I think "compassion" is the word that we need to remember. When I cut my palm up a couple of weeks ago I wore a couple of bandaids across it at work so that if I forgot and took money palm up my customer wouldn't get creeped out. Nothing like seeing "help" carved in someone's hand, eh? Once I was asked what happened. My answer was "Stupidity happened to me, that is all." I had no compassion for the person who carved that word in my palm. I told someone that she was stupid thereby devalueing her, making her less than.

Why do we have no compassion for ourselves. I don't think that any of you are stupid. I feel compassion and love for each one of you. I understand your pain and want to make you feel better and help you get what you need in life. Each time you cut, I want to hold you close and tell you it will be alright. I want to give you the forgiveness that you cannot seem to give to yourselves. But when I cut I push myself down with dirisive comments. I feel like a failure and I feel like a whiner and I feel like I am just...stupid. I would never call any one of you stupid. I don't think a single one of you is stupid. So why do I call myself stupid? I am merely poorly equipped to deal with the emotions that flow over me. I feel like I am drowning in pain and will die if I don't make it stop. I am just trying to save myself the only way I know how. But I am smart enough to know that my way is not the only way, nor is it the best way so I continue to seek, to learn new ways. As is each one of you.

So I challenge you and myself to find compassion for the part of you that feels that pain the causes the external scars we put on ourselves. I challenge you and myself to talk with love and forgiveness when part of ourself caves in the to desire to make it all go away.

Take care,
With love and light,
Carrie

<font color=blue>The soul should always stand ajar ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.--Emily Dickinson