Because I had extreme difficulty with self-compassion, it was non-existent, so I could not see my truth.
For as long as I could remember, I'd heard a hypercritical voice and did not understand - I blamed myself as a way to survive and cope growing up. A part of me believed self-criticism would motivate me to be a better person. My self-bullying was the result of childhood wounds and zero self-compassion.
Most of my phycological suffering resulted from the lies I had come to believe about myself as a result of surviving my trauma. And when exposed through compassion, curiosity, and truth-seeking, I begin to let the old beliefs about myself slowly dissipate.
So compassionate is the surest way to eliminate suffering by exposing the lies I had told myself since I was a little boy. I was then able to go through all kinds of suffering and behold; truth and healing followed, and eventually, I recovered from what seemed to be my hopeless state of addiction.
"Compassion then became the foundational ground for all my recovery work, it was a game-changer." -Paul Noiles
Addiction, at its core, is about dishonesty with the self, which I call Mistaken Identity. My lack of self-compassion had not been on the side of truth; it has been on the side of feeling good. This was not the compassion and truth; it was the compassion of emotions – a huge difference.
There will be no recovery unless a person can find a few faithful compassionate souls to help us see our truth. And they are not there to make us feel better; they are there to hold space so we can face our reality. And that, my friends, is painful. Spiritual awakening is a painful process that leads us to our divine selves, the essence that we lost as little people.
But we must learn to hold that same compassion for ourselves. in the end, compassion makes it possible to tolerate that hurt and helps us persist in our search for truth. The truth will ultimately dissolve the pain, but this is a by-product and not the primary purpose of compassion.
"It is only when compassion is present that people allow themselves to see the truth. Where there is no compassion, there is no trust. If someone is compassionate toward you, you trust him enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable, to see the truth rather than reject it. Compassion doesn't alleviate the pain; it makes the pain meaningful, part of the truth, and tolerable. ~A. H. Almaas
Warmly, Paul Noiles
