Tag Archives: #kindness

How My Cousin’s Self-Compassion Helped Him Recover From Drug Addiction

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Self-compassion taught him to admit the fact that life is painful sometimes

My cousin Victor was a fair example of a typical ‘mazhor’ (a kid of wealthy parents). He snapped his fingers and had everything he wished. And when his father lost every dollar they had in a risky market deal, Victor’s self-esteem suffered a great deal. He simply lost his place in the world, thinking that material possessions were the only means of determining it.

When his family moved to a shabby-looking village house nearby, his grandma left him in a will a long time ago, he considered all his plans for the future ruined. I found him very poorly equipped to live frugally and happily, rather he was prone to make up in negative judgmental feelings what he lacked in dollar bills. We were not friends, although spent hours together talking, or arguing about life. I was only 13 at the time, but felt myself superior to this 18-year-old kid.

Victor lived a narrow life of anxiety and depression. He suffered from fits of narcissistic, self-absorbing anger. He stopped any communication with his father, blaming his misfortunes on him. He spent almost all his time in the nearby town, and when he occasionally showed his wistful face in our village, he often ended up in my kitchen. He longed for compassionate attention and understanding. He was lost amid his troubled thoughts and feelings, and painfully needed to talk to someone, to pour his misery out and, by doing so, try to get his turbulent life in order. I tried to be a sympathetic listener.

In about a year of village life, Victor stopped coming home at all. I can admit now, I missed this troubled boy a lot. His parents found him almost too late. He entered the narcotic state of self-destruction, greedily grabbing after each opportunity to get stoned and forget about the present.

Six months in a rehabilitation clinic drew a straight line between his past and his present. Victor had to learn all over again to establish contact with people. But to do that he needed to notice their engaging characters, rather than labeling any new acquaintance either as a ‘valuable’ or a ‘useless’ one as he used to do before.

I was happy to accept my cousin in a small circle of my best friends. Now we could talk without raising our voices. Now we had more in common.

To find new friends, Victor needed to add more positive emotions to his life. I loved him and was ready to accept him with the entire fabric of his timid personality and teach him to understand the keener pleasures of life without an abundance of money. Victor needed more people like that in his life.

He plunged into the healing process by getting rid of regrets, doubts, and self-bitterness. Victor added to his life the rich touch of self-understanding, self-acceptance, and self-praise. It gave him power enough to think favorably about his future. I always told him he was smart enough to reach the desired, be it personal happiness, or material comforts. Finally, I saw signs that he believed in this creed.

Today Victor claims to have self-compassion enough in him to straighten his life in a balanced, heartfelt, and mindful way. He is not ignoring his past, but he is no longer exaggerating his own misconduct, rather takes the best from each experience. He needs to fight his way to happiness, always remembering about his past addiction. He praises himself for each day lived without drugs.

Beyond the Reach of Pain

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I was armed at all points. It was a pleasure to be so completely equipped for the life battle with my gratitude weapons being polished steel. — Olya Aman

T. was a generous spirit. He had all the illumination of wisdom, and yet he was distressfully dying. I was touched with wonder at the depths of perception of which this person was capable. His unselfish belief in the idea that gratitude is a way to make the most of life was something I could set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to.

T. had a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in him—which is exactly what I needed to shake my world to the bottom. I hung on every syllable he uttered in his diary, and received, as oracles, all he wrote.

“Of parents extremely poor and extremely honest, it was next to impossible that I could paint my life other than in grateful colors. Our family seemed to be possessed with a kind of intellectual gaiety at the times of the most troublesome hardships. We were able to starve any thoughts of misery and lack of appreciation entirely away by just a mere force of heartfelt love to each other and to the life itself.”

“I often was bruised and felt scant of breath but never ungrateful. Every misfortune walked me away from despair and gave me the key to patience. I was a sick-nurse to my father. I was seriously out of health.”

“I had good winters and poor winters. I basked in the sun and went to bed when it rained. And I never forgot to spend a few moments a day reflecting on the things in my life I was blessed with.”

“I was determined to live longer, although the doctors professed the limit till just two-and-thirty. Imputing it to nothing but grateful feelings, which for ought I knew, prolonged my life extremely, I was able to make it to these days, waaay past forty.”

“When I was in pain I more often smiled than scowled. That was the foundation of my beauty despite of my many limitations. Had I lived my life again in every detail of desire, temptation, pain and surrender, I would have chosen the exact life I lived to the very aspect of sickness and every element of loss.”

“Gratitude gave me that easy confidence of manner. Always quite up to everything, I was a sort of person you could depend on, and that made me splendidly respectable by my partners and coworkers.”

“I took no notice of negative people and very little of pessimistic acquaintances. The wealth of positive emotion awakened pleasure and added loveliness and virtue to my life.”

“The fervency of my personality trembled from sunlight and fragrance. Gratitude created a barrier that was guarding me against cold and cheerless.”

“I looked on nature and my fellow-men and didn’t see the dark and gloomy. The cheerful colors prevailed, and those were reflections from my own grateful eyes.”

T. died at forty-eight. When I saw him last, he evidently found great difficulty speaking. He waited long to collect himself, and then he murmured simply: “Take this,” and he handed me his diary. That book had a voice that dropped deep into my soul.

The last page contained a message:

“Pain passes, but love remains. We suffer so much sometimes. I’m very old when I think about it, but I grow young again when I believe in generous mistakes that hurt, happy tears that burn, and deep adoration that squeezes the heart till every drop of love is revealed. And the only way to see the beauty in life is to be able to open your eyes every morning with extraordinary grateful gladness. Only this feeling will make you beyond the reach of pain.”

I Found 7 Profound Reasons to Be Patient, and It Saved My Family

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I found patience at a crisis in my life… the blessing that greeted my nature – Olya Aman

Keeping the kids nice and neat, the house cozy and welcoming, the food tasty and nourishing—I reduced my restful, sleeping hours to about four a day, comforting myself with thoughts about excellence and perfection of my life.

In three months I felt as if I was groping forward a few steps in my daily life and strolling backward with increasing speed. The little one cried almost every night with no obvious reason. I often lost my temper with my four-year-old.

The growing family forced my husband to accept an offer of higher pay and longer absence from home, often being away on his business trips for weeks in a row. Left alone with kids I could not find energy enough to keep my old acquaintances and friends. I was busy and very lonely.

I kept reproaching myself for lack of attention to my husband and kids. Too often I ended up snappish in my manner.

The atmosphere at home became suffocating. My husband was providing for the wellbeing of our family, and I was devoting myself fully to the kids. Although our generous impulses had the best intentions, the outcome didn’t provide lasting happiness.

I was aching to the distant time of those happy days when my husband was at home every night. The tears I shed on the occasion of his coming home from another business trip caused the sacred emotional transformation. The only solution was to reunite our family, sacrificing some pleasant but unnecessary luxuries on the way.

My husband decided to go back to his old employment with lower pay and higher healthy, meaningful time spent with his family. With each day at home and each family dinner, the healthy and benign atmosphere was coming back to the house.

We abandoned our expensive car for a cheaper and a trifle less comfortable one and our pompous yearly vacations for a lovely countryside escape. When a chain of unlucky events at my husband’s work culminated in his losing the position, we didn’t despair. We lived out of our humble savings and occasional company commissions that I still received now and then.

My husband, freed up from the necessity to go every day to the office, finally could devote his time to his music experiments. He used to compose wonderful pieces when in college.

My husband was shutting himself up in his study at night, interrupting his work for rounds with our crying son. The little creature grew quieter with time, sensing my increasing tranquility. I had my full night’s sleep thanks to my husband’s loving help. Our older son got much attached to his father with his bedtime stories and childish fighting games.

Sometimes the artistic progress was dishearteningly slow. Producing music, though, became more familiar with each failing attempt at reaching the desired effect. I believed in his talent and future success. I encouraged his persistent work.

The daily treadmill of our home life was sweet and enchanting, notwithstanding the portioned to us hardships. I liked to see my husband, to hear him about the place and at his music work.

One year left us with a feeling that we’ve accomplished a lot of good for our family, which no money could buy. The second year brought the first small yet increasingly delightful music projects. My husband and a few of his college friends got back together and created a small-movie company.

All three of their movies presented at the festivals didn’t gain recognition. My husband became an instigator and a powerful motivator for his small company lot.

His music grew strange, turbulent and insistent, soft and plaintive—and the movie they produced with not much money but with great blissful inspiration became a winner.