We cultivate empathy by imagining and understanding the situation and background of the other. Compassion, however, only arises out of our felt sense experiences of uncovering our own heart.

“ I connected with compassion through the dance of letting go. It was only after seeing through my most important strategies of protection that I was able to engage in this dance. Working & alcohol had been my most obvious strategies but I discovered several others along the road. ”

The first steps of this dance are about accepting the arising judgments & beliefs about ourselves. We created these beliefs, early in life as protection to deal with difficult happenings.  These happenings are mostly referred to as our childhood woundings in the domain of psychology. As we were not able to give expression to our emotions at the time & release them, we held onto them.  This created residue in all of our bodies; our mental, physical, emotional & our energetic body.  

“It is why at times it seems like we are over-reacting. We are !”

After these first steps, we’re able to allow ourselves to feel what moves inside of us as the dance continues. The dance of letting go brings us in touch with all that we protected ourselves from. As we go through different layers of emotional residue, our compassion awakens. Besides compassion, the dance of letting go will call upon courage & acceptance.

Compassion allows us to forgive ourselves, even though nothing needs to be forgiven. Forgiving is an act to clear emotional debt, memories & the energetic residue we hold inside. It can only be done with an open heart. It requires the willingness to feel what we didn’t want to feel anymore. As an adult, our understanding has evolved & now we know that we can remain present with this.