Encouragement for Mercy
Recently I gave a presentation for folks who have chronic illnesses and we kept circling back to common themes:
It's challenging to live in this world.
Many people struggle with self-criticism, shame, and blame.
The space between the difficulty of life and shame/blame is vital.
I used the word "vital" because self-criticism, blame, and shame suck all the life out of us. When you're already struggling, you need all the vitality you can get! It's vital to refrain from adding any unnecessary suffering to pain. How?
The word mercy kept coming to my mind, so I looked it up. Mercy: compassion or forgiveness shown to someone whom it's within one's power to harm or punish.
That's really powerful – because the closest person that it's within my power to harm or punish is myself.
What a difference it makes when I can turn toward myself and offer compassion and forgiveness for life, for the way it is, for how my life is unfolding.
This is a practice.
It's a challenging practice because it can seem like pushing and overriding our body/mind and heart's needs will be a shortcut to getting where we want to go. Trouble is, even if we accomplish something, we can't enjoy it because we've left ourselves behind.
So my encouragement today is mercy. When you're struggling inwardly with your own power to harm or punish yourself, be strong: offer compassion and forgiveness.