Maintaining compassion for yourself can be hard

Since the essence of compassion for others for most people is learning to have compassion for yourself first one might think it is easy to have compassion for yourself. In the short run that might be true. But, in the long run, as you move through all the twists and turns of your life it can be very hard, even though this often is your basis for compassion for all beings. Learning not to make any other part of life a scapegoat for yours or someone else's failures is hard. We all have successes but what do you do when you might go through divorce, the death of a close friend or relative a break up a serious health issue etc. Dealing with real life is always a challenge for everyone. It is the unexpected things that often throw us for a loop.

So, the more you can develop compassion for yourself, the more you can be kind to others, you often are eliminating violence or accidents in both their lives and yours. Accidents often come from one or more people being out of control. If you are an intuitive like me you might see first hand how this works.

If people get hysterical or allow themselves too often very bad things happen to them or to people around them. Finding a way to stay centered when all around you are losing it, you often can save lives just by staying centered and by doing or saying something calming to those you are around.

But, if you along with everyone goes ballistic over any thing or any group of things, you or others might be injured.

So, finding a way to either leave a situation quickly or by staying really centered when others often are completely losing it can save lives or prevent serious injuries.

But still, in the long run maintaining compassion can be really hard. So, you need to learn to forgive yourself if you lose it once in a while because we all do often when we least expect it.

 So, the thing I have learned (especially if you are over 40 or 50) is panic often results in a stroke or heart attacks for people over these ages. So, it is in your enlightened self interest to not panic no matter what because it won't help and might just kill you. And then where would you be?

And one of the things that maintains this evenness is to develop compassion when you are younger or (anytime) because it will lengthen your life not freaking out all the time.

So, even if you get angry for a good reason or for a silly one, still have compassion for yourself. Besides, it's good practice for having compassion for everyone else in the universe.