“The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.”
— Arthur H. Stainback

When we think of being compassionate, it often relates to people that we already care about or situations we can understand through personal experience. Perhaps we also can extend compassion for those we see suffering in ways we have never known personally, but we feel they don’t deserve it.

But what about compassion for those we don’t like. Or for things we think are inherently “bad”? Do they not deserve compassion as well? If we hear a little voice saying things like, “They deserved it anyway”; Or “She wasn’t a nice person, so she brought it on herself”; take a step back and see if you can find a new angle on the situation.

Compassion comes also from finding value in things that we may judge or criticize as bad and accepting them for that newly found value. There is something good in all people and all things. That is part of the balance of the universe. Compassion does not mean condoning “bad” things. It means accepting and understanding that there is good in there as well.

“You lose your balance when you say, ‘I will not accept what is happening to me.’”
— Marilyn Eileen Charlton, Life on the Causal Plain, A Glimpse of Heven

You lose your own intuitive guidance when you don’t accept what is happening to you in your life. The main goal for change is to become balanced again. In the simplest terms we are all striving for balance in our lives. However, this balance actually comes by going with the flow of life and accepting even the times that are not as easy to understand or to accept.

Life is not simply a predetermined destination. It is the journey that we are on every day. There may be unexpected curves and turns in the road we are on. We may encounter low valleys and high mountains. However, with each step we take on this journey, we are shaping who we are and who we will become. And with this adventurous path, every day, we will discover the best in ourselves — if we accept what happens to us along the way.

Are you ready?

“When the student is ready, the master appears.”
— Buddhist saying

Making changes in your life is something for which you may have to mentally prepare yourself. As I have mentioned before, change begins when you make the decision to do so. It is the catalyst that starts the engine of change going along it’s new tracks.

Certain new goals you decide on could use some outside guidance or instruction or support. Your new decision for change will subconsciously send out the message that you are ready to accept guidance and assistance for this new journey. So be ready for the “master” to appear. And even more so, be ready to accept the guidance or wisdom offered to you at that moment of synchronicity.