Compassion is Key to Unlocking the Mind

I woke up today from troubled dreams of someone who, in the dream, I identified as me handled situation after situation badly with lack of empathy and using fear and unrooted passion to guide them. It was a conglomeration of former me that I thought I had come to terms with, but, now I find myself a bit overwhelmed by old feelings of self-loathing that used to further distract my life and set me deeper into selfishness and disconnection. The good thing is that I am aware of what is going on. I can shift my thinking and attention to more helpful paths. I can have compassion for my former selves and set my intention toward moving forward in the present.

I will continue to make mistakes as I go forward: there is no avoiding them while living. It is how people learn and grow, and those who are not learning and growing are either dead or imprisoned in mental and emotional loops. I have locked myself away before in my thoughts reliving the worst moments of my life, but now I choose to walk out into my ongoing life, facing what is coming with curiosity and as much love and compassion as I can muster for myself and my fellow travelers because I know they struggle every day to free themselves from their own self-made prisons or some who will have forgotten that they have the keys to open the doors. If I can forgive and love myself then I can do that for others and help them move out of their dark cell. Everyone makes walls around themselves with plenty of help from others, in conscious and unconscious ways. That is why it is so important to have conscious intent in my actions as I go through life so I can continue to knock down some of my own walls and help to free people instead of helping them to build stronger walls around themselves.