Compassion vs Sympathy

Holland

Workshop

Sympathy is a misperception, which attempts to deny reality. It reinforces the "victim" mentality and supports suffering rather than alleviates it. Sympathy involves identifying with someone else's problems, which throws your energy into a resonance with theirs. Entraining your energy to theirs, you soon experience emotions and thoughts similar to theirs. You continue to stay entrained to their energy and process emotional patterns even long after you have left them. They will continue to generate emotional patterns of suffering to replace the ones you have cleared for them. You are in the trap of sympathy.

Compassion, on the other hand, recognizes that they are in the hole by their own choosing and that only they can get themselves out again. You realize that they are there, because it is where they need to be at that moment. It is the exact expression of their present level of consciousness. Only by raising consciousness will they be able to alter their situation. You cannot do that for them. Compassion sees a perfect Being struggling in ignorance and illusion. You love this Being and your love becomes the rope that they can use to put themselves out of their hole.

Sympathy is a habit that we have learned, which operates generally at an unconscious level. To correct this misperception, we need to first become conscious of it and then change the way we perceive each other. There are no victims. There is only the expression of the implicit order becoming explicit. This means that situations in life are the result of emotional patterns within our energy body projecting onto the screen of our consciousness. How we perceive this projection determines our degree of suffering. When you identify with someone else's suffering, it becomes your suffering as well. Observe yourself when someone is unburdening themselves to you. How do you feel towards this person? Do you identify with their predicament? How do you feel after the conversation? How do they appear to feel? If you were sympathetic, then you will leave them feeling heavier and they will go away feeling temporarily lighter. However, their lightness will soon disappear as they again create emotional patterns associated with their situation and your heaviness will stay with you for some time and may become a part of your energy field. Compassion recognizes suffering, but does not identify with it. Compassion knows that suffering is an illusion of perception and that its purpose is to motivate one towards spiritual growth.

Compassion is a form of detachment from other people's negative perceptions. This does not mean that you don't care for that person, but it means that you do not judge their situation as good or bad. You see it only as something that is; the reality of their life at that moment. If they are suffering, then they will try to change the situation. If they are content, then the motivation to change will generally be lacking. Their perception of where they are will determine the choices they make. As a compassionate person, your involvement should be non-involvement. If you choose to display an act of kindness, do so because you want to, not because you feel you should. Be loving and kind because that is who you are and not because it is expected of you.

Disconnecting from the release of others is an essential way to break the habit of sympathy. This means breaking the emotional attachment that you have established to them. As I stated in previous articles, this involves setting the intention that you disconnect from anyone that you are releasing for and then occupying your mind for a short time so that it does not interfere. I suggest counting backwards from 10 to zero. The mind loves to count and this allows your intention to manifest and your energy to disconnect. Once disconnected, it may take up to one half hour to clear the residue emotional patterns out of your energy field. Remember that you can reattach to them through a thought as well as being physically around them. Their energy is everywhere, as is yours.

As you become more compassionate and less sympathetic, you will notice the peace within yourself increase. This peace becomes the field that surrounds you and permeates all of your interactions. This is what will truly help others more than you can know.

Scott