The Expansionist Podcast

Becoming Your Own Compassionate Witness

• Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake • Season 1 • Episode 15

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Can you truly understand the essence of compassion and how to seamlessly incorporate it into your everyday life? Join us as we explore the profound depths of compassion, distinguishing it from emotions that often masquerade as its kin. 

Have you ever considered the question, "Who told you that?" as a compassionate invitation rather than a critique? Together, we challenge traditional interpretations of biblical stories that focus on judgment and guilt. By reflecting on the compassionate actions of figures like Jesus and Mary Magdalene, we'll uncover how curiosity and kindness towards oneself can lead to profound personal growth and deeper divine connections. Moving from self-judgment to self-love, you'll discover the freedom and flourishing that comes from embracing a compassionate approach to self-reflection.

Dive into the multifaceted nature of compassion with us, as we explore its twin roles in alleviating suffering and promoting flourishing. We’ll share practical tools like the PULSE acronym from Frank Rogers’ book on compassionate practices and discuss how understanding our emotional reactions can foster a compassionate mindset. Plus, learn about Lori Beth Jones' Path Elements framework to better comprehend your elemental makeup and how it can ground you in your inherent worthiness. Don't miss the chance to take the free Path Elements assessment and embark on a journey towards greater self-compassion and belonging.

Heather Drake:

Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love.

Shelly Shepherd:

Episode of Expansionist Podcasting Conversations. I'm so happy that you're here today.

Heather Drake:

Thank you, they'll find some agreement or some curiosity, will allow them to think about some of the things that we're talking about today.

Shelly Shepherd:

Oh, yeah, for sure. I have heard several people commenting to me about how they enjoy our back and forthness in these times of choosing these topics and sometimes wondering how we choose them, like today's topic on compassion, I think has kind of been one that's maybe been closer to your heart and soul maybe than mine, but nonetheless an important one, I think, just in our own lives, our own spiritual walks and in our world today is you know, do we have compassion and how do we get it and where does it come from?

Heather Drake:

Do we have compassion? I think that that's something that we could look at evidence for, because sometimes, when people say they have compassion, they actually may be confusing it with something else, and so the idea of looking at the evidence of compassion might be a better place to start and being able to say how much compassion do we practice having with ourselves. Do we have an awareness of our inner compassionate witness? That's a great question. Or are we much more attuned to the inner critic? Whose voice are we listening to and then paying attention to the inner witness who will lead us or who will highlight the voice of the Holy Spirit, the voice of love, the voice of goodness, the voice of wisdom? And how do we attune ourselves to those voices and how do we train ourselves actually, or maybe nurture finding ways to pay attention to our inner witness?

Shelly Shepherd:

I love these questions and immediately my mind is going to one question in our busyness, in just our day-to-day activities, how do we, how do we practice compassion, how do we find time for that?

Heather Drake:

well, I don't know that we could. I mean, maybe you could find time, but in my, we have to choose time. We have to make time for compassion, because compassion runs counter the frenetic and the frantic pace that we're all at, where everything has to get done now. Compassion asks us to slow down, asks us to take a breath, asks us to take a breath, asks us to listen, and all of those things take time. And so we're actually coming back to this.

Heather Drake:

What does it take for us to come to a realization or an understanding that, in order for things to change and I believe that all of us want change, change for the good, change in our lives, change in our world we are going to have to slow down and we are going to have to maybe take a different path? I'm always reminded of the ancient prophet, jeremiah, who said stop and stand in the crossroads and ask yourselves where are the ancient paths, where are the good ways? And if you walk in them, you'll find rest for your souls. And I'm thinking a lot of times. We don't want ancient, slow paths, we want super highways, we want things that are going to get us somewhere faster as opposed to slower. And Jeremiah is offering the fact that if you take the ancient path, there'll be a rest for your soul. I think for many of us, the idea of our soul resting is not even on our radar at all.

Shelly Shepherd:

No absolutely.

Heather Drake:

And so what does it look like for us to honor rest, for us to pay attention to the fact that from a Sabbath, or from a place of rest that's really, really linked to belovedness and paying attention to that kind of linking where I don't have to earn rest, Rest is gifted to me because I'm beloved. This is why, in the Jewish tradition, a Sabbath is the beginning of the week. You start from a place of rest and then love allows you to do the hard work. Not if I work hard enough, then I can earn rest. And so I think the same is true of ancient paths, or of these paths of contemplation. The paths the mystics, the paths that the wisdom teachers tell us are paths that require us to slow down, to watch our breath, to open our eyes and to pay attention. And so, while that's not like here, take this pill and you can go faster. It's breathe here.

Shelly Shepherd:

Pay attention to that, and can you practice the presence of love beside you and I'm just going to linger here for a minute because we are, we're pretty much direct opposites.

Shelly Shepherd:

Elementally. I'm fire in your water and so I'm hearing these words of rest and periods of contemplation, and inhaling and exhaling, and these are all practices that I, that I have, but there is this inner urgency of fire, like there's this spark, and there is this inner urgency of fire, like there's this spark and there's this intensity, and there's this vibrancy to accomplish or to get a result, or to, you know, make something out of nothing. You know, make something out of nothing. And and that sometimes is almost as strong as stopping to breathe, to reminding myself take this time to meditate, take this time to center and pray, or inhale and exhale um, they're, they're both. And yet when I hear you, it's like that's so, you right, like this is just. I know how you think about rest or solitude, or these practices that you're defining with us today, and so in my mind I'm wondering, and, and so in my mind I'm I'm wondering how do we teach this to the fires in the world? How do we teach compassionate awareness? How do we, how do we do?

Heather Drake:

that you and I had a conversation. I don't know that that's so innate in me that it was just something that I've always known, but it's something that I've heard teachings of again since I was little, and mostly from the wisdom teachers that I read that in the library that belonged to my grandmother. You know, like I had this older person in my life who had accumulated a library and I was little and an unrestricted reader and they probably should have said, yeah, that's not for right now, but you know the idea of even the mystics or the hermits or the monks and the nuns and the beautiful people that I read about as a very, very young girl, they all had practices like the rule whole life that a maturing, hopefully becoming love itself, is necessary. I don't just it doesn't, it's not automatic is I think that that idea that I won't just automatically get old and mature into love and mature into wisdom, fact I could be a very old person and be completely behaving like a toddler, I could be very selfish and very demanding.

Heather Drake:

As opposed to going, there is a choice. There is a path that leads us into flourishing and in our flourishing the world flourishes, the people around us do. And this path of going. What does it look like for us to say, not just slowing down, but being able to question things, being able to observe things in ourselves, being able to let go of outcomes. These are all beautiful paths, but there are so many ways that we get to learn about these things through contemplative prayer, through the power of silence and solitude, through contemplative prayer, through the power of silence and solitude. But I think something that we have been circling around and talking so much about is how having an awareness of our compassionate inner witness absolutely can revolutionize the way that we live our life, the way that we live our spirituality, how we experience a life that is rich and full and delicious, and not just whatever is handed to us. How do we set the table for ourselves and others and just eat of the good fruit that God has put in the world?

Shelly Shepherd:

You and I had talked about earlier in the pre-show, about this powerful question that was reflected as maybe one of the first compassion questions in Scripture and I want us to linger there and talk a little bit about that. And maybe it's tied to this inner awareness, this inner witness, but that may also need to be defined a little bit, because I think most people would relate to the inner critic that you named earlier, our inner critic of being so hard on ourselves or this lack of compassion for ourselves when we mess up or when we think a certain way, or maybe we were told something, so maybe this who told you that question? Maybe unpack that for us just a little bit here as we start to, maybe this rendering of what it means to have an inner witness and pay attention to the inner witness, maybe more than the inner critic.

Heather Drake:

I like to put in front of the inner witness a compassionate witness, because I think one of the things that is so inspiring to me is Jesus kept asking his followers. I think one of the things that is so inspiring to me is Jesus kept asking his followers will you be my witness? Will you see this? Will you choose this? Will you pay attention here? And so nurturing a compassionate inner witness in us is really a practice of being in the present, not rehearsing everything that we've ever done wrong or in the past although we can be a compassionate witness to, you know, things that we've done or choices that we've made in the past and it also kind of demands that we stay out of the fearful future or the unknown future. It is the practice of presence right here, right now. How do I listen to myself and how do I listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and make a choice? How will I live right now? What will I do with this? Whatever it is that has happened and is right in front of me, taking a moment to breathe and listening to a compassionate witness saying maybe this is a choice you've made in the past. We don't want to return to that. This is a choice that we've, you know.

Heather Drake:

Maybe our religion told us that we had to make this choice and maybe asking the question, like God asks Adam and Eve in the poetry in the beginning that says who told you that? When God finds Adam and Eve hiding and I wonder how often we find ourselves hiding in ourselves, hiding behind pre-programmed ideas or thoughts, or a script that someone gave us or a truth that someone told us was the only way. And so being able to go back and question that not question why, like you and I had talked about that is a futility practice, but questioning and going. Who told me this was the way? Who told me this was delicious? Who told me this was not?

Heather Drake:

And then not entering into guilt or shame about any of those things, but really being able to practice going, I'm choosing love, I'm choosing the way of spirit, and when we find ourselves, um, in a place that we we don't want to be, instead of saying I should have done it differently or to bring some kind of judgment, just to bring the compassion. And I go back to Jesus and the teachings of Jesus and over and over again, people would say of him, jesus was moved with compassion. So the movement that I want in my heart, in my life, the movement that I want in the world is the movement of compassion, and so it starts with me. It starts with the inside of me, before I can ask it to be anywhere else in the world.

Shelly Shepherd:

Yes, beautiful, beautiful thoughts and words. Thank you for that. And as I was listening to who told you that, you know this, this could very well be the first compassionate question that was ever asked, because I don't see that question as judging. You know, there wasn't this hammer that came down on the two of them. There wasn't an instruction to you know, go to their separate corners and come out in three hours and let's have a discussion about this. It's this open invitation to this dialogue with the divine about what they were feeling or what they were thinking at that particular moment, or what they were thinking at that particular moment, and it unraveled in such a way as we all are well aware that it wasn't a blessing, that there was some kind of attachment there at the end, that we've been told, or maybe that we have bought into ourselves, which has helped to establish this inner critic in all of us. And, swinging back to the other side of who told you that, who asked you that, it is prepping us for a greater understanding of compassion.

Heather Drake:

When I hear the retelling of that story and you know we do look to scriptures for paths of wisdom, for truth that can allow us to expand our love and expand our connection to the divine and to each other I think to myself. We probably never spend a whole lot of time witnessing our own lives and I think that question asks us to do that. Who told you? Asks us to examine the thought, not in a way like you mentioned, that is full of judgment, but that is curious. And I think that what I hear in the telling of that story is humanity is kind of always caught up wanting to be more deserving, more worthy, a better version of ourselves.

Heather Drake:

And the invitation in that story is to be who you are at that moment and allow compassion perhaps to make a different choice. Next time maybe, but right now, in this moment, the compassionate witness calls us out of hiding and we get to enter into that beloved space of going. Yeah, this is who I am and I make bad choices. Or this is who I am and this is one of the reasons.

Heather Drake:

You know, instead of going, oh, you should have known it. You know I have heard stories in church, as you have, and even in people outside of church who have made this. You know, like Genesis story, this beginning story to be about how wrong we are or how you know we're people who messed up from the very beginning. I don't think compassion asks us to read the story in that way or see the story in that way.

Heather Drake:

Because love is full of compassion. God, who is great in compassion mercy, is full of compassion here, and so love itself said who told you that? I wonder how often we ask ourselves. Who told us that we were not enough? Who told us that we should be better? Who told us that somehow we live in scarcity and not abundance? Who told us that we were not enough?

Shelly Shepherd:

Yes, and this is why we are having this podcast is to expand understanding, to expand a story, to tell a better story, to expand theology in ways that is more inclusive of the divine nature of God, like the divine nature, would say. Who told you that? And ask me to reflect, not judge.

Heather Drake:

Oh, but the stories that I heard, you know, in our growing up years, and even the stories that I've repeated in the stories I've told myself, is, you know, after love has a question with you, after you found yourself in hiding, that we should just really find better ways to police ourself or to make, make the you know the road more narrow or make it harder, and instead of going what is leading to freedom? A compassionate witness leads to real freedom. A compassionate witness leads us to mercy, leads us to more love for ourselves and others, and that's movement. Often when I find that's expansion. Often when I find that friends are stuck or people that I love are stuck, I always want to go.

Heather Drake:

Where is the inner critic speaking so loudly that we just can't move, and how compassion compels us to move? And compassion does come from the very inner parts of us. But I believe in our humanity. We have to be taught compassion, we have to have it modeled to us, and very often it's not. Our families, our cultures have not modeled it. So how do we find a witness of compassion? That's what I love so much about the story of Mary Magdalene and of Jesus. We see this compassionate relationship toward each other toward the world and looking at that and going how did Jesus respond to people that were in need? Always with compassion, and so how I want to share this. Yeah, go ahead.

Shelly Shepherd:

No, I'm just gonna say so, then how would?

Heather Drake:

love. Respond to me, not with. You should have done better. You should have known better. You should have, you know, been tighter with this as opposed to going. Allow yourself to feel that, to move through that and be compassionate, and I think that the compassion allows curiosity, allows us to ask ourselves how do we really pay attention to our own lives, to our flourishing and to the flourishing of others? We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom.

Shelly Shepherd:

Compassion is simply being moved in our depths by others' experiences and responding in a way that intends either to ease their suffering or promote their flourishing. Being moved in our depths, right at the deepest part of our own selves, by others experiences and responding in a way, wow, that eases somebody else's suffering or promotes their flourishing not just ease their suffering, but but promote flourishing. I think that's a piece too Heather that I think we see. Maybe in our minds we've been given this definition of compassion is oh, I just have to give to the poor more, or I have to give to this charity more, or I have to go down and volunteer. You know to read to the first grade class, you know we see these beautiful examples of compassion poured out in our society and in our culture. But the second part of that definition is promotes their flourishing.

Heather Drake:

Well, when you said that definition.

Heather Drake:

I don't in any way disagree, but I just would like to expand on it, because I think compassion starts with us. We have to want that for ourselves first, to be compassionate toward our own suffering, toward our own misfortune, toward our own person. I think that's very much like the teaching of Jesus that says love yourself and then love your neighbor. Very much like the teaching of Jesus that says love yourself and then love your neighbor. Be compassionate toward yourself, toward your own suffering, toward your own hurt. And then I think that I loved that that definition requires us, or asks us, to go into the flourishing of someone else or the future event flourishing and what that means. When I have compassion on myself, I do understand that there will be not a stagnation but a movement and expansion. The same is true for the world. When I'm compassionate to other people, I think, yes, we have to feed people more because there's still people hungry, and yes, it's really great for us to read to first graders, but finding places just to say I have to do more. I think that comes from a very harsh idea of God, and maybe that's the way we've already always seen God or that's the way it's been presented to us. That sounds a lot more like Zeus, than God, who is loving and who invites us into the table or into the work that is being done in kingdom. It's an invitation to walk alongside.

Heather Drake:

But I am confident in the fact that if we were to hear the voice of love, really help us to examine our thoughts and ourselves, to be a compassionate inner witness, to say right now I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety, and then ask ourselves the question why? What am I anxious about? And not in a way that is judgmental or critical, but go, what am I trying to protect myself from? What am I trying to control an outcome? For? What am I trying to control an outcome? For what am I trying to present to the world? And be compassionate and curious about these things that actually drive us. And sometimes we're on autopilot and I just don't believe that on autopilot we can truly savor the beautiful lives that we have been gifted and paying attention to the gifts that are around us and the gifts that are in us. How do we witness the inner gifts that love has given us for the world? How do we pay attention to these things and nurture them? It comes, I think, first through a compassionate witness. I do want to change the world witness.

Shelly Shepherd:

I do want to change the world. Well, you bring up a great point, I think, in any practice, which is put your mask on first, right, like how can you teach anything really or practice something if you haven't put yourself in first position in that regard, and so I love that you bring this out today on how do we actually begin to see within our own selves and practice compassion and not just the inner critic space? And and I think that that requires, uh, maybe for different people, it requires, um you know, different situations based on on your personality or how you ground yourself or how you um express, express, right.

Shelly Shepherd:

One of the books that has helped shaped my inner compassion is by Frank Rogers, his book on compassionate practices. He has an acronym that he has put together and I'm not going to go through all of these, but you have mentioned this over and over. His acronym for compassionate practices is PULSE, and the P of this acronym is paying attention. He does say perceiving another's experience with non-judgmental, non-reactive clarity. Nonjudgmental, nonreactive clarity, that paying attention, and so assuming that you're doing these practices unto yourself first before you do them to others, what this paying attention? You've mentioned it like three or four times paying attention? How do I pay attention to compassion in myself? Is it this question, this first compassionate question that we just talked about? Paying attention without judgment, without reaction, without being reactive to a situation? How do you pay attention?

Heather Drake:

a situation, how do you pay attention? One of the ways that I have practiced the intentional nurturing of a compassionate witness is paying attention when someone displays anger, and anger has always been something that I'm really uncomfortable with my own anger, firstly, but also the anger of other people, and largely because the protectors in my life were very angry with me and anger felt out of control for me, and anger in the way that I narrated my life always ended up in something that was very harmful. So even as an adult, when I was in the presence of someone who was experiencing anger, I would feel a trauma in my own body, Sometimes not aware of it. I would just want to leave uncomfortable situations, I would want to get out, or I would want to stop someone's angry expression. And when I began to be compassionate and ask myself the question what am I afraid of right now? What am I uncomfortable with?

Heather Drake:

I was remembering one time when one of my babies was a toddler and they were experiencing a great frustration and didn't have language to express it and so was absolutely throwing a huge fit like a full-on on the ground, kicking, crying, and this is a person who doesn't again have a language for what they want what they're experiencing, what's happening. And all at once I just picked up this little person and I said come here, my little darling, my angry little darling, and I just began to kiss their head. Darling, my angry little darling. And I just began to kiss their head and they were so angry, Shelly. There was thumping and still screaming, and I just kissed their little head until they stopped crying and said you're just my angry little darling and it's okay.

Heather Drake:

And I remembered observing that and observing what happened to the angry feeling and then thought to myself is there a way that I could attend to my own heart when someone was feeling angry or attend to theirs in the same way? I was just observing this little helpless toddler, and I'm not saying I put myself in situations when someone is anger, is out of control or is abusive, but I am talking about being aware of inner struggles or programming or thoughts that we have regarding situations we're in or have been in. And how do we move with compassion? I moved with a lot of compassion toward this little toddler who was so frustrated, but I did not move toward compassion.

Heather Drake:

With adults in my life that were frustrated because they should have known better or they should have done it differently or they should have controlled it in a way that makes everyone else feel Instead of having compassion. I had a lot of judgment, and I also had a lot of judgment for myself. You know why are you even in this situation? And so all of the judgment and all of the rules and all of the policing never brought comfort, and so paying attention to the way that I nurtured other things that were flourishing really helped me become aware of a compassionate witness that says I have a choice.

Heather Drake:

In every choice that I make, in every situation I'm in, I can pay attention to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who is a guide, a comforter, to control an outcome in someone else, to control an outcome in me. Those are beautiful places to begin to say where's the compassion, the compassion that will move us from this place that feels uncomfortable or needs healing. But in all the places that we judge need to change, how does compassion first ask us to pick up those pieces, and maybe even of our own soul, and go come here, my precious little angry darling. Sometimes it's as easy as looking at that and other times it's a little bit harder. But we start with the things that are easy and we practice those and that's kind of the entry point into into flourishing.

Shelly Shepherd:

thank you for sharing that. I love that story and, um, what I see in that uh example is the paying attention part, uh, the part in the beginning of this, um, of this cast together, where you mentioned there's a slowing down, there's a recognizing that there's a shift in energy that is required, a different shift in energy that is required for me as a fire. If I'm paying attention I can't pay attention at 80 miles an hour, right, um, to very many things, except maybe the brake lights in front of me, um, but if I am paying attention, then I am ultimately slowing down and I'm recognizing something that's going on outside of my body and then taking that time to recognize and appreciate that compassionate witness inside. I think that's a beautiful step that you've shared here today and hopefully, as people listen and I'm sure we'll have other conversations around compassion but I would love for us to expand compassion into the world through our lives, through our works and through our own spirit to help others see that this might be missing, that this might be missing a practice.

Heather Drake:

One of the things that has been so helpful or hopeful in my own particular journey is looking at scripts or stories that I've had of my past with a compassionate witness. Not rewriting the story, but having a different perspective or a more compassionate lens on some of the choices that I made or the situations that I found myself in, was a real method of healing, and so I think that it is such a beautiful invitation for us to consider. How can we nurture, how can we agree with or at least even experiment with, what is it like to be a person who practices an inner compassion, a compassionate witness? And it requires us to stay awake too.

Heather Drake:

You have referenced a few times elements and how you view the world and how you view people being made in this way, and that comes from a teaching from the book called the Path I'm sure it's in other places too, but by Lori Beth Jones, and so if people want to find out why you call yourself a fire and why you call me water, then maybe they also want to look at these elemental things and go. How do we find that we find so many references to the elements and even how God describes God's self through elemental things, how we can move through it. I first found the book extremely helpful when we wanted to start a project that was bigger than we could figure out how to do by ourselves.

Heather Drake:

It seemed like a project beyond our scope or what we had resources for. And really finding that book to be so unbelievably empowering was, again, we live in the reference of some of those things today. But paying attention, I think even that a compassionate witness, if we know what the elements are, that kind of drive us or at least are in the center of us, moving us toward things. It's a way to practice a certain kind of compassion to yourself, to know that maybe I have a whole ball of fire in the middle of me and maybe we won't be as hard on ourselves. Recognizing, you know, these are more than embers, or this is not just one thing. This recognizing you know these are more than embers or this is not just one thing, this is, you know, the very center of myself. I think that can lead us to just a great compassion, and a compassion that leads us into movement.

Shelly Shepherd:

And I'll just put a plug here for the Path Elements in the month of June, leading up to the Feast of Mary Magdalene, we're offering a free assessment for anyone who wants to take the Path Elements assessment and has heard it either through the podcast or through the blogging on Substack. So we'll put a little reminder in, maybe the show notes for people that might want to experiment with that.

Heather Drake:

And, as someone who has taken the test, you and the people that designed it made it so incredibly easy. Sometimes the thought of taking another test is just oh my God, I just I don't have the capacity for that. But this is incredibly simple and it won't take an emotional toll on you to take the test.

Shelly Shepherd:

You don't have to study for it? No, because that would take us outside of compassion if we did it that way.

Heather Drake:

In fact, I think it is a practice of awareness, even taking the assessment. You become aware of things that are at the center of your being, and I think that coming back to the center of ourselves really helps ground us in our belonging, because, from the very beginning, our worthiness was gifted to us even before our birth. Our belonging was gifted to us even before our birth this.

Heather Drake:

We belong in love, we are made in love and sometimes we, you know, we need someone to teach us about who we really are. Sometimes our families did a good job and kudos when they did to tell us who we are, what we belong. But we can reteach ourselves when someone has given us bad info, when we have looked at ourselves and we hear God say who told you that? Absolutely.

Shelly Shepherd:

I love the question.

Heather Drake:

Who told you that you weren't enough or you didn't have what it takes? Who told you that you should be someone other than you are? And we listen to that first compassionate voice go. Oh, maybe I'm allowed to be as fiery as I need to be. Maybe I put that fire on the altar and God brings the sacredness to it, and it doesn't Well, there's compassionate fire.

Heather Drake:

There's definitely compassionate fire. Well, I would imagine that, especially on a winter's day, I could go there and do a compassionate fire when you are freezing and or when you need to boil water. You know there's there's a compassionate cup of tea. Well, look at it.

Shelly Shepherd:

Look at it this way A first responder is a compassionate fire, and so sometimes it's how we frame and understand ourselves elementally that can lead us into greater depths of understanding compassion and for the opportunity to become more aware of the compassionate witness within and also this first P of the compassionate pulse which is paying attention. What a great place to begin. Thank you for your time today.

Heather Drake:

It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.