In the Earth School

Soul Lessons

“Loving kindness towards ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. It means we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we already are.”

Pema Chodron (American Buddhist Nun)

          Boy! Did I need to read that this morning! I’ve been super hard on myself lately, calling myself names for being slow or forgetful or hateful or jealous. I can keep all my bad character flaws and just make friends with them, right? Well…maybe that’s not exactly what she meant. Pema Chodron also said, “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” So maybe learning a soul lesson is more to the point.

          Getting familiar with our shadow side is an important part, a crucial first step, in evolving as a soul. We are here in these bodies for a reason, and our human characteristics and foibles are always present within us, from birth until death. We’re here to learn from them, and the goal is compassion. We will never be compassionate toward another person until we are compassionate toward ourselves. Which does not mean that we can do whatever we want and have a free pass on being irresponsible. But change will only come when we realize exactly who we are—with all our fits and starts—and that we are no different from anyone else. Not better, not worse, just human.

Being human makes us self-centered, selfish, jealous, afraid and sometimes petulant when things are not going our way. It also makes us kind and giving and loving and celebratory. We can’t simply claim one side and trash the other. In any given moment, we are all of that tossed together into a fine human salad. No wonder we’re still crazy after all these years!

Until we see and accept all parts of us—the ones we like and the ones we don’t—we will go from excoriating ourselves one day to pounding our chest the next. In other words, we’ll live from our ego. When we learn to love all our parts, including our fragility, and our selfish, childishness, we will become kinder, gentler persons. It won’t mean all that “bad” goes away, only that we recognize that it belongs to us, and is simply part of being human; something to be dealt with, not condemned. The minute we do that, we become more compassionate with others, too. They are just like us—just humans trying to feel their way through this Earth School and learn what their soul needs to know.

                                        In the Spirit,

                                        Jane