Being grateful is an acknowledgment that life is a process of give and take, that none of us have all we will ever need or want, nor that any of us will leave this life without experiencing difficulty.
Practicing gratitude returns our focus to what we hold dear, to the gifts we receive in whatever form they come to us. As we bid adieu to the campaign we want to say: We are grateful to all of you who contributed to the campaign, participated in conversations and activities, visited our Web site, spread the word about the campaign, and most of all tapped the power of love and forgiveness in your own life. We couldn’t have done this without you–all of you. Thank you!
I have seen how the conversations can change hearts and attitudes.
–Conversation Facilitator
It’s hard to know what to write or where to start to tell you the campaign is coming to a close. Good-byes are difficult and awkward–often because it’s hard to let go of someone or something special and that is what this campaign has been.
From the introductory meeting, when sharing personal stories of love and forgiveness with colleagues seemed awkward at best, public television stations and their partners took the challenge to dive into uncharted territory and went for it. For four years, national and local campaign partners, and hundreds of brave individuals have come together to explore the power of love and forgiveness to impact our lives, our work, and our communities.
The Fetzer Institute began this project as an experiment to see how a series of focused conversations and accompanying activities might affect people’s understanding of and willingness to be more loving and forgiving toward themselves and others. Our research for year four is still being compiled, but based on year three research, 70% of those who participated in campaign conversations reported that they would be more likely to:
Forgive themselves for mistakes
Forgive others who are close to them
Consider offering forgiveness as a response to a difficult situation
Talk with friends about forgiveness or being more forgiving
Choose to forgive someone rather than being angry at them
The campaign, like life, has come with hurdles and difficulties. I often say writing about love and forgiveness is the easy part, living it is much more challenging–all the more reason to forgive. But what the campaign reinforced for me is that we are all both imperfect and inextricably connected. Because of our imperfections, we’ll make mistakes and hurt each other, but if we can approach ourselves and others with kindness and compassion for these faults, foibles, and faux pas, we create the room to improve and to love ourselves and others more fully.
The campaign is ending this month, but the work will continue through the Fetzer Institute’s many initiatives and you who exemplify this work in your daily lives. We hope you’ll want to continue to stay connected with the Fetzer Institute. The campaign blog will be ending at the end of June, but this ending signals the beginning of a Fetzer blog, which will explore love, forgiveness, and compassion, include Fetzer activities, research, commentary, and more.
So maybe we won’t say good-bye, just yet. We will say thank you. Thank you for your love, forgiveness, and compassion. Thank you for your support and interest in the campaign. We are grateful to you for joining us in this great experiment and hope you’ll stay with us as it continues!
No matter how long it’s been or how far away you’ve wandered, you can always begin again.
–Sharon Salzberg, The Force of Kindness CD
A friend of mine loaned me a book and accompanying CD recently that has changed the way I relate to myself. The book, The Force of Kindness by Sharon Salzberg, is beautifully written and full of great wisdom. But the book was not the piece that so moved me. It was an instruction Salzberg gives in a guided meditation on the accompanying CD.
It goes something like this, “The moment when you realize you’ve been distracted is the most important moment in the meditation…That’s the moment when we have the chance to be really different, to actively bring the force of compassion into our practice and into our lives. Rather than judging yourself or seeking to punish yourself, that’s the moment to be gentle, to let go, to forgive yourself, to consciously practice kindness. Nothing is ruined. You simply begin again.”
To me, this is an instruction for life. “No matter how far away you’ve wandered” from your ideals, dreams, morals, or core, you can begin again. She says that even if you have to do it 1,000’s of times, it’s ok. What a relief. What a gift.
Now I remind myself that each time I realize I’ve wandered from this moment–whether I’ve made a misstep, acted insensitively, indifferently, harshly, or generally let my ego or inner dialogue run wild–that that is the most important moment in my life.
The same goes for how I approach others in my life. When I’m faced with an uncomfortable situation, or difficult encounter–that moment is an opportunity to “consciously practice kindness”.
I’ve read a number of books about kindness, forgiveness, compassion, and meditation and endeavor to practice each. But it wasn’t until I heard Salzberg’s words that I felt myself relax into my imperfection, knowing that I can forgive myself and start over, again, and again, and again. I know this instruction isn’t meant to encourage or justify lax behavior, but it does allow for loosening the grip of my self critic, that voice and energy that take up time and space that could be filled with kindness.
Thanks to Robin A. Edgar, Charlotte campaign conversation facilitator, for submitting this inspiring entry.
The Supreme Court outlawed segregated schools in 1954, but it took three years for Southern states to comply-sort of. In Charlotte, dozens of black children volunteered to attend white schools but the school board rejected all but four. On Sept. 4, 1957, Dorothy Counts (Dot Counts-Scoggins today) walked down the hill to Harding High School.
Approaching a wall of screaming and spitting white students, she thought of what her father, Herman Counts, always told his family–”Hold your head high.” The wall parted to let her pass.
Woody Cooper was in the crowd. A good student, he was already accepted to The Citadel and his dad, a Charlotte policeman, told him, “Don’t get involved.” So Woody just stood and watched Dot come down the hill, walking right past him while his classmates cursed at her and called her names.
The photo that Don Sturkey took of that day for the Observer was eventually seen around the world. Over the years, when Woody looked at the picture, he realized that failing to help Dot that day was the same thing as hurling insults at her.
In 2006, after Woody’s Sunday School lesson about sins of omission, he told his class that he felt he had failed to do right by Dorothy Counts. The very next day, the Observer ran a story about Dorothy and Woody sent an e-mail to the reporter. The reporter forwarded it to Dot.
Dot and Woody, who are now friends, will be the guests of honor at the dedication of the Red Bench of Love in Charlotte’s Garden of Love and Forgiveness on June 10, 2010. We invited them to be the first to sit on this symbol from our four-year Campaign for Love & Forgiveness. We hope others will visit our Bench and Garden and take the time to find love and forgiveness in their hearts and lives as well.
This reflection is from Thom Andrews, director of Kalamazoo’s Season of Forgiveness.
“War is hell.”
Attributed to Civil War General William Sherman, this phrase certainly refers to the unspeakable horrors that combat soldiers face every day. It also includes the terror experienced by civilians whose homes and villages are destroyed and who live in squalor not knowing what the next hour will bring. It even includes those miles away from the battle, wondering moment by moment if their loved ones are safe.
Engaging in war often is a nation’s response to being threatened or attacked. However, what if we opted for a different response? Following the Rwandan genocide, Immaculee Ilibagiza volunteered at an orphanage that took in every child brought to them - more every day. They had great need in many areas. One day, after passing several military checkpoints on her way to the orphanage, Immaculee wondered, “What would I do if I could command an army? I’d bring it here to fight for the orphans!”
This audacious idea led her to assemble a proposal and, using her not-so-powerful position as an administrative assistant at the UN in Rwanda, tag along to a meeting selecting the project for the next International Volunteer Day. She offered her proposal to bring food and medicine, to read and clean, and to simply share love with the orphans for a day. While this initially fell flat amidst the usual thoughts of repairing classrooms, building a schoolhouse or establishing a clinic, she persisted and her proposal was accepted. A few weeks later, over 100 volunteers from Africa, Europe, America, and Asia brought food, crayons, blackboards, cleaning supplies, and medicines to the orphanage. While half the group worked, the other half interacted with the children. Their only instruction was to act from their heart and give it their all. In a radio interview at the close of the day, Immaculee stated her reason for the project: “because these children are the ones who will build the new Rwanda.”
Violence is a power of death and destruction, fueled by hate. Love is a power of life and hope, fueled by compassion. And love is by far the greater power. We know this in the deepest recesses of our hearts. So, why do we not act on this knowledge?
This Memorial Day - and in the days to come - may we honor those who have fought for our freedom by daring to mature into a civilization where the “eye for an eye” mentality of war is replaced with the understanding that when one suffers, we all suffer. Love is our secret weapon!
Quote for reflection throughout the week
I will greet this day with love in my heart. For this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures. Muscles can split a shield and even destroy life itself but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of man. And until I master this act I will remain no more than a peddler in the marketplace. I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend upon its force… my love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest day. –Og Mandino
From the web
Here is an article from Charlottesville, VA of two persons who lost loved ones to terrorism and are responding with love.
Each year when Mother’s Day rolls around, I’m reminded of one of the greatest gifts in my life–lessons from and memories of my mother. Lately I’ve been immersed in the topic of compassion, something she would have loved. Her motto was the Golden Rule.
As her daughter, I and my brothers were the primary beneficiaries of her love and compassion. I was lucky to experience it everyday, even when she was exhausted herself. In her early 40’s she went back to school, worked, and took care of our family–all with great patience, a quiet strength, and steadiness.
She often was helping out a co-worker, a family in need, a student she was tutoring, or an international student with nowhere to go for a holiday. Each year before winter break, she bought gifts for the elementary school students she taught, placing pencils, paper, and other school or art supplies in a cloth bag she sewed herself. She taught with grace, kindness, creativity, and eyes in the back of her head!
What lit her up most was when she was with family, children, or close friends, entertaining, and when making stained glass creations.
I never thanked my mother enough for who she was, what she modeled for me, and all she did for me. So often I took having a wonderful mother for granted–until she was gone. I was fortunate. Too many children don’t know what it is to have a loving mother. She was that presence for some of them.
Today, on Mothers’ Day, and so many other days when I feel her presence, I quietly salute her.
Karen Armstrong headlined the event and set the tone, encouraging Seattleites and others who attended or tuned into the Webcast, to bring compassion into our discourse, into our work, into all aspects of our city, work, and personal lives. “Work to create a community where we can look into the eyes of our enemies and see the divine,” she said. “Think of what the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have done for compassion. ‘Become the change,’” she concluded, invoking Mahatma Gandhi.
Speaker after speaker balanced their remarks with an understanding of how difficult practicing compassion can be at times, and an invitation to practice it anyway. In introducing Karen Armstrong, Reverend Guo Cheen, a Buddhist nun (see her YouTube channel for interviews with Karen Armstrong) spoke about the 100 petty humiliations someone who is homeless goes through each day and how important it is to step into the mind of the other as we walk through our lives.
Artist Isa D’Arleans commented that “compassion comes with pain. Don’t run away from feelings,” she said. “Live with them from second to second.” Author Courtney Martin remarked that “compassionate citizens must look within” while Armstrong noted that “a compassionate city must always look out.”
Panelists shared examples of programs that exemplify compassion–too many to name here. Participants were given lessons in laughing yoga and compassionate listening and were asked, “Is compassion ever undeserved?” Answers to that question shifted dramatically after Joanne Conger, executive director of the Freedom Project: From Prisoners to Peacemakers, spoke about how teaching prisoners nonviolent communication changed them (it reduces recidivism 16% and saved Washington state $5 million, she said) and her.
James O’Dea, past president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, spoke of sacred activism as “taking responsibility for what is right in front of you. Compassion,” he said, “is a force that is system transforming.”
This reflection is from Thom Andrews, director of Kalamazoo’s Season of Forgiveness.
We are pretty good at avoiding the truth.
As individuals we rationalize–what we eat, what we do, what we avoid doing. As a society we group think–from tolerating, even promoting, unhealthy lifestyles to launching military invasions. And this is not a new phenomenon. (”C’mon Adam, eat the apple. What harm could it do?”…or something like that.)
In his book, The High Price of Materialism, Tim Kasser reviews a large body of research spanning various cultures that basically affirms what we’ve known for centuries: money can’t buy happiness. More specifically, once people are above poverty levels of income, gains in wealth have little or no incremental payoff in terms of happiness or well-being. Also, there are studies suggesting the pursuit of wealth and possessions might actually undermine our well-being. While the research may be new, the information is not. We’ve known for years and years that money cannot buy happiness.
Yet, how much of our life is measured by wealth? From Gross National Product to individual salaries, from the size of your house to the ring on your finger, from the people in your circle to the college major you pursue - so much of our life is assessed based upon a scale of wealth. All the while, we know deep in our hearts that money can’t buy happiness.
You can change that for yourself this very day. Practicing gratitude, kindness, and generosity will lead to a happier life. So, do one, very deliberate act of kindness today (it may take an entire minute). Also, pause right now and spend 60 seconds being grateful for someone in your life. These two minutes will make your day.
Offering an act of kindness in the face of suffering is a powerful and sometimes daunting practice. Our first instinct may be to turn away, to avoid the pain, to react in a way that we think protects and distances ourselves. Yet to witness our own or others’ pain and reach out in kindness is not only an act of compassion, it expresses our profound connection to each other.
Pain and suffering can trigger fear, anger, hopelessness, and despair, leaving us feeling alone and isolated, or it can bring us together like our collective response to the southeast Asian tsunami, and the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.
In our culture, it is easy to think we can avoid suffering by succumbing to the distractions or indulgences of everyday life, diverting attention from harsh realities. More seductive still, we can get lost in a cloud of thought that plunges us deeper into isolation and our separation from others.
In fact, our ego or sense of self–the thoughts that differentiate us from others–while a natural part of being human, can contribute to our feeling separate, vulnerable, fearful, and polarized. Protecting that sense of self can cause us to view the world in terms of us and them and override our empathic tendency. We only need glimpse the latest news to see examples of this. At the extreme, focusing too much on ourselves breeds anxiety and depression, while connecting with others can actually boost our health and well-being.
Distracting ourselves, with work, TV, or alcohol, for example, may seem a protective reaction, but pain and suffering remain. By witnessing and accepting the world as it is we are able to respond with honesty, clarity of purpose, and compassion. For most of us, this takes ongoing effort and practice. But being fully present during our moments of pain or despair, provides a profound opportunity to communicate immediately and directly from the heart–as it breaks open and connects us with one another.
“It is not about assuming a new self-image or manufactured persona; it is about being compassionate naturally, out of what we see, out of what we understand,” writes Sharon Salzberg in The Force of Kindness. “Compassion is like a mirror into which we can always look. It is like a stream that steadily carries us. It is like a cleansing fire that continually transforms us.”
Cultivating compassion asks that we return to that initial instinct of “fellow feeling”, be open to our own and others’ suffering, practice forgiveness, kindness, and gratitude. Compassion returns us to something that is not only a key part of our social nature, but part of our survival: our connection to each other and to our heart.
A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear [that results] from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl.
–Stephan Hoeller
If we eavesdropped on the continuous thread of commentary in each others’ minds, I imagine we’d be surprised at how cruel we are to ourselves. In fact, if self criticism were a disease, it would likely dwarf other epidemics. If, like so many others, you have your own personal critic, you know what psychological distress this relentless mental criticism can cause.
Cultivating self compassion is probably the best way to combat this source of suffering. In fact, people with greater levels of self compassion have less anxiety and depression, increased psychological strengths and positive emotions, a greater ability to forgive, and are better able to navigate difficult life events.
If self compassion were a commodity, ads for it might feature a soft breeze blowing through a tropical paradise in your mind. So what is self compassion and how does it differ from the self esteem we are encouraged to nurture?
According to a Duke and Wake Forest University study published several years ago, self compassion involves recognizing your own suffering, feeling moved to respond to it with kindness, understanding that you are not suffering in isolation, and cultivating a practice of mindfulness.
Although a dictionary definition of self esteem describes it as “a confidence and satisfaction in oneself” (Merriam Webster’s online dictionary), in Western culture, self esteem is often based on a comparison of self to others and is tethered to our successes and failures–rising and falling with our latest accomplishment, acquisition, mistake, or failure.
On the other hand, self compassion is not dependent on differentiating and separating ourselves from others, but instead on seeing our interdependence, our common humanity, fragility, and imperfections. Understanding that our progress in life is built on both success and failure, self compassion provides us a soft place to land each time we fall–as we inevitably do. It also puts our failures and faux pas in perspective–that is, we are all imperfect and bound to make mistakes or encounter misfortune. In a framework of self compassion, it is easier to be kind to ourselves.
Mindfulness, the third element of self compassion, can be an antidote for harsh self criticism. It helps us cultivate acceptance by becoming a neutral observer of negative thoughts and emotions. Practicing mindfulness can help us disengage from an emotional response to an event, de-escalate our self criticism and painful emotions, and allow us to navigate challenges with equanimity and perspective.
Self compassion isn’t subject to the winds of fortune or misfortune. It encompasses and allows both, providing a ballast with which we can experience the ups and downs of life. By allowing us our imperfections and still acknowledging we’re worthy and lovable, self compassion makes room for and nurtures human possibility.
