the meditation asked me to think about someone I considered an example of compassion and list three reasons why. The first person to pop in my mind was my Grandma Stamm followed quickly by Dr. Maya Angelou. As I wrote about these two women, I was reminded of the dream I had the night before Dr. Angelou died and the poem I wrote as a result of that dream.

Two Women

Last night I dreamed
Two women sat at a table
One black,one white
Both wise enough to see
They must speak truth
Cups in hand
Platter of biscuits between them
They talked of love
They shared stories of life
Their laughter free
Their smiles genuine
Their insights built from experience
Two lives so different
One world-traveled
One always focused on home
Both reverberating a message
Of acceptance and truth
Of seeing people as they are
Of strength and beauty
These two women
One I called Grandma
One the world called legend
Both marked the world
With indelible ink
To create change within their influence
Both opened my eyes
To see people truly are
More alike than unalike

My thoughts drifted back to that dream and the poem. I felt a sudden insight; my perspective of these two women had much in common. I see them both as accepting, loving, caring women who were strong enough to set boundaries that commanded respect for themselves and demanded it for others. I realized the dream had as much to do with their influence on me as anything else. Much of what I believe about compassion I learned from these two women, and I'm sure they influenced others similarly. To me, they are both phenomenal women who encouraged women to phenomenal women and men to be phenomenal men. They pushed everyone in their circles to embrace their own wonderful selves.

As I examine my life and look for the compassion in it, I see I sometimes fall short, and when I do it is generally because I am fragmented within. It is difficult to offer compassion to others when you feel none for yourself. When you are fragmented within, it is hard to feel compassion for yourself. This is precisely when I discover it is imperative I withdraw and focus on finding compassion for my fragments. As I send compassion to my fragments, they heal and I more easily offer compassion to others, even people I will never meet and who will never know I am feeling compassion for them.

Compassion lifts us above the pettiness of our differences and puts us in touch with our commonalities. Compassion allows us to see where we can connect and where we can learn. Compassion drives us toward unity. Compassion is never wasted.

Compassion provides us all the opportunity to be phenomenal.
T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

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