Welcome to: Ignite Purpose with Christina -, I am your host Christina Foxwell and in this Season we are going to Lessons from the Glass Angel, Being better together. This episode is called – Unlocking compassion The purpose of this podcast is to support you with stories and tools to lean into your healing and transformation, to help you step from Surviving into Thriving. Only you can do it. This week let’s explore how to UNLOCK Compassion? What is Compassion and WHY is it so needed in our lives? Let’s first define compassion What is compassion? It’s a place of feeling deeply with others, a place of holding space for someone when they are going through difficult times (Ups and Downs). Compassion allows us to connect with others (Hear, see and value them). In compassion we can heal in our relationships, move forward with wisdom and a since of inner peace. Compassion is not just feeling with others it also includes a desire to help others be free from suffering, there is a real desire to help. Compassion is a form of LOVE. What is the impact of a lack of compassion? Firstly, we need to understand what creates a lack of compassion in our own lives: 1. It’s when we have had to toughen up in our world, so we expect other to do the same 2. We are incredibly hard on ourselves and therefore we are just as hard on others 3. When we are stressed, we can come from a place of armour and a need to fight, fly or freeze – very emotionally disconnected places 4. When we are Burnt-out we just don’t have the energy to work with someone else’s challenges 5. Or maybe we have not had the opportunity to develop our emotional intelligence and there for have lower empathy. If we have low empathy Low empathy… it can look like: a. Being hard and judgmental on others b. Can’t lead ourselves and our emotions regularly are out of control c. We ignore or are oblivious to the feelings of others d. They get frustrated by the emotions in others e. They can’t admit their accountability or wrongdoing Ok so finally I am going to simply call it out, if we have had to have a lack of compassion for ourselves (to survive in our world) and have sat in judgment on our life, our decision and our story, we are less likely to want to connect deeply with others and show great compassion. Our Compassion tank is EMPTY! Here is how it impacts our world: 1. We won’t be able to accept things because we could see acceptance as giving up on our perspective of being RIGHT! 2. We will need to PROVE our worth and our own measure because that EMPTY tank we carry around inside feels hollow and drives us forward 3. We will struggle in our relationships with each other as a failure to meet our standards might mean danger to us and encourage our JUDGE to take over and disconnect from others. This means a lack of forgiveness and the ability to move our relationship forward 4. We struggle in work partnerships because we expect our peers to be like us, to know what we do and to show us they are credible. We forget that everyone is human and that we are learning together. 5. We struggle to sit in discomfort with others, truly listen and connect deeply. We see discomfort as weakness and want to control or avoid these moments with logic and judgment. 6. We mostly don’t know how to show ourselves the compassion needed to simply be who we are without our armour, imperfect and beautifully human. In summary, if we don’t have compassion we create a world of separation, loneliness and continued cycles of trauma and fear. We create a world where we are not better together. We are called to together as a human race in this time. So, it has to start with fostering compassion, which starts inside each of us. So as part of an alchemy practice that is without doubt critical it’s the ability to develop a peaceful mind, foster an open heart through self-love and compassion. Maybe the most important is to realise we are Simply HUMANS being together.