What if the feeling of compassion toward yourself seems to be missing? Read on…
Bernie writes:
I’ve noticed that I’m saying the compassionate phrases that are built into the Focusing process, but I’m not actually genuinely feeling compassionate towards myself.
Maybe I am expecting something of myself in the process that isn’t required… but I do know that I still feel unable to feel as relieved or empathized with from Focusing as I do from talking to someone about what’s going on.
Dear Bernie:
It’s true, Focusing doesn’t actually require feeling compassion for yourself. Compassion often awakens in the process of doing it, but that doesn’t mean that compassion is required.
I bet you’ve never heard a Focusing practitioner say to a client, “Now be compassionate to that part of you.”
That’s because feeling states, like compassion, cannot be commanded. Feelings don’t come on demand! We can choose what we say, and we can choose where we place our attention, but I don’t really think we can choose what we feel.
But maybe the real issue isn’t whether you are feeling compassion toward yourself, but whether you are receiving the compassion that is built in to phrases like “I really hear you,” and “no wonder!”
I’m curious about the part you are in touch with, the part to which you are saying things like, “I really hear you.” I wonder whether it feels heard. You can check with it, sense what kind of contact it would like from you. I think that’s the place to put attention, not on whether you feel compassion, but on whether it feels your presence in the way that it needs.
In the process of sensing into this, you might find there is another part of you that needs to be acknowledged, something in you that doesn’t feel adequate to offer contact, something in you carrying some burdens from the past perhaps, from how you grew up or what you’ve gone through in other compassion situations.
And then turn toward that, with interest and curiosity. We don’t define Self-in-Presence by what you feel (compassion, etc) but by your ability to turn toward whatever needs attention. Self-in-Presence isn’t a feeling. It’s a turning-toward. Turning toward anything in us that isn’t Self-in-Presence!
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