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Cultivating Compassion Through 'I Am That' Thinking

This post is a creative approach to exploring the paradox of judging what we are, or limiting ourselves to a particular way of being. I know that many people find looking beyond the many aspects of what we are to be a powerful way of cultivating awareness through the you are not what presents itself inside of you approach.

I think that an equally powerful practice that is sometimes overlooked is totally embracing every role you’ve ever played and every archetype you’ve ever embodied.

Whatever your view, it is useful to compare these two modes of thinking, examine them side by side and switch modes from time to time. I feel that I have developed a deep compassion for myself and others by playing with this viewpoint and have found they both ultimately lead to the same place.

Awareness with a sense of humor.

This particular brand of I am that awareness started while I was listening to the radio (something I rarely do) while driving my daughter to preschool one day. A popular song written by Meredith Brooks in the nineties called, “Bitch”, came on.

I’m a bitch, I’m a tease
I’m a goddess on my knees
when you hurt, when you suffer
I’m your angel undercover
I’ve been numbed, I’m revived
can’t say I’m not alive
You know I wouldn’t want it any other way

Perhaps it seems like an unlikely place to find the inspiration for writing an article about compassion, but there it was…a song about the many roles we play within one life time. And it gets really interesting to me when I consider the roles that we embody over several.

I can take it out even one step further and examine the mythical roles we play as a race…the universal experience of the human being that has been evolving since we first became a part of the consciousness of this planet…this living organism. What story might unfold from that perspective?

Whether I’m a bitch, a goddess, a sinner, a saint, a mother, a teacher, a lover or a healer…it’s all part of the paradox within me which encompasses all things but is contained by none of them, it is intangible and undefinable because spirit communicates using channels that exist outside of judgment.

Emotions from the different approaches.

From the perspective of you are not that, you look at emotion and say, there it is…it is not me…it is simply a reaction to egoic or wrong thinking. It is information about what is happening inside of me. From this place of observation and acceptance the feeling wanes and you develop an altered state of consciousness.

From the perspective of I am that, you may look at rage and see yourself as Aries the god of war, or Chaos the father of destruction. Embrace that very male energy bringing it inside of you, channeling it to and from the very place of it’s origin and existence becoming it so completely…and accepting it so fully that the feeling transmutes into self awareness and a higher state of consciousness.

Whatever the approach, you land at the same place. So I find that when I approach something challenging from one perspective and it is not giving me the results I desire, that switching to the other mode often will.

Using the modes to connect with desired states.

I find both approaches very useful but I primarily use I am not that thinking when I want to enter a state of nothingness. When I want to channel specific energies I use archetypes.

I typically call on the Queen that I was in a past life for confidence and authority, I have a favorite goddess for sexual energy and usually I call on a combination of the mother goddess and the Virgin Mary for nurturing energies.

Christ consciousness is useful for inner peace, service and compassion under the many different forms and cultures through which it arises, bearing it’s hidden messages about life through nature…a message that is symbolized in each of the evergreen wreaths, boughs and trees that decorate our homes at this time of year.

Using the modes to access compassion.

So this holiday season when you are faced with someone whose beastly behavior is presenting you with an opportunity to grow, you have a few compassionate choices available in how you select to view them within the situation.

You can look for the spirit within, using the they are not their behaviors thinking, or you can jump right into beastliness with them and ride it to it’s creative Source and the very deepest levels of spiritual communication.

It is the process of using all that comes up for you as the mirror…knowing that you only see what you do in others because it is in your own consciousness, therefore you created it and so it is also within you.

At the Source level there is ever only one thing going on…the rest comes down to our judgments and interpretation.

Both of these methods lift us out of judgment and make us more compassionate to ourselves and others which ultimately comes down to viewing each other outside of the lenses of separation.

Spread the love now!

Some of the greatest acts of compassion I have ever received have come from this non-judgmental space of connectedness.

One in particular that was extremely life altering came in the form of understanding that no matter what I did to chase my step-dad off, I could not make him abandon me. Up till then I had been left by every father I had ever known, he knew what it was like to be left by his parents and so he simply could not do it, no matter how hard I pushed him.

So when someone is really getting under my skin, one of my favorite practices is to fully and completely step into their way of being, knowing I’m about to take an exciting journey of discovery as I acknowledge what I see in them, breathe it in and say to myself…yep, I’m all that…and more!

Then I silently bless them with gratitude for the opportunity to integrate these aspects of my own consciousness, knowing the separation with which I viewed them previously was merely a reflection of my own divided internal state

This holiday season…I wish you many opportunities to spread the love of your ever expanding awareness, opening to who and what you are and finding in the process that you are capable of throwing your arms around the world!

Photo by Anniea

Note:

Thanks to the Three Monks – Wade of The Middle Way, Kenton of Zen-Inspired Self Development, and especially Albert of Urban Monk who by inviting me to participate in the Spread the Love Now! project, ultimately inspired me to get this post that had just been sitting there out to you fine folks!

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