HOW TO CREATE COMPASSIONATE HOLIDAYS

Compassionate Holidays require that you act consciously each moment. Unconscious caretaking and pleasing others (giving gifts because it is the “season”) are NOT compassionate deeds. They ignore the humanity of the recipient because the recipient is being exploited by frightened parts of your personality. This type of interaction multiplied billions of time each “Holiday Season” makes the experience much less than it could be.

Compassion is being moved to and by acts of the heart. I am not speaking of the sentimental “heart,” the “heart” that feels pity and need to fix other’s problems (these are experiences of frightened parts of the personality). I am speaking of the most healthy, inclusive, grounded, and loving part of yourself. If this heart is not involved, no compassion is present. Therefore a compassionate Holiday, like a compassionate family dinner or a compassionate country requires you to replace the experiences of frightened parts of your personality (which also include anger, impatience, frustration, and judging) with the experiences of loving parts (gratitude, appreciation, patience, caring). This creates authentic power.

People who do not know about authentic power want very much to experience compassion, especially during the Holiday Season, but they don’t know how so they try to will compassion into themselves. This makes compassion even more difficult to experience because the effort to experience it is really an effort to make themselves feel better, which is the opposite of compassion

Most people are not aware of this close relationship between creating authentic power and experiencing compassion, but it is obvious to those who know even a little once they begin to think about it. You cannot be compassionate and angry at the same time, or compassionate and jealous at the same time, or intend to exploit someone and be compassionate with that person at the same time.

There is no such thing as compassionate Holidays. There are only compassionate individuals, and in each instance, compassion is a matter of choice – the choice to create authentic power, to challenge frightened parts of your personality and cultivate loving parts. A compassionate Holiday is impossible without a compassionate day before the holiday, day after the holiday, and compassionate days before and after those.

Happy Holi (Holy) Days,

Linda & Gary