What does compassion feel like to you? What does healing feel like?

JASON
CLF Member, incarcerated in IL

For me, growing up in the nightmare of my childhood and the abuses I suffered, compassion was an unknown word and concept. It wasn’t until I was in a Department of Children and Family Services funded youth facility that I learned about compassion.

I learned from my therapist and his wife, who both worked there. They saw how messed up I was and how much I distrusted everyone and everything. So they both went above and beyond their responsibilities to show me how to trust, how a normal family is together (loving, supportive, caring). They showed me that it’s okay to make mistakes and that I shouldn’t have to fear severe reprisals, and how to actually start to live and not just exist. They showed me how to be human and in doing so, they taught me the meaning of compassion.

You ask what does healing feel like? As my therapist and his wife showed me their home and family life, and taught me what it means to actually live and know what a normal, loving family is supposed to be, the pain that I experienced in learning those lessons was unlike any I have experienced before or after.

I felt as if something vast and dark that had been slowly crushing and killing me was torn off by their compassion and kindness, leaving me crying with the pain of the realization of what I had been missing and what I had been so desperately searching for. It left behind a hollowness within me. Though I had been warmed by their compassion, at that time I still did not know what it meant to feel loved.

Healing, for me, has always been a painful experience. The hurts of my mind and soul have far outweighed those of my body. And for me, though it has been painful each time I have gone through a healing experience, I have come out of it wiser and more human. So, although I do not look forward to the pain it brings, I am always looking for ways to heal the scars and pains of the past.

PHOTO BY LINUS NYLUND ON UNSPLASH

When you lose someone you love, there are some things that are just really hard to hear: They’re in a better place. Time heals all wounds. I know how you feel. These are probably the three least helpful things for someone who is grieving to hear.

Maybe they are in a better place, but it doesn’t make me miss them any less. Maybe time will heal the pain of their loss, but right now it still hurts. And maybe you have felt the pain of losing another, but if you really knew how I felt, you would not say any of those things to me right now.

That’s how I felt when I lost my mother 21 years ago, when I lost my father six years ago, and when I lost my best friend four years ago. And I imagine that’s how I’ll feel each and every time a loved one dies. But there’s nothing wrong with that.

People deal with grief in different ways. Some get angry, some get sad, and some pretend that everything is all right. None of those things are the “right way,” and none are the “wrong way.” It’s just the way we deal.

I can’t offer those grieving any great advice on how to get past the grief. And, honestly, most of them don’t want to hear it anyway. But for those who know someone who is grieving, I do have some great advice: They don’t want to hear it.

What they do want is someone they can cry with, someone whose steady presence will help them move past the anger, sorrow, pain and loss. You don’t need words for that. You don’t really need to do anything. Just be there. No words needed.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110180805/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_10/04.mp3

Today: 1. Liberal Quakerism 2. Unitarian Universalist 3. Episcopal/Anglican

Can't wait for mine on Sunday!