Motivational Quotes with Pictures (many MMA & UFC): Compassion

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

5 real life meditation techniques

Sitting and meditating in a cozy and quiet room by yourself is actually a wonderful experience. But sometimes it doesn't prepare you for real life turmoil because you aren't able to instantly get out of a situation and get into the lotus position and meditate.

But you can do some mini meditations while being engaged with other people and practice them all the time during your life so they become easy. Some of these 5 tips might seem real hard and they probably will be, but so was riding a bike before it became something that you could never forget.

So here are 5 things you can do when anger flares up, doubt arises, fear overwhelms you, and you are teetering on the edge of snapping.

1. Breathe deeply

This seems very hacky and an overused suggestion, but it's useful because you can do this silently and easily and without making a big display for people. If you do this through your nose, people will not notice and you can instantly gain a bit of relaxation, oxygen, and bring yourself to the present moment so you can think more clearly.

2. Stand straight and relax your tension

Just slowly straighten your posture and stand tall to gain more confidence that you can handle anything that comes your way. And make an effort to relax the clenched jaw, may clenched fist, and the other tension in your body when rage arises. I sometimes feel a tightening in my stomach, back, and shoulders when anger hits me hard. But when you just notice this constriction and pay attention to it for a second, it does loosen up just a little bit.

3. Empty your mind

There are a myriad of negative thoughts which can flood your mind when things don't go your way and anger ensues. Let these thoughts come but make a conscious effort not to run with them. Just let them be and fade away. Empty your mind so you don't instantly act, as anger is just a letter away from danger.

4. Smile

Smiling when you're angry can be akin to lifting a thousand pounds over your head. But you don't need to put on a fake toothy grin; just even a millimeter of a lip curl at the ends will make a difference in changing your focus from rage to more positive solutions.

5. Have compassion

This is real hard in the moment and very counter-intuitive to what we typically feel is the normal reaction. But you can start this by having compassion for yourself having to endure a situation and then having compassion for the other person in realizing that they are more than likely acting out of pain or delusion and going to create more suffering for themselves; this is something that will bring you long term happiness. The reason we typically lash out at people in anger is that it feels good, we feel as though it is going to make us happy. It's a release. But as soon as we do that, then more pain keeps coming in terms of greater conflict and fighting and a negative energy around us and oftentimes feelings of regret and guilt; remorse over actions done in haste under the possession of anger. We anticipated happiness from the reactive rage but it turned out to be the opposite. Compassion and understanding curtails that insta-anger reactive that is built into many of our psyches, and allows and opportunity to avoid that pitfall of creating more suffering, and actually helps in finding a way to generate solutions and some healing in the situation.

I used to have regret about my mistakes, but now I have gratitude for them.

I used to have regret about my mistakes, but now I have gratitude for them.

Because of my errors I am able to forgive and have compassion for others as I can understand how one can make poor judgments based on being possessed by the ego, or overtaken by pain. If I was a perfect person I wouldn't be able to harness that same deep level of compassion and understand because I wouldn't know what it's like to err, to misstep, to stumble and bear the pain of negative action.

Regrets still flare up but they are now transformed into compassion.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Make your final destination compassion.

Motivational and Inspirational Quotes / Quotations

Anger, hate, vengeance, those are often natural emotions and thoughts forming when we are perceived to be wronged by someone in a situation. All of those thoughts are trying to get us to act on those feelings, but the feeling we all really want is happiness. And it's actually acting out of compassion which produces that. Anger will only produce more anger and hate will only bring about more hate.

If we make an analogy of you being on a highway and you want to get to "Happiness", you can acknowledge the exit signs for Anger, Hate, Vengeance, but the one which will take you to happiness is Compassion. Compassion is a suburb of Happiness.

But if you do get off at an exit of Anger or Hate, that's fine, you can still make a choice to go back toward compassion so you can get to happiness. It's like taking a wrong exit and realizing you made a mistake. You don't need to sulk, feel guilt, feel regret, or beat yourself up for making the wrong exit. Just get back on the road to your destination.

Or an analogy of a garden also works. You don't deny that your garden has some Anger plants, Hate plants, and so forth. You acknowledge that. But what you are trying to generate is more happiness in the garden, so you plant the seeds of compassion today, so that tomorrow and beyond there is a plethora of happiness in the future. You acknowledge the Hate and Anger, but don't need to cultivate it, so in the future it just withers away.