Empathy in Action...... - Recover A New Beginning

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Bill Donoghue

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More options Oct 25, 6:45 pm

From: "Bill Donoghue" <neveraloneneverag...@verizon.net>

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:45:56 -0400

Local: Sun, Oct 25 2009 6:45 pm

Subject: Empathy in Action......

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Sunflower

Welcome to Bill's Place.
A collection of Friends In Recovery.
Featuring a weekly Step Study from various 12 Step Recovery literature.
With the occasional inspirational message or message pertaining to a broad spectrum of varied spiritual practices.
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"Dance like there's no one watching and love like you've never been hurt."
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Empathy in Action
An Experiment in Gratitude
Sometimes we forget to take the time to recognize the richness that defines our lives. This may be because many of the messages we encounter as we go about our affairs prompt us to think about what we don’t have rather than all the abundance we do enjoy. Consequently, our gratitude exists in perpetual conflict with our desire for more, whether we crave time, convenience, wealth, or enlightenment. Yet understanding and truly appreciating our blessings can be as simple as walking a mile in another’s shoes for a short period of time. Because many of us lead comparatively insular lives, we may not comprehend the full scope of our prosperity that is relative to our sisters and brothers in humanity.

If you find taking an inventory of your life’s blessings difficult, consider the ease with which you nourish your body and mind, feed your family, move from place to place, and attend to tasks at hand. For a great number of people, activities you may take for granted, such as attaining an education, buying healthy food, commuting to work, or keeping a clean house, represent great challenges. To experience firsthand the complex tests others face as a matter of course in their daily lives, try living without the amenities you most often take for granted. This can be a great experiment to undertake with your entire family or a classroom. Understanding working poverty can be as easy as endeavoring to buy nutritious foods with a budget of $100 for the week. If you own a car, relying on public transportation for even just a day can help you see the true value of the comfort and conveniences others do without. As you explore a life without things you may normally take for granted,! ask yourself for how long you could endure.

The compassionate gratitude that floods your heart when you come to fully realize your abundance may awaken pangs of guilt in your heart. Be aware, however, that the purpose of such an experiment is to open your heart further in gratitude and compassion. This awareness can help you attain a deeper level of gratitude that will allow you to savor and, above all, appreciate your life with renewed grace.

It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.
~Sri Ramakrishna~
Mental habits are like ditches in the mind. They have to be dug laboriously. But they can also be filled in and new channels can be dug. Take resentment for example. It does not burst full-blown into the mind; it grows. At first you simply expect people to behave towards you in a particular way. If they behave in their own way instead, you get surprised, then irritated. You are digging a little channel in consciousness.

In the early stages, this channel may be only an inch or so deep. Thought may flow down it, but it may also flow somewhere else. Also, the walls are still soft and crumbly; they may cave in and fill the channel a little – for example, when someone you dislike says something kind. There is an element of choice. But every time we respond to a situation with resentment, the channel gets a little deeper. Finally there is a huge Grand Canal in the mind. Then anything at all is enough to provoke a conditioned resentful response. Consciousness pours down the sluice of least resistance.

We can dig new mental channels – kind ways of thinking instead of resentful ones, patience instead of anger. Every time you try to return good will for ill will, love for hatred, you have dug your new, beneficial channel a little deeper. Transforming character, conduct, and consciousness is not a moral problem. It’s an engineering problem.

In every veil you see, the Divine Beauty is concealed, making every heart a slave to him. In love to him the heart finds its life; in desire for him, the soul finds its happiness. The heart which loves a fair one here, though it knows it not, is really his lover.
~Jami~
It is very difficult for most of us to understand to what extent our love can be expanded. Everybody has a few people with whom he can be friendly, with whom she can be tender, but the Lord tells us, “That’s not enough. If you want to become whole and never be separate again, you should have love and respect for everyone.”

Jesus said, “What is the special achievement in loving those who love you? Even selfish people are prepared to do that. Bless those that curse you.” I can see the twinkle in his eye as the gathering gasps. This is the daring of Jesus. Today we talk about revolution, but I think there has never been a greater revolutionary than Jesus the Christ. He tells us that by loving those who hate us, we can win our freedom, because we will no longer be dependent on how others act towards us. The person who practices this can reach the summit of human consciousness, for it is only by loving people who oppose us and learning to bear with them that we can heal ourselves and heal them too.

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"Dance like there's no one watching and love like you've never been hurt."
Peace.
Bill
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Bill D.
neveraloneneverag...@verizon.net
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The message is hope. The promise is freedom. Just For Today, you never have to use again.
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"Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about the good life that I have... I really have no complaints... Then a voice comes to me from out of the dark... 'We appreciate your attitude!'"

Peace.
Bill

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