This is something I wrote for myself some time ago, but I’m offering it up for anyone who is enmeshed in what is currently happening in the Middle East.
In order to cope with the discomfort of listening to someone talk about something that creates stress in you, you need three things.
Courage to keep sitting there and actively listening to the meaning of what they are saying.
Faith in yourself that whatever is happening inside you, you can cope with it. That you will not be traumatised by their trauma.
Compassion on yourself – not them. If they are voluntarily talking then they are having compassion on themselves. Your compassion on yourself will create the environment for them to continue to have compassion on themselves. Fear expands to fill the space available and in order not to be overwhelmed you must create a container for it. So the compassion must expand at a greater rate to contain it and dissolve it.
Compassion is a power of unconditional love. It is not pity. If you feel pity, turn it into respect. That person is dealing with stuff you can’t even imagine.
You do not “give” compassion, you “have” compassion. Meaning you offer to embody it. Compassion is the act of relinquishing yourself to unconditional love and requires courage and dispassion. It is non-personal. It has no subject and no object.
To be in the presence of compassion when you are in distress is to be reminded that for every action (experience) there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is a reminder that in your world of unremitting pain, such an opposite exists. The experience of it is excruciating because the contrast is so great it cannot be accommodated. Its presence forcibly splits your world apart. It requires change in you. You can choose to paper over the cracks, pretend it never happened and cling to your pain. Or you can use it to help you find your way back from the extreme to the balance point.
Compassion is hard.