Compassion…Love In Action

One of my most favourite things to do in the entire world is to go for a run in the early dark hours of a still, clear and crispy Melbourne winter morning. In those moments my spirit soars. Perhaps for some, the following thought might be a strange, obtuse, off centre thing to share here, I begin to think there is nowhere else in the cosmos or universe where our non -physical essence, our truest of identities, known as our soul, can experience this. I think the same when I am eating really good pizza and the creamiest of delicious chocolates!

There is nowhere else, this is it. This to me is one of the purposes of life…experience. Buddha once apparently said that it is extremely rare for consciousness to express itself as a human being, and here we are, our consciousness, our spirit, our soul, encased temporarily in these wonderful bodies along with its personality quirks, strengths, weaknesses, weirdness, beauty, and very limited perspective on varying experiences we all have.

It is from this limited perspective within which we experience other people. It is from this limited perspective within which we cast our opinions, judgements and commentary. Speaking from my own limited ignorant perspective, I have been guilty of this for such a long time.

So, what does this all have to do with compassion? Heaps, stacks and loads! How do you mean? Well, as I was out running the other morning, fulfilling one of the purposes of my soul, on that gloriously stunning, gorgeous morning, I experienced an aggressive cyclist.

As I was immersed in this wondrous, poetically rhythmical, peaceful ritual, I was rudely awakened by a repetitive aggressive ‘ding ding, ding, ding!’ I startled, and for reasons unbeknown to me I immediately moved to the far -right side of the path. Crazy, as I always run on the left -hand side of the path (clearly not always), so fast cyclists like this one can just pass on my right.

Upon my irrational, illogical hop over to the right-hand side, this guy begins yelling at me, “….move to your left, move to your left….” There was anger in his tone and he was breathing right down my neck! I then moved to my left, apologising as I moved.

He then muttered ‘Jesus!’ under his breath and I responded with ‘ Hey, there is no need for that! I said sorry!’ and as he rode off, he said something but I couldn’t make it out, so I yelled out, ‘have a nice day!’ and then I muttered under my own breath something like ‘ get….’ I think you can fill in the blanks. I must admit there was an angry sarcastic tone in my voice. I had let myself down. I had lowered my colours to the lower ego states which exist in all of us.

My next kilometre of running I ran faster than normal as I could feel his anger in my system. Amazing what some testosterone and a touch of adrenalin (from the startle) can do to a running performance!

I still had about 20 minutes to go, as I pondered, reflected and thought about what had just happened, I put my coaching hat on and talked to myself like I was coaching a client…I know it sounds bit weird, but hey if it works for my clients, it’s gotta work for me, right?

I then remembered the words I was told by somebody once, that compassion is love in action. As I reflected on the meaning of this I began having a fresh perspective on this rather minor mood-altering incident.

I then realized that the man’s overreaction with anger had nothing to do with me. The most important realization of all though was that the assertive reaction he sparked in me was an insight to how he was feeling on the inside, not about this incident, but about something in his life. I was a safe, inconsequential unconscious target of the expression, or projection of what was within him. Carl Jung’s work in this area of human behaviour is fascinating. What was in my system emotionally at that moment was a taste of his inner world!

According to Jung, projection is not a conscious choice. One meets with projection, one does not make them. It is also possible to project characteristics which don’t exist in the other person. 
Jung said that “we always see our own unavowed (ie.not publicly declared) mistakes in our opponent.” That’s worth pondering on.

As I began thinking that I just had an insight into this man’s internal emotional world I began to feel for him. Began getting more curious about what perhaps was creating or contributing to his frustrated angry state. I then thought he was dealing with whatever was going on in his best possible way. Not the best possible way, his best possible way. For the projection to be experienced and be real for him he had to experience the mirroring back of it via my reaction when I aggressively said, ‘hey there is no need for that!’

I then thought, if this has nothing to do with me and I had just had an emotional experience of what is going on for him in his world, then I chose to feel compassion for whatever he is going through.

To be clear, there are many other aspects of how we project beyond the scope of this brief article. There are also positive projections when we love someone and there is also the shadow, which is unconscious unfulfilled or unowned aspects of ourselves which we think we see in others, but is actually our projection onto them.

In order for all types of projection to be experienced there has to be a screen for them to be projected upon. I was that screen for this angry man. I chose to come from love rather than fear, by having an empathetic, compassionate perspective from where he was coming from. Suddenly my mood shifted.

Perhaps next time you run into a rude, angry or disrespectful person, this could be another way of looking at it. This is compassion…love in action, well, one aspect of it anyway.

Most importantly, the same goes the other way. When the fire comes from us, instead of to us, it’s not them, it’s us. When we fire off we are ‘using’ others as our screen. When they fire at us we are their screen.

Knowing the difference can make a big difference in all our lives. Awareness is the precursor to all personal growth. Compassion for ourselves is just as important.

Thank you for taking the time to read. It is always appreciated.