I totally agree with what you say about Pavlov’s dog – only this evening I had a telephone conversation with a friend and I could sense myself getting agitated in the same way that I often do in conversations with her.

I just feel that she acts helpless and like a child most of the time and yet is very capable. Sometimes I just feel like shaking her up a bit!

Hey, I also know that this is all about ME, and not HER.

Thanks for sharing about the conscious trick you use with your friends – great ideas. Why not try it with your parents too next time you see them?

I really wish I could have asked these questions of my father in his last few months as he was getting weaker and weaker and yet able to surf the net etc. Maybe one day I shall have this conversation with me – honest and open of course.

Perhaps I should try this anyway and use the NLP technique of perspective positions whereby you put yourselves at position 1, the other person at position 2 and a neutral observer at position 3.

During the grieving period for my father in December, one afternoon we were all sitting around in the lounge in a circle and I suggested we go around the room with each person sharing what they remembered about my father and what he meant to them.

It was a magical 10 minutes as everyone shared their fondest memories about my father – and funnily we even learnt a few things about him that we didn’t know from my aunts etc.

At the end of the session after everyone had had their say, I suggested we should do this more often, but with a LIVING person and not after he or she had passed away.

And then I said we didn’t even need a group. We could mentally picture a person in our life and imagine all their positive qualities and just what they mean to us. We could go one step further and write everything down and share it with that person.

We could expand on this by writing down things about a person we hardly even know and sharing them with that person. (I wonder what we would say about each other!!)

Can you imagine how the world would be a better place if we all lived our lives with this attitude of appreciation, complimenting and noticing people’s finest points?!

Finally you say that one should not only learn to be more compassionate but also learn to receive compassion from others.

So true! I have a major challenge receiving anything from people but in the last few weeks, it has been gratifying to find so many people wanting to support and help me. I am always the one helping so many people, so it actually felt great that I had this support during my greatest need.

Ironically, I actually miss this now as people get on with their own lives and it is as if the tap of compassion has been switched off abruptly!

I have not watched the movie “I am Sam” but it sounds great. I just checked it out on Google and would love to watch it soon…

I finally read your message about compassion – lessons learned from your father. It is very moving.

I have been thinking about my family lately and have started to recognise some of their qualities i have never seen in them before.

I think this is true especially of people we know a long time (hmmmm, a life time in our parents case….sic) where you tend to have formed an opinion of them and you do not tend to revisit it. so we tend to see the same facets of those people, rather facets that we choose to see.

we also tend to fall into a relationship dynamic that is a little like pavlov’s dog – you react the same way, they react the same way and in many cases unfortunately there is little growth because we sit in this comfort zone (even zones of discomfort) based on years and years and years of knowing each other and repeating the same role.

I have inserted a conscious trick with my closest friends – maybe we should do some version of it with our parents – where every so often we ask of each other the following questions:

- what do you like about me
- what do you not like about me
- what have i done to hurt you
- what could i have done to support you
- what can we change to improve our friendship

Obviously the conversation has to be honest and open for it to be meaningful.

I would add to your message to not only do we need to learn to be more compassionate but we should also learn to receive compassion from others.

I watched a great movie the other night – I am sam. Your story reminded me of it. It is a wonderful movie about love and what we think is ‘normal’. It also reminds me that we can learn from everybody – no matter if they are ‘normal’, smart, poor, different colour, etc…..will say no more not to spoil it. Well worth the time.

Sometime it is better to have many words to say than none!

Thank you so much for your kind words and also for all yuor support over the last few weeks and months.

I have a cousin who is also a Down Syndrome boy and he is the most delightful, loving person I know :-)

Love and best wishes

Arvind

Love and kind thoughts Fiona ( she of many words and tortoise like progress)

Makes me wonder how I would have otherwise got through the last few weeks.

Thanks for sharing about the loss of your own father.

And you got it bang on when you say that the important thing is to try and show compassion every day in our lives.

One of the things I noticed when my father died is that with the compassion and support I was being shown by so many unexpected sources, I could see different parts of his personality being shown through everyone around me. It made it seem as if he was still here in many ways (and he is)

It is friends like you who have helped me get through the last few weeks.

Lovely to receive your newsletter today and thank you for the time you have taken to write it.
You have so many of your father’s qualities – now I see where you get your beauty and love from!

Sending love and warmest wishes, as always
Helen x