Compersion for the New Year

No, that's not a typo in the title. I did mean compersion and not compassion. I came across the term in some reading a few years ago (oh, the things you learn as a writer!) and it has stuck with me ever since because I think it fits a part of me that I never knew how to name. Compersion is a word coined by members of the Kerista Commune in the '70s, I believe, and it was used in the context of polyamory to describe the feelings of joy or happiness upon seeing one's partner(s) experiencing their own happiness. When you hear polyamory you might be tempted to zero in on romantic and sexual relationships. Of course, when speaking of polyamory and compersion together, that's going to be part of it. But this post isn't about polyamory. And no matter where the term originated, compersion doesn't necessarily have to be romantic or sexual in nature.

Photo by african_fi

Think about it. When someone else's happiness or joy causes you to feel your own happiness or joy. If you've never experienced it, maybe it doesn't make as much sense to you as it does to me. I think compersion is something I've experienced and expressed for as long as I can remember, in completely platonic ways. It's still something I feel to this day, in many circumstances. It's not quite the same thing as empathy, either. Empathy is when you can understand and identify with someone else's emotions, and perhaps experience them vicariously. But with compersion, it isn't that I'm identifying with someone else's happiness exactly. If a friend gets promoted at work, my empathy allows me to share in their excitement and identify with their happiness. If I experience compersion in that same scenario, what I'm feeling is my happiness. Does that make sense? Empathy and compersion can be experienced simultaneously, and they probably are quite often. I've only very recently (as in, just today) learned of the Buddhist concept/term mudita, which appears to be very close to what I mean when I say compersion. If you're familiar with that, perhaps that's a better framework to think of it. But since compersion is the term I've come to identify with, and I really know very little about mudita, I'll stick with compersion for now.

So anyway... why do I bring it up? Because in our society we often discourage talking about feeeelings past a certain age or beyond a certain scope that doesn't fit into predetermined stereotypes. You can "love" your friends, but you luuuurve your romantic partner (and by golly, you'd better only have one of those at a time, and you're always searching for The One who will show you that you obviously never really knew what love was!) and there's absolutely no in-between or crossover. Boys don't cry. Girls cry a lot. You're allowed to be angry, but not too angry! And so on and so forth, but most of all, nobody wants to really hear you talk about any of those feelings. And so when I experienced what I now identify as compersion at a younger age (and even still now) sometimes it led to feeling tremendously awkward and unsure. I never knew what to say or how to say it. I just knew that I would find myself in these moments of love and joy and happiness that centered around particular people. Friends, teachers, sometimes near strangers, family members. It might've been a simple smile, something small or large happening in their lives that brought them happiness, or even just their natural optimism on a particularly good day. It could be any or all of those things that triggered my own happiness in turn. And it can be potent, that happiness. But when you're a teen experiencing all sorts of complicated things, and no one ever stops and says "Hey, let's talk about happiness and touchy-feely emotional things," it's very easy to start wondering what the hell it is you're actually experiencing.

Growing up, I'd usually just keep my thoughts to myself, especially when they centered around feelings of compersion. Sometimes, though, it got to be too much, and words would just spill out of me. On paper, naturally, because that's how I've always chosen to express myself. (My shyness makes face to face expression of these things nearly unbearable.) So I'd write heartfelt thank you notes to teachers or friends. (Or I'd channel it into fiction if I couldn't bring myself to tell the actual person.) And I probably rambled a lot and tried to name specific things I appreciated about that person because it felt too weird to boil it all down to the simple truth: Your passion brings me joy. So I'd write the note, and I'd hand it over, and then I'd worry myself sick over how they might respond. I didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about what I meant, because I was certain they would. It would be easy to interpret it as something other than what I'd intended. And I was so very afraid of looking stupid, or not being liked, and I would vow never to put myself out there that way again. And I wouldn't, for a while. But then the cycle would start over again.

My teen years went by like that. I'll be 32 this year, and somewhere along the line I really did stop taking the time to put myself out there and express to specific individuals how happy it made me to see their happiness. And if I did express it, it was in a much more careful and guarded way. I'm not sure why. I never did experience that Holy shit, you are such a creep, leave me alone response that I so feared. But I fear it still. Maybe even more now than when I was younger. I'd like to let my compersion be more readily visible again, though. Partially for purely selfish reasons. It just feels so damn nice to revel in that joy. But also because... well... maybe we all need more of it. Even if it's not a feeling you identify within yourself, imagine what it might be like if someone told you that the happiness you derive from the good things in life made them happy as well. Wouldn't that be pretty fucking fantastic? You didn't even have to bake them cookies or loan them money or cure a disease. Just being happy for something good within your own life was enough to make someone else smile. I think it would be pretty nice.

So to all my friends, family, acquaintances, and anyone I may come into contact with this year (and here's the real point of this post) I just want to say this: I'm not trying to be creepy, honest! Don't think me weird or strange or awkward (well, okay, I may very well be awkward) when I tell you how much I love the way you light up when you talk about something wonderful that you've experienced. I really do love seeing the passion you pour into your hobbies and the things you enjoy. That actor or artist you love. The new relationship that's making you walk without even touching the ground. The courage with which you face adversity. The rewards you reap from your hard work. Your book deal. That picture you drew. That kid you're raising. The animal you adopted. I love it. All of it. I'm not just happy for you in all those cases. You truly give me a joy and happiness of my own, the magnitude of which you may never truly understand, just by expressing the happiness those things bring you. Your passion brings me joy. I hope you don't mind if I say so.

On Happiness and Mental Health

A friend asked me recently if I consider myself a happy person. I do. Most people would say I am. One of the most frequent comments I get is about how much and how often I smile. Even in spite of the I love humanity/I hate humanity dichotomy that lives in my brain, my default is positivity. Sure, I'm happy. Easy to answer. The next question was a little tougher.

What makes you a happy person?

Well, hell. That's a hard one to verbalize. It's sort of like asking why my hair is brown. Short of the scientific explanation offered by genetics, the short answer is "It just is." I can chemically alter my hair to make it a different color, and I can do that for a multitude of reasons, but it doesn't change the fact that my natural state of being is to have brown hair.

Same goes for my happiness. It's how I am and how I've always been, at my core. My default position is to smile, to trust, to love, to go with the flow, to see the good and to actively look for it if it's not immediately evident, to laugh, to be content. How do you break down something that's as much a part of you as the nose on your face so that someone else can understand it and adapt it for their own life?

Depression, Anxiety, Sadness, etc.

The fact that I'm generally a happy person doesn't mean I haven't had my own emotional struggles. I know sadness and fear and anxiety. In my teens and early 20s there was an undercurrent of tension and sadness in my head that most people wouldn't have known was there. Being a shy introvert probably didn't help matters, since talking it out with someone didn't even register on my list of coping mechanisms. I preferred working through it in my own head, or on paper. My "standard" of happiness didn't go away during that time, though. It coexisted either simultaneously with the sadness or as a reminder of who I really was during those times when I could not figure out why I was feeling so bad.

I didn't learn to drive until I was in my mid-20s and even then it took me a couple years before I actually got my license at the age of 28. My anxiety about it was that overwhelming that I truly had no desire to get behind the wheel of a car. I'm coming up on three years with my license and I still get slightly anxious when driving to new places, or driving more than a few miles in the dark, or in the rain/fog/snow. I won't go anywhere for the first time without my GPS. When I joined a choir last fall I used the GPS on my phone to get there and back the first time... but also for every weekly rehearsal for three months after that until the anxiety about driving in unfamiliar areas subsided.

The struggles I've been through are the equivalent of coloring and cutting my hair. My hair has looked all kinds of crazy ways temporarily, but there's nothing that will change the fact that my natural state is brunette. And while I've had moments where my mental health looked a bit different, I honestly don't think there's anything that can change my happiness default. For some reason, that was a big surprise when I realized that.

Is Happiness Rational?

My fear of driving was not rational or logical. The sadness and frustration that sometimes crashed over me when I was younger was not rational. But that didn't make them any less real to me at the time or any easier to conquer. They just were. I couldn't really explain those things to other people without feeling a little silly. But the same things goes for my happiness. I don't know how or why I'm happy, and trying to dissect it makes me feel weird. There's no logical reason for it.

Part of me believes strongly in the power of positive thought. I don't mean thinking about being a millionaire so you'll magically attract all the right things to make you one. I mean having the ability to recognize and change thought patterns to reclaim my happiness when I feel it slipping. A teacher in high school would often say "Today is going to be a good day" out loud in class and I find that helpful still. It's not about ignoring or denying the negative. When I find myself drifting into one of those irrational funks, I look at it and ask myself Is there a reason I'm feeling this way? Has something happened to make me feel this way? and if the answer is no I'll ask myself Is this mood serving any purpose besides making me moody? and if the answer is still no then I decide right then and there that I will strive for something more positive. There are times when what I'm feeling is the direct result of something happening in my life and/or what I'm feeling is driving me to make positive changes or get things done that I need/want to get done. And when that happens, I acknowledge what I'm feeling and even embrace it for a short time before sending it on its way in favor of my usual happy disposition. It sounds easy, but it's not. I don't mean to imply that it's easy. It's just a place to start. (Let me be clear that I'm not trying to say that anyone can and should just "positive think" themselves out of depression or mental illness. Please don't be afraid to seek professional help.)

Positive thinking is more a coping mechanism for when I feel unlike myself. I wouldn't say it's why I'm a happy person because it's something I've had to learn to do. And like I've been saying, being happy and upbeat is just who and how I am without reason. In talking with my friend it hit me:

It's likely that all the people who've ever asked me about my positive outlook on life and my happy disposition were just as baffled by my explanation as I was about the notion that I could do or be anything other than how I've always been.

I don't like to think that I've been so oblivious that I haven't realized that not everyone is happy. I know they aren't. But it was a bit of an epiphany to think that not only are some people unhappy, but some are unhappy (or at least "less" happy relatively) because they just are and always have been. We have different baselines and my happiness doesn't make any more logical sense than their unhappiness.

My friend and I have always had certain different ways of approaching things and that's part of why we're such great  friends. I like to think we've challenged and checked each other over the years in ways that made us both better people. But I admit to qualifying my feelings and private thoughts now and then with sentiments like "if only you were happier." How things would just be so much better "if only you were happier" because I was convinced that that was the answer to my friend's troubles. I never understood that our differences in how we see the world extended so far beyond political and social ideology all the way into that non-rational space of happiness. I never thought that other people weren't equally as happy as me, down in their core. I figured their unhappiness was either a temporary state of being brought on by whatever biochemistry is responsible for our mental health, as mine often was, or the result of any number of external factors and experiences and that they would return to their natural state of happiness with time or counseling or medication. Those things can affect happiness, no doubt, but that's not the point.

I can't change my friend's baseline any more than they could change mine. It's not a huge revelation, although it feels like one to me. But it does change the way I'll think about, talk to, and empathize with my friend. I love this person like mad and it breaks my heart to see them struggling with something that comes so naturally to me. All I can do is continue to say I love, I'm here for you. Most importantly, I hope my friend and I can take a bit of the pressure off - me off myself for feeling like I should somehow be able to explain my own happiness in a way that they can make it their own, and my friend for feeling like my or anyone else's happiness is the gold standard.

Happiness doesn't make any more rational sense than anything else. My happy isn't your happy. Mentally healthy is what we should strive for, not the amorphous sliver of happiness in anyone else that they likely have no more control over than anything else.

And to my friend, who may be tired of hearing it by now: I love you. And I'm sorry if I've ever made you feel like you should just look at things through my happy lenses in order to make all your troubles go away.

For the Love of...

There's been a lot going on lately. Between Mother's Day, this guest blog post, the death of my husband's grandmother, and a friend's beautiful beach wedding all within four or five weeks, love has been on my mind. I've also been playing this song over and over again:

There's too many things I haven't done yet

There's too many sunsets I haven't seen.

You can't waste the day wishing it'd slow down

You would've thought by now

I'd have learned something.

I made up my mind when I was a young girl

I've been given this one world,

I won't worry it away.

Now and again I lose sight of the good life

I get stuck in a low light

Then love comes in

How far do I have to go to get to you?

Many the miles, many the miles.

How far do I have to go to get to you?

Many the miles

Send me the miles

I'll be happy to

follow you.

That's just the first part of the lyrics, but it fits me so well it's scary. Although I have those dark moments, I tend to worry very little. Sometimes the only thing I worry about is whether I should be worrying more. Then love comes in. I think my lack of worry comes from an abundance of love. I see it everywhere. I feel it everywhere.

Love is one of those tricky things. I had an email conversation with a friend about this recently. We try to quantify and qualify our love. We label it and separate it, careful not to mix the different types because... what? We're afraid of the implications of love, I think. We're afraid of what it means to admit--to ourselves or anyone else--that we love someone. If you're married or seeing someone, what does it mean to love someone else? I love him like a brother. I love her like I love all of my closest friends. Labeling it a different type of love feels safer. Loving someone doesn't mean you want to jump in bed with them, or marry them. It can mean those things, of course, but not always. We create this division of love in an attempt to define relationships and stake claims on each other's hearts.

We separate love into compartments and say It's okay to give X amount of this type of love, but only to one person. Or We can give a lot of this other type of love to all kinds of people because it's different, and it's not love love. And also, I will feel threatened by this type of love from this person, but not that type of love from that person.

But you know what? It's ALL love.

I'm not saying there aren't different types of love. The way I love my husband feels a little different than the way I love my kid brother. Or the way I love some of my friends. And yet there's something the same about it, too. A sweetness. A blissful feeling. An indescribable something that makes me happy whenever I think of a loved one.

I love a lot of people. I've always loved easily. I've debated whether it's a selfless tendency or a selfish one, because I can't deny that it feels good to open my heart. That doesn't really matter for today's post, though, because the point is still the same. 

Love begets love.

Our capacity for love is bigger than we give ourselves credit for. Once you've given it, you can choose not to give any more, but you can never take back what you've already released into the world. Acknowledging, accepting, expressing love doesn't take away. Not from you, not from anyone else you love. It just makes room for more love to grow, which you then can give again.

There is another point to this, besides me just waxing poetic about love. I've been involved with a project the past couple months, and I know some people may not understand why it's so important to me. But the answer is love.

Indies Unite For Joshua is a worldwide group of independent authors, publishers, filmmakers, and artists rallying to support a fellow writer.

Joshua is the 21-year old son of author, Maxwell Cynn. Max writes speculative fiction, science fiction, and romance. His son has been diagnosed with Acute T-cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The cancer has invaded every part of his body: brain; spleen; liver; lymph nodes; and he has a mass in his chest. Joshua has had to suspend his studies while undergoing aggressive chemotherapy and will not be able to graduate this semester. With three-and-a-half years of a 4.0 GPA toward a degree in philosophy, his peers and professors consider him brilliant, as of course, does his father. Joshua would have been the first person in Max's family to graduate college. 

To learn more about this amazing young man, read Max's incredible post.

I donated a guest blog spot to the campaign perks, and I recorded a short video to encourage support for the cause. Not to mention the tweeting and posting on Facebook that you may have noticed. Here's the thing, though.

Like most people involved in Indies Unite for Joshua, I've never actually met Joshua, or his dad. I know his dad from online communities like Twitter, and I think he's a great writer. I consider him a friend. As I say in my video, I care what happens to him and his family. How can I feel so strongly for someone I don't "know"?

Love.

I'm not a religious person. I don't pray. That has always been a foreign concept to me. What I do is love. I let it fill me up, I seek it out, I give it away.

To Joshua, and to David (Max) and Tricia: I love you guys! You are in my thoughts, and I'm sending your family all the loving vibes I can muster.

Now how about you? Are you ready to open yourself up to a bit of love? All it takes is a share. A tweet. A post on Facebook. If you're able, a couple dollars. One supporter has been giving two bucks a day. Could you do the same? We have 10 days and $1,100 dollars to go to meet our goal of $10,000. Click the Metallica baby picture above, or the widget in the top right sidebar to go to the Indiegogo site to donate.

For the love of Joshua, what can you do?

Back to the Sara Bareilles song from the start of this post: How far do I have to go to get to you? Many the miles. Send me the miles, and I'll be happy to.

Joshua, when you're better, send me the miles. I'll come down and buy you and your parents a round of drinks. Or two. :-)

#Scintilla Day 8: Childhood Friends

My best friend growing up was named Cassidy. We met in school at a young age, and were practically inseparable for a while. In middle school we had tons of classes together. We shared a lot of the same interests when it came to music, fashion, boys. We both played the flute in band. We both have curly brown hair, and struggled through learning how to care for/cut/style it without looking ridiculous. I would ride my bike across town to her house on the weekend or in the summer and we'd spend the day listening to the Cranberries, making cookies, freaking ourselves out with the Ouija board, writing, talking, or (for a brief period) smoking cigarettes along the railroad tracks, far from the prying eyes of anyone who might know my parents and tell them what I was up to. Cassidy and I were our own little clique of two.

I remember having a huge fight, I think in seventh grade, about a boy. Someone she had a "secret" crush on, but of course I knew who it was. You know how it is at that age. You write initials, or make up secret nicknames. I revealed the identity of her crush to someone who was asking about one of those initial/nickname doodles, and Cassidy was pretty pissed. It was a full-on fight, complete with angry hang-up phone calls. I laugh when I think about it now, of course. Part of me thinks that was around the time we started drifting, ever so slightly.

In high school, we rarely had classes together. Interests diverged a little bit. I was still in band, and joined choir (total band/choir geek, and I'm proud of it!) while she joined the marching band colorguard and took art classes. Another memory: Homecoming, sophomore year (I think). I had gotten up the nerve to ask someone to go with me - someone who'd gone to school with us in middle school, then changed schools. Someone I thought was cute. It was a huge deal for me, obviously. When we got to the dance, he ended up spending most of the night dancing with other girls, including Cassidy, while I danced with the friend of another friend's boyfriend - a sweet little Hispanic guy who barely came up to my chin and didn't speak English. I remember at one point looking at Cassidy as she danced with my "date" and she gave me this look of I'm so sorry, I have no idea how this happened. Part of me was pissed. At him, not her. Part of me thought oh well, that's what I get for going out on a limb. I should've figured I was just an "in" for him to spend the night checking out prettier, thinner, more "popular" girls. It's okay. My accidental dance partner kept saying I was pretty. In Spanish, of course.

Cassidy and I did drift apart, more significantly, as high school progressed. We were still friends, of course, but not really joined at the hip like we used to be. Then, somehow, after graduation, we lost contact completely. I don't know how it happened, exactly. I never thought it would happen. It was a strange feeling. Looking back, I feel like there were times where I sacrificed our long-standing friendship for... I don't even know for what, any more. For the opinions of people I didn't really even like that much, maybe. But also maybe it was something inevitable.

I remember my high school self wanting, in part, to figure myself out and create myself as something independent of my best friend. Somewhere along the line I'd found out that our guidance counselor had purposely made our class schedules as identical as possible throughout middle school. Her reasons for that were good, but on some small level it felt a little bit unfair to both Cassidy and I (in my mind), and I think I questioned whether our friendship would've been the same if the counselor hadn't orchestrated our schedules that way. And then, later, I think I used that as a reasoning for why we drifted apart and lost touch. Like maybe we weren't really such great friends for any reason other than spending so much school time together.

Because I think too much, and keep things to myself, and am prone to a touch of anxiety at times, this started to feel like a personal failure of the largest magnitude. I was sure I'd insulted her somehow, or hurt her terribly. It was my fault, because I was a bad person. I don't remember anymore why I felt these things then, whether they were based in fact or simply imagined. I tried looking her up on MySpace (MySpace! ha!) and later on Facebook, without luck. I knew I wanted to say I was sorry for anything I might have done, even back then when we were young and emotional and confused, or at least when I was.

Then one day on Facebook, I saw the little post that says "so and so is now friends with Cassidy Price" and I couldn't believe it. It sounds stupid, but I actually sat there and tried to figure out what to do. Do I friend request her? Do I send a message along with it, saying I'm sorry for whatever happened, but I miss having you as a friend? What if she didn't accept? Why wouldn't she accept? Yes, I admit it, I slipped back into one of my crazy moments where I'm convinced I'm a bad person and that thing that happened was my fault, even if it was just coincidence, even if it had nothing to do with me. Then I told myself to snap out of it and hit the button.

Thing about people you love - best friends especially - is that you always come back together. Even if one of you blabs the other's secret crush to someone else, even if feelings are hurt. Even if life happens and you lose touch for a few weeks, months, or years. When you find your way back, you'll talk and fill in the gaps and smile at the things about your friend that are still the same, marvel at the wonderful new parts of them that you get to learn about, and revel in the fact that it feels so good just to be their friend.

In case it isn't obvious, yes. Friend request accepted.