Compassion

A client came to me with serious relationship issues. She
felt her marriage was definitely heading toward a divorce.
She and her husband had already spoken of it many times.
She felt they were very different in their approach to
life. She had tremendous ambition and drive to make a lot
of money, and he preferred to relax and coast on what they
had in the bank, not feeling the need to work much. She saw
him as negative, lazy and overly cautious. He saw her as
defensive, spoiled and selfish. Their constant fighting was
leading them down the path of separation quickly.

During our coaching session, she mentioned that he had
experienced a lot of loss and distancing in his personal
relationships, and he had a fear of early death. His
parents died in their 50's, his aunt died when he was 10,
and his son and his sister don't really talk to him
anymore. I asked her to look at life from his perspective.
Someone who is afraid he's going to die early wants to take
it easy and isn't really interested in saving for the
future or working extra hard for the someday that may never
come. His fear of loss was so great that it kept him from
embracing life, her, and most other relationships. It was
as if he was still the child that experienced all those
losses and as the adult, couldn't really look at life any
differently.

My client saw that her husband wasn't being lazy, negative
and overly cautious. He was defending what life he thought
he had left and being protective of getting hurt from being
close to others. She saw him as the hurt child and suddenly
had great compassion for him. She felt her heart soften so
much that she's dropped her strong defensive mechanism
(that typically kicked in during an argument) and feels
only love, compassion and understanding for him now.

Her relationship has improved drastically because her
understanding and insight has allowed her be more
unconditionally loving and compassionate. He responds to
her in a more loving way. She feels a huge shift occurring
between them and sees the tremendous potential for a
loving, caring and compassionate relationship.


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The most valuable skill or talent that you could EVER develop  is
that of directing your thoughts toward what you want—to be adept at quickly
evaluating all situations and then quickly coming to the conclusion of
what you  most want—and then giving your UNDIVIDED ATTENTION to that. There
is a  tremendous skill in deliberately directing your own thoughts that
will yield results that cannot be compared with results that mere action
can provide.
- Abraham Hicks