July 2018 - Compassion Group Notes

It is of course, not possible to write notes on all the issues that arise in all the groups, but the following is a summary and teaching on some of the general themes that arise. Because we are all One, our issues and experiences are all exactly the same, just slightly different depending on the unique experiences of our lives. When we are in our ego state, we believe we are only unique in our suffering. One of the values of group is that we realize that our experience is universal and that there is not one person that has ever lived that has not had to deal with the issues of fear and shame, anger and guilt, defense and reaction – the only difference is the unique little cluster of ways in which we protect ourselves from feeling vulnerable in our suffering and this is what we call our ego personality. The most common experience for all of you is firstly that each of you has an innate yearning to be free of suffering together with the immense courage and risk taking of being vulnerable in a group of people in a way that you have never probably been before in your life. This is loving step you have taken on your own behalf, as hard as it might be for you, because, now, what will bubble up is all that you have tried to keep hidden behind and beneath the ego personality. And that is your shame, fear, anger, hatred, spite, meanness, judgementalism all covered over by the ego personality’s protective tactics of putting a brave, happy, nice, “spiritual,” and civilized face on top of the suffering. For more … Read here