#230 First we Must have Self-compassion

     "To be able to forgive others, we first need to hold the wound inside of ourselves with compassion - compassion to our own sense of woundedness.
     If you see a little dog and you bend over to pet it, but suddenly it leaps at you and bares it's fangs and is about to bite you, then you go suddenly from being friendly to being angry and alarmed. But then you notice that underneath the leaves, the dog's leg is caught in a trap. Again your mood suddenly changes and all of a sudden it's 'Oh, you poor thing' because - and this comes from wisdom - you see how this behavior was coming out of suffering. That is really the dynamic of forgiveness.
     First we need to see for ourselves, when we act in ways we don't like, if we can deepen our attention and see our own hurts and fears underneath our behavior. It's not that we want the behavior to go on, but we hold ourselves with the kind of compassion and understanding that actually frees us, that allows us to have more intelligence and creativity as we move on. This is the alchemy of self-forgiveness, to contact our own vulnerability and hold ourselves with kindness requires an actual offering to ourselves of forgiveness."   Tara Brach PhD

The Compassionate Brain with Dr. Rick Hanson
Session 3: Cultivating a Forgiving Heart 
live.soundstrue.com/compassionatebrain

Michael Wood   http://miksang.com//michael_wood.html