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Compassion for self, skillful means with others

On Monday I wrote about the importance of resilience and relating to the challenges of life with tenderness vs. toughness. Today I’d like to dive a little deeper into how you do this. You can actually keep it quite simple.

  1. When you wake up, smile upon awakening, before feet hit the floor.
  2. Make the bed, closing that chapter of your day.
  3. Adopt an attitude of gratitude. 

Tender connections start with compassion for yourself.

Compassion for self, skillful means with others.

What is compassion? com·pas·sion /kəmˈpaSHən/  

  • Compassion ordinary definition: sympathetic pity or concern for the suffering or misfortunes of others 
  • Compassion extraordinary definition: connecting with the tender heart of sadness buried in the layers of life 

Dwell in the Realm of C.O.R.E. Compassion. 
 

Set your intentions to:

  • clear your mind
  • open your heart  
  • rekindle your spirit  
  • energize your life 

With much Aloha,

Amy Elizabeth Gordon MA 

Relational Health Coach & Compassion Activist  

p.s. Hereʻs a panel interview I had (Dec. 2019) with 3 powerful beings to discuss compassion. Joining energy from California, Hawaii, and Vienna, we declare our Moonshots and invite some Magic. The message holds relevancy today in pandemic times. 

This is the SOS  of our times. Tune in now. 

We do the deep dive into the Realm of Compassion. Explore the concepts of Clarity, Openness, Reactivation, Energy with these powerfully kind souls. 45 minutes of thoughtful consideration to your media diet, we discuss the collective unconscious, and the necessity for compassion of Self, Other, Society.

Please take good care. you matter, your relationships matter.  

And let me know what support looks like. 

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Reverence of Sacred Beings

path, reverence, sacred

Some of you know I was a political scientist prior to becoming a contemplative psychotherapist. In the spirit of all the swirling change:

Join me for a timely, important course about politics in which the teacher, Charles Eisenstein, offers an inspiring vision for how each of us can play a role in bringing about a much deeper political revolution than mere victory.

It’s free August 3 to 12. Sign up at www.onecommune.com/hope

And, if you need more information, here’s his welcome letter:   

Hi everyone, I am looking forward to engaging you in this journey, and feeling a little bit of heightened awareness of the kind one might feel before treading through a minefield 🙂 However, despite the rancor of the political climate today, I am confident that we can engage this topic in a special way.

Instead of patronizing you with guidelines about being respectful, I would like to invoke the principle of reverence. Reverence is the awareness that one is addressing sacred beings. It is not the same as solemnity; it includes humor, playfulness, and ease as well.

To maintain reverence means noticing habits of polarization and judgment that arise when one is challenged by difficult information or difficult emotions. Inevitably our group will mirror the divisions and conflicts of the outside world. The answer is not to avoid them or to plow them over with positivity. Rather, I invite us to help each other…

– Hold anger without diverting it onto hate

– Hold grief without diverting it onto despair

– Hold compassion without diverting it onto pity

– Interpret each other’s words generously

– Let go of being right and seeming smart

Sincerely,

Charles    

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You Reading This, Be Ready

breath

I love this poem by William Stafford. My favorite line, “Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?”

A little over a month ago I shared a vulnerable bit of my traumatic background around random acts of racial violence. I declared my Moonshot: to drop the stones of resentment and experience holistic heart health and be of maximum service to God and my fellows.

Through mindfulness of the moment, addiction recovery, breath awareness, self-compassion and a whole lot of forgiveness, I don’t carry the role of victim or perpetrator; I am free. 

Today, I grant myself space for Grace, to feel the feels, and then carry on with the work of personal transformation. I may cry about the state of affairs, and then I remember my crying isn’t gonna solve anything. I get to declare another Moonshot, another something extraordinary that wouldn’t otherwise happen…

So in doing anti-racist research and study and having the difficult conversations with our two boys about the digestible chunks of world events we digest daily, we aim to be part of solution vs. part of the problem. We read, write, meditate, heart-storm, and live, together. 

The boys are growing up Caucasian, in a dominant culture that is riddled with broken social contracts, where I imagine it is hard to be male and Caucasian, just as I imagine it is hard to be female and Black…

Just as I imagine this moment in history is hard for humanity, period. 

The invitation is to take a moment to pause.

Read.

Listen. 

You Reading This, Be Ready
by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

here I am reading it aloud

https://vimeo.com/385919004


 

for a brief while we lived in Lake Oswego, Oregon where this amazing poet died. William Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, on January 17, 1914. He received a BA and an MA from the University of Kansas at Lawrence and, in 1954, a PhD from the University of Iowa. During the Second World War, Stafford was a conscientious objector and worked in the civilian public service camps—an experience he recorded in the prose memoir Down My Heart (1947). His presence on the planet has enhanced my life. His legacy inspires me. May it be so that my legacy matters. And may yours. You matter. Your relationships matter. 

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shift the drift to what matters most

I live with my in-laws. Yep, you heard right. For five years now. We’ve shared our resources, multiplied our joys and divided our sorrows by living at the same address.

Moonshot: Consciously decide to turn toward that which we’ve been programmed by the popular culture to want to avoid at all costs.

On Monday I celebrate 18 years of conscious monogamy and a growing, thriving, beautiful marriage. Time spent breathing through-the-moments-I-want-to-vaporize-somebody have indeed paid off handsomely.

Moonshot: Avoid the lure to cheat, lie, and suffer through a dreadful marriage — the lie that dominant culture promotes. 

For nearly 3 decades I’ve practiced radical self-care. I’ve done work on my addictive behavior patterns (from Bacardi Rum to Ben-n-Jerry’s Ice Cream), healed my relationships (with myself, Beloved spouse, conception of Spirit), and cultivated a contemplative practice (yoga, meditation, breath-work).

Moonshot: Challenge the myth of the consumeristic culture that tells us we can buy our way out of pain. 

Each of these Moonshots–these declarations of something extra-ordinary that wouldn’t otherwise happen–help form the foundation of the extra-ordinary life I have today.

Basically, I focus on What Matters Most and abide by 12 distinctions of an extraordinary life. Join me Friday in a live new moon Zoom Room to learn more. 

There are hard times, I get it. Hell, I’m a human being on this planet, of course there are. It’s the way I relate to them; it’s the willingness to simultaneously love and accept myself and upgrade my life AT THE SAME TIME, that makes all the difference in the world.

The invitation is for you to focus on What Matters Most and dwell in the Realms of Resilience, Compassion & Service. 

It’s time for you, as a social pioneer, to shift the drift from everyday suffering to everyday enlightenment. Ready to declare that something extraordinary that wouldn’t otherwise happen? Curious what’s next? 

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massage your vagus nerve

Aloha Dear One, 

Most of this past weekend was good. I forgot about the pandemic for at least 3 hours solid. I gardened for a half-day. I enjoyed rainbows and butterflies. And then I hit my edge, hit my window of tolerance and got a wee bit pissy that my husband made fun of me. I took it personally. Ouch.

But the good news is that my nervous system stayed calm and I didn’t flood like I have in the past. I didn’t want to vaporize him as a defensive reaction. Thankfully, I continue to work a daily program of breath-work, yoga and creativity. I contemplate my place on this planet and in this relationship with a loving, tender presence. And I want to offer a few things to help you gain this resilience and build your toolkit of repair. 

My favorite way to calm myself down and step into command central of my nervous system is to massage my vagus nerve with conscious breath-work. I’m eager to offer more about this vital tonic for well-being as we all could use a little extra tender, loving care.

If you wish to learn more, I encourage you to sign up for (another) free series below. Learn to ACTIVATE the vagus nerve to REBALANCE your nervous system and help boost your immune system and overall health! 

Many people in this modern world suffer from overstimulated nervous systems and become desensitized to chronic stress.

Over time, this can lead to low vagal tone, which has been linked to a variety of mental and physical health issues, including chronic inflammation, neuro-degeneration, poor gut function, autoimmunity and cancer.

1. sign up free here, take what you can use, leave the rest

https://vagusnerveconnectionsummit.com

2. My favorite quote from last week. From Trudy Goodman:

3. My favorite Relationships boost yoga with Adriene 

On Sunday, My beloved and I did this lovely yoga practice.

https://fwfg.com/programs/relationship-boost-yoga

4. My offering today, 5/4/20:

Power by Amy Elizabeth

May the power be with you

(for force is over-rated).

May the power of peace that passes all understanding

tenderize your heart on a daily basis.

May your love may shine forth today

as you rededicate yourself 

to your own greater well-being.

May you radiate the compassion for yourself 

while enjoying skillful means with others.

It’s really the big both/and.

May your sense of knowing grow.

For when you release the grip

you receive the gift of tenderness;

when you release the pinch

you feel the flow of love,

when you release the negative self-talk

you love the company you keep with yourself.

Enlightened self-interest results in a (w)holy authentic you.

Solitude becomes a rich replenishment. 

Energetic exchange becomes a soothing ebb and flow.

May it be so.

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Chillax & Relax

chillax

My poetic words today, 4/20/20:

when I wait for the world to be just so

in order to take a nice deep breath

I generate my own suffering.

when I wait for my husband to do the next inspiring action

in order to take a confident step forward in my passions

I am generating my own suffering.

when I expect others to behave just so

I hold them up to such a high bar that invariably,

I generate suffering for them, as well.

when I release the stones of resentment from my heart

my presence automatically gives us all permission 

to breathe sweetly.

when I tend to the wisdom of my heart

my relationships thrive

even in the midst of pandemic & pandemonium.

when I cut myself some slack

my perfectionistic sensitivities chillax

and I no longer bristle when I hear the word, “relax”

May it be so.