I have been out of sorts the past few weeks .... hand in a cast, horrible pain after having cast removed, a 3 week long illness, week long illnesses for both kids, dance competitions, a breakup, bad weather, getting back to work ... and it has been an excellent time to sort out lots of my limiting beliefs.
Around the time of the Spring Equinox I felt a huge release of all the difficult lessons and felt a beautiful lightness. And I wrote something in my journal that seemed to neatly sum up all that I had learned over the past few weeks.
Passion is living in the moment and doing it for yourself. Compassion is embracing another person living in the moment and doing things for themselves.
If you live with passion, you do the things that you love (dance, travel, cooking, etc.) and love the things that you are doing (laundry, bills, today's weather,etc ) in the moment that feels right for you. And you if you do this with love and confidence, you don't need to explain yourself to anyone.
If you live with compassion, you embrace other people doing the same, even if you don't agree with what their choices.
In my life, I am thinking about the mom who sends herself on vacation 3 times a year without her kids and my friend who expects her husband to do everything at home after working all day while she runs off to the gym after being home by herself all day reading and the guy in our town who broke into a friend's house. I think it will be really hard to not pass judgement, to embrace that person when I don't agree with their choices.
But then I think about the father of one of the victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting. The one who was so compassionate towards the shooter. He certainly did not agree with that man's actions but he did not judge. He was a shining example of compassion and I think he will be my "mentor" as I look to have more in my life.
YOUR TURN:
Think about how much passion you have in your life. Make some goals for having more.
Think about the people in your life you are judging and how you might be able to feel compassion for them. Pick someone as a "mentor" that you can look at to help you find more.
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