(Receiving) Compassion Blockers: Shame, Fear, Distrust

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Being compassionate is equally about giving, as it is about receiving. While many of us are willing to commit to working on ourselves so we can be more compassionate to others (be careful thought of the 5 Fake Compassion), receiving compassion from others and/or ourselves usually triggers an instinctive resistance, often visceral. Why is that?

Let’s test three possibilities, and see how it lands with you as you read it. This is to say, try to connect with your inner knowing instead of taking what you read at face value. For ultimately, the truth of your interiority is known only to yourself, but do be reminded that life is change, and to every season, there is a right time. So too the seasons of your life, and perhaps even day. Thus hold lightly your own knowing. Also, these three possibilities are not mutually exclusive, but offered for analytical purposes, because often, our resistance is a mix of all three in different proportion.

1. Shame is a bone deep sense of feeling apologetic for who you are / what you’ve done, and that you “deserve” to suffer because you should have known better / should have done otherwise. It is the privileging of the “should” over the “is”. Stemming in part from a deep sense of unworthiness (not being accepted for being just “is” / “who you are”), the pain is thus the penitence and salvation. In…