Prompt: “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” – Rumi
The essence of my favorite flower carries on in my mind forever, sunflowers. Sunflowers often have no scent but I picked up one full of fragrance, sweet like honey. Mercy is a constant reminder of that sunflower because it blossoms in the hardest of times and it stands on its own as one of the most powerful and compassionate things humans are capable of offering to one and another.
Communicating grief has never been one of my strong pursuits, however, grief and mercy are tied to each other in one of the closest bonds. Grief goes deeper than any other emotion
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Be merciful to those on the earth and the One above the heavens will have mercy upon you” (Sunan At-Tirmidhi 1924). I not only found my roots being salvaged, but I found myself blossoming into the person I had always hoped to become after God showed me mercy through the tough times. Often all people need is support and appreciation after being beaten down by their mistakes. I always think of sharing someone’s pain as a way of reaching out to them and reminding them that there is still kindness left and that they will heal. Perhaps I didn’t have a person to remind me of that, but I had God to remind me that Islam was there to mend my broken pieces until I could see the light again through God’s compassion. Sunflowers demonstrate a behavior called heliotropism. The flower buds and the young blossoms face east in the morning and as the day goes on they follow the sun as the earth moves. Similarly, we are all at different points in our lives and what we experience in a single day is different, but as each hour goes by and as any difficulty comes up, we can follow Allah’s sayings. We are not …show more content…
Too often people build walls around their hearts because being vulnerable is too intimidating. We have to let ourselves feel, to feel is to be alive. We are most vulnerable when we grieve, but that is a blessing in disguise. Being vulnerable is constantly put under a negative light, but it opens our hearts and builds character. During times of vulnerability we learn that we have the capability of sympathizing, we learn that the blood that runs through our veins hasn’t gone cold, and we learn that we were created to be more than just there for ourselves; we were created for each
“I looked anxiously. I didn’t see anybody… I’d keep my head up and my eyes open-‘You got a smoke to spare?’” (Walters 3). In Shattered, Eric Walters hauls the reader through the life of Ian, the protagonist who experiences the joy of helping others. Throughout this white pine award novel, Ian continually offers help to people around him reflecting to them that their lives are not perfect and they ought to alter it somewhat. Furthermore, the author effectively compares the significance of family and the importance of acquiring a dream in life. Through the book, Eric Walters demonstrates the theme of compassion through the incidents of Ian helping Jack to overcome his drinking problems, showing Berta the value of patriot and always there for the less fortunate.
So if we want joy, love, and empathy in our lives, we need to let vulnerability into our hearts.... ... middle of paper ... ... But instead of reacting negatively, I was pleased to see that Anabella and Francisco and Santos – and all my other students – understood. They saw that I was trying my best, and that for any positive change to occur, we, all, had to put ourselves at risk in the arena.
In my life I experience a lot of hardships and heartbreak. I believe going through hard times can be a good thing because I learn more about myself, how I handle situations, and it may also teach me to be more humble. Life is tough and sometimes I have to face my challenges, but I don’t have to face my problems alone. Some say a dog is a man’s best friend. It’s because a dog can read
Humans live constantly in flux between vulnerability and invincibility. The change in the state of being is so fluid that it has blurred together into the medium of the human experience. The fact that the feeling self-consciousness is what develops the character of people has become lost on the masses. However, Michael Chabon’s “The Lost World”, uncovers this deeply buried secret. “The Lost World” directly supports the fact that vulnerability is the key to the human condition and a more perfect life. Life is about tradeoffs- with all disappointments come surprise and with all joys come disappointments.
A human being is a complicated entity of a contradictory nature where creative and destructive, virtuous and vicious are interwoven. Each of us has gone through various kinds of struggle at least once in a lifetime ranging from everyday discrepancies to worldwide catastrophes. There are always different causes and reasons that trigger these struggles, however, there is common ground for them as well: people are different, even though it is a truism no one seems to able to realize this statement from beyond the bounds of one’s self and reach out to approach the Other.
Young-Mason, Jeanine. “Understanding Suffering and Compassion.” Cross Currents: Journal of the Association of Religion and Intellectual Life 51.3 (2001): 347-358. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb 2014.
Brown believes that if a person does not open up himself, then he will not connect with other people on level passed the surface. As I have learned through my Ethnographic Research course, vulnerability has the power to transform an embodied text and to knock at people’s perception of themselves. I have continued to notice when an ethnographer is distant from their text and hesitant to connect on a deeper level. As a result, the ethnographic text lacks the ability to evoke response or limits the influence of the journey on the audience. While there a lot of risk and even pain with exposing one’s emotions through vulnerability, there is even more rewards. Brene Brown is inspiring as a speaker because in addition to developing a strong argument on the power of vulnerability; she has the unique quality of perfectly models her message. Brown expressed in her Ted Talk that she spent a whole year struggling with vulnerability. Speaking about her journey Brown openly admitted, “vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost the fight but probably won my life back… What are we doing with vulnerability?” If she was talking about vulnerability, but was unable to show something of herself, her message would have fallen short. However, Brene Brown not only shows us with her words and her research how influential authenticity is, but she demonstrates it to us on a human level. While I was already aware that vulnerability is an important characteristic to tap into, Brene Brown is an inspiration for how anyone can challenge himself or herself to become even more
In “The Wound Dresser,” Walt Whitman describes his experiences as a caretaker to the wounded during the civil war, and the pain and suffering he witnessed. He shares graphic images of what he observed when caring for the wounded. Much like healthcare workers today, Whitman was a servant who with humility cared for those suffering and in pain. “Devotion, sacrifice and compassion” is how Whitman described the way one needs to care for the suffering. This is applicable to h...
Devito, Joseph A. "Communicating with the Grief Stricken." Devito, Joseph A. The Interpersonal Communication Book. Boston: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon, 2009. 175.
My earliest experiences of observing nursing in action occurred during my last two years of high school. My father was diagnosed with cancer during the spring of my junior year and died right before my senior year. During that short time I watched as the nurses cared for him and I could see compassion and empathy in the way they looked at him. It never occurred to me until after I had raised my children that I wanted to be able to help people in the same way those nurses helped my dad. But now when I tell people that I want to be an oncology nurse, people often respond by saying that they would never choose that type of nursing. They say that they could not stand to watch their patients die so frequently. Their reactions, along with this course in death and dying, have made me question how I might be able to bear the challenges of nursing in an area where death of my patients may be common. I believe that oncology will be a positive specialty to work in because of the consistent advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment of cancer. Furthermore, I believe that William Worden’s four tasks of mourning as presented in our text book is a good framework for the oncology nurse to use in order to cope with the repeated losses inherent in this type of nursing (Leming and Dickinson, 2011).
Going through life means experiencing great happiness but also great loss. Every loss we face may hurt and cause us grief, but we must let life take its course and endure the pain, for we cannot know true happiness without knowing true sorrow. Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” discusses the hardships that come with pain and loss and gives insight about how a person can overcome that pain. Even the pain might hurt a great deal right now, the wound will only heal if we allow ourselves to feel that pain. As famous poet Lao Tsu once said, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
In her TED Talk titled “The power of vulnerability”, researcher Brené Brown examines human connection and its relation to vulnerability. She explains that society fails to fully embrace vulnerability, along with its positive and negative effects. By recognizing this shortcoming, we can work towards believing in our worthiness of love and belonging in order to become more wholesome, rounded individuals. The purpose of existence, according to Brown, is human connection.
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say/ It is well, it is well with my soul/ It is well with my soul”. In life we will have many heartaches and troubles. Yet because of the love and care of
Thinking about what happened to my friend’s family this week and watching how people gave sympathy to them, made me realize, that the more sympathy they gave them the more grieved they where.
People don't truly accept life for what it is until they've actually tasted adversity and went through those misfortunes and suffering. We are put through many hardships in life, and we learn to understand and deal with those issues along the way. We find that life isn't just about finding one's self, but about creating and learning from our experiences and background. Adversity shapes what we are and who we become as individuals. Yann Martel's Life of Pi shows us that adverse situations help shape a person's identity and play a significant role in one's lief by determining one's capabilities and potential, shaping one's beliefs and values, and defining the importance and meaning of one's self.