Compassion begins at home

Today is Nelson Mandela’s 95^th birthday and when I think of this great man I think of compassion. 

I know that to many people he represents so much more:  Freedom, Justice etc but to me he has always been a symbol of compassion.  

My favourite definition of compassion is treating all others as we would wish to be treated ourselves.

Compassion begins at home.  Living with other people is not easy.  It takes a lot of self-sacrifice and generosity of spirit to live under one roof with other individuals; people – big or small – with opinions and unique perspectives on the world and things.  

A myriad things can spark disagreements and tensions from who controls the tv remote to who is doing the dishes.   Family teaches us about forgiveness.  For there is always something to forgive isn’t there?  From the smallest irritant to the biggest ‘mistake’.  The son who forgot to take out the garbage; the husband who prefers fishing to spending time with his wife or daughters; the teenage daughter who comes home pregnant.   

Daily it seems we are offered a chance at forgiveness.  Practice forgiveness.  Give it freely –if you find it hard to forgive the ‘big things’ start by forgiving the ‘small things’.  My grandmother lived with us for many years.  It was not always easy but having her with us enriched not only mine and my husband’s lives but the lives of my sons.  It taught them to respect and value the elderly.    

Today consider how do you make each and every family member feel valued?

How does your family nourish you? And how do you not only practice but show compassion in the home?

 

The Gift of Another Year

It’s my birthday today.  That’s why I decided to give myself a cupcake.  I would have preferred chocolate icing but that’s what I got from Pixir.  If you’re a parent like I am to two teenagers I don’t have to tell you that they cringe at the idea of mom playing with online photo editors.  As far as they’re concerned I am as ancient as the hills and modern ‘apps’ are best left to those who don’t remember adoring their portable cd players as much as they loved those boys from Duran Duran.    Anyway, like I said it’s my birthday.  And I have had to remind myself of this fact a few times already.  Maybe it’s a sign of early onset dementia.  Maybe it’s nerves or a stubborn refusal to believe I have well and truly crossed into the Fabulous Forties.  I started off the day as I do most days, on my knees, in gratitude for the gift of another year.  And then I prayed for understanding.  There are lines now on my face that weren’t there a week ago.   Sunspots have sprung like midnight mushrooms on my hands and the beginnings of the dreaded ‘turkey neck’ that apparently ‘gives a woman’s age away’.  Truth is I don’t want to look like a twenty year old because I am not twenty years old.  God knows I don’t want to feel the way I felt back then.    I was a starving wanna-be and by wanna-be I mean I wanted to be anyone but me and I wasn’t even interested in trying to get to know myself.  In my thirties something shifted and I wanted – no, needed – to figure out who I was before I lost myself completely.  There was a lot of soul searching some of it in far flung places with some weird and wonderful individuals.   When the drum beating didn’t bring the enlightenment I sought I got some professional help.  There was a lot of digging involved (the metaphorical kind).  A lot of tears.  A lot of laughter.  I had to let go of many things and in truth went through what I know realize was a decade of grieving.  Getting to know yourself is an ongoing process.  I believe we’re all like those Faberge eggs.  You take one out only to discover another egg within the egg and so on it goes…I like to think that now that I am firmly in my forties I am somewhere in the middle with this whole process of self-discovery.  There are a few more surprises in store for me.  And it makes my heart glad.  I like surprises.

What are you hoping to discover or re-discover within yourself?

Perhaps your birthday gift to yourself is a healthy wallop of courage or self-belief, a sprinkling of fortitude and strength or the capacity to fall in love again…

Lesson from a Grapefruit

Lesson from a Grapefruit

As I reached for a grapefruit for my breakfast this morning I noticed its pink rind was knobby and scarred by a deep brown line – like a dry riverbed on a pink rocky landscape.  This grapefruit did not have the general ‘fleshy’ and round appearance as the other grapefruit in the crisper and I noticed the fruit’s apex (it’s very own ‘navel’) was not perfectly center.  In fact it was completely off-center, something I have personally never seen before in a fruit or in a person (not that I am a ‘navel watcher’).  It looked to me like the ‘Jack Sparrow’ of grapefruits having I supposed endured a perilous journey from orchard to store.  But chances are this grapefruit was born that way.   Chances are you too may think you were born less-than-perfect.  Maybe you have an issue with your appearance in general or with your nose or weight or like my grapefruit, with your navel.   Well you don’t need me to point out the obvious but yeah we are all less than perfect on the outside, often through no fault of our own.    People, like trends, are fickle.  What is considered beautiful today was ‘plain or skeletal’ a century ago.  Fashions change.  Things happen: accidents, misadventures, illness, regrettable tattoos…

But on the inside well… I can tell you that when I cut open the grapefruit it was perfect.  Perfect on the inside.   So are you.