Deeper Dive - Compassion

In today's episode, I'm introducing the next Deeper Dive theme, which is Compassion. We'll be focusing on compassion practices during the month of April, building on the Metta (loving-kindness) topic of March. Metta is the "baseline" of benevolence that we cultivate in practice, and compassion (Karuna) is how the benevolent heart opens when it comes into contact with suffering or struggle. Like with kindness, there are many ways to practice compassion in the real world, supported by formal meditation techniques designed to develop our capacity for care and awareness. In this episode, I'll give some examples of how compassion helps us to be with challenging experiences, whether they are our own difficulties, the struggles of others, or the pains of the world. We'll look at how compassion helps balance our growing awareness as we meet our edges in meditation practice, and how it helps us avoid the trap of spiritual by-pass (aka trying to avoid all negativity in order to maintain our blissful ideal.) We'll also distinguish between wise compassion and the well-intentioned misfires such as enabling, co-dependence, and compassion fatigue. And you'll hear my story about how a dachshund named Scarlett became a compassion teacher for me years ago, simply by sitting quietly with me while I was sick. Join us on this Deeper Dive, and gain some tools and insights for your compassionate heartfulness. To connect further with me (Addie), check out my main website movedtomeditate.yoga. You can find practices that align with and support these podcast topics in the Moved To Meditate Class Library. And, I'm on Instagram at @addie_movedtomeditate (for mindfulness, movement, yoga, and pictures of PNW nature and my adorable kitten, Mustache). ** As mentioned at the beginning of the episode, to receive the Deeper Dive worksheet on this month's theme of Compassion, you can sign up for the MTM email newsletter here. The worksheet is designed to support your personal, creative exploration of this theme, and it's coming out the first week of April! ** P.S. If you missed the newsletter because you're listening to this later, you can still get the worksheet. All you need to do is email me at [email protected] and ask. :)