By Paulo Coelho
The warrior respects the suffering of others and does not try to compare it with his own.
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'..Respect others'suffering and let them speak and listen carefully. There is a Greek quote : 'With many death is sweet'.
I remember when my children were small and were hurt I used to tell then while they were in amy arms kissing them, do not worry, my love, it is nothing, I had the same when I was a child.. This was an immediate … medicine.
It was not comparing, but it is the fact that by having experienced the same problem you have the solution of it or you are the 'living example' that finally you have … survived!!
Of course, every one reacts to pain in his own individual way, but knowledge and wisdom help.
LOVE,
Thelma
Thanks for the reply dear Thelma.
Love,
Nelson
My dear Nelson D’Silva, you missed my … biography!!???
I do not understand what you mean “Process Engineer”?? I use the term ’cause and effect’ which means that every action has a result! It is a paraphrase of Karma and it is a philosophical term I have found in various books. It is the Law of ‘justice’ and it is also mentioned in the Gospel: If you give knife, you will receive knife!
It also means the principle of attraction!
LOVE,
Thelma
This reaction is instinctive, natural.
Perhaps only at some higher stage does one grow beyond this compare and contrast to true compassion.
Dear Thelma, please don’t mind my asking this, but are you a Process Engineer, because often I have seen you use the words ‘cause and effect’. Just curious.
Love,
Nelson
When growing up, with great spiritual challenges and crises, I always felt behind ‘normal’ life and ‘normal people’. Yet I did my best to respond to other people’s troubles as if they were as central and deserving of attention and time to my own. It therefore, always greatly surprised me how whenever it came for ‘my turn’ to reach out for support time, that all I ever would hear back were things such as.. how that scenario related to them: how they felt. I was astounded. when you reveal something of deep personal significance, you don’t expect for it to be negated like this.
when you share your pain, you entrust yourself to be heard, seen, guided through… for the time and moment to be respected and lived, not contained.
I don’t understand why people should try to ‘contain’ someone else’s pain in that moment of expression, by trying to give their own examples of suffering.
So thankyou, for today’s words from the Warrior of Wisdom.
My dearest Paul from Austria,I do not only feel quilty for others suffering, but I want to cry ‘continuously and I pray I could do something to ‘ease’ their burden.. Remember Christ carrying the Cross? It is the ‘human destiny’.
But how can we possibly interfere with other’s destiny without breaking the Law of ‘Cause and Effect’, our ‘lesson’ towards individuality and Light?
Love always,
Thelma
I feel blessed just to have the opportunity to have read all your beautiful comments.
Thank you all,
Nelson
When I read this quote, there was a ‘click’ in my mind. I realized that I have been doing the opposite: I was not respecting the suffering of the self, and comparing it with others; causing me to chastise myself. That can be incapacitating too.
‘..Respect others’suffering and let them speak and listen carefully. There is a Greek quote : ‘With many death is sweet’.
I remember when my children were small and were hurt I used to tell then while they were in amy arms kissing them, do not worry, my love, it is nothing, I had the same when I was a child.. This was an immediate … medicine.
It was not comparing, but it is the fact that by having experienced the same problem you have the solution of it or you are the ‘living example’ that finally you have … survived!!
Of course, every one reacts to pain in his own individual way, but knowledge and wisdom help.
LOVE,
Thelma
P.S.
I just watched the film “Shadowlands” again a couple of days ago. The first time I saw it, some years ago, was in a university class which was part of my Religious Studies minor. The course was called “The Problem of Evil” and dealt with how the theologies of various religions explain, or attempt explain, why God allows suffering. The movie is beautiful – incredible! I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it the first time. Anyone who is in anyway grappling with the concept of suffering, and especially anyone questioning why a just and omnipotent god would sanction such suffering should definitely have a peek at this film. It is certainly not the only answer to these questions, but at least it is one way of approaching the dilemma. I cried almost from beginning to end, but was very glad to have seen it again.
I used to have a very dear friend who was a psychologist and who, I suppose, had been through some sort of “empathy training” which was meant to enable her to be more empathetic to the suffering of her clients. Anytime that anyone was sick or injured, she would immediately bring up the subject of a similar sickness or injury that she herself had suffered, comparing it at great lengths and then concluding with the tale of how she was cured or made well. I don’t know how her clients in psychotherapy reacted to this habit of hers – I think it was almost subconscious on her part – but I found it, rather than soothing, extremely annoying. I always felt like someone was saying to me, “Ah, your suffering is nothing because I too have endured and triumphed over the same thing.”
I now always try to remember that, how her accounts and comparisons of her own sufferings made me feel, and anytime that someone shares with me an account of their own injury or suffering, I stop myself, even if once I did suffer a similar hurt. I don’t allow myself to tell that story; I just keep quiet and listen to them tell their’s.
Sometimes I think that’s all we really need from our fellow human beings anyway when we are suffering – we just need them to stop what they are doing and truly listen. We just need for them to really acknowledge our suffering. Whether they really “understand” our suffering or whether or not they have ever suffered anything similar is irrelevant. We just want them to acknowledge, in that moment, our own pain. That acknowledgment, in itself, is somehow soothing and often the most effective balm we can apply to any wound.
Love to all,
Savita