By Daniel J. Benor, MD

There is widespread general awareness in the healing and spiritual communities that compassion is a strong healing approach. This has primarily been expressed as compassion to other human beings or to animals who are suffering.

Compassion has also been helpful in resolving people’s own feelings of anger, grief, betrayal and hurt. Through compassion we come into empathy with others. When we understand and resonate with their situations and the feelings they are experiencing then we can modify our feelings towards them.

I am finding that compassion with TWR has another way to aid us in healing and transformation. In addition to facilitating healing with other beings, compassion can enable us to transform our inner experiences.

Often, when we have conflicts and frictions in our interactions with other people, we develop distaste and annoyance about these experiences. These are negative meta-attitudes about the problems that arise. In other words, we become upset with ourselves about our negative experiences.(Meta-anxieties and meta-attitudes are discussed in my books, Seven Minutes to Natural Pain Release and the TWR Workbook .)

These meta-negative responses to the negative experiences are upsets about our being upset. Such meta-negative responses tend to perpetuate and worsen our upsets. Whenever we find ourselves with the person towards whom we had the negative feelings or in the situation where we had the negative interaction, we are likely to anticipate that we will have further negative interactions. This creates tensions and anxieties in our relationships with that person or situation, which then makes it more likely that we will have further negative responses.

Other meta-responses to our negative feelings may include frustration and anger at ourselves:

– for being unable to control our feelings;

– for responding from a place of irritation, anger, blame or other negative emotion;

– for hurting someone through over-reacting or reacting inappropriately to something they said or did; or

– for having turned away from them when we might have offered our help.

– We may even develop meta-meta-upsets with ourselves, as we struggle with the meta-upsets.

Such responses generate more negative meta-responses within ourselves, which perpetuate and worse these vicious circles of hurt → anger → frustration → more negative behaviors → more negative meta-feelings → hurt → etc. → etc. → etc.
Holding a focus of compassion for ourselves

While releasing our negative feelings with TWR is a good first step when we find ourselves frustrated like this, we can go a step better yet.

As we install replacement positives for whatever negativity we have released, we can include positives for compassion – for ourselves. It is helpful to develop a rainbow spectrum of compassionate statements. For instance, we could acknowledge that we are

– still on a path of learning;

– still far from ideal states of perfection to which we might aspire;

– still working on clearing our negativity from current stressors;

– still working on clearing our negativity from old, buried stressors;

– grateful for the lessons in this situation;

– grateful for the opportunities to empty more, similar items from the file drawers where we bury negative feelings and memories;

– pleased to add another feather in our cap to acknowledge compassionate work well done – with ourselves as well as with others;

– your suggestions…

And there is no reason not to apply the system to its maximal potentials. We can install meta-positives around compassion. As we build on our successes, we can strengthen our appreciation for how well we are installing positives. We can acknowledge that we are:

– doing well at installing positives;

– holding a compassionate space for ourselves;

– staying in a place of peace as we navigate through stormy waters;

– your suggestions…

Your feedback on this article is welcomed.

You may reproduce all or parts of this article in your journal, magazine, ezine, blog or other web or paper publication on condition that you credit the source as follows: Copyright © 2008 Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM   All rights reserved. Original publication at WholisticHealingResearch.com where you will find many more related articles on this and similar subjects of wholistic healing.