Compassion IS

Compassion IS

By Jimmy Quast, Certified LBL Hypnotherapist

Maryland, USA

The following is taken from not one, but a large number of the LBL sessions that I have been blessed to witness as a facilitator over the last 17 years. Of course each client in this group was/is unique. Most of them came seeking to resolve a specific life issue. A few in this group claimed they had no problematic life issues but simply wanted to explore the deeper meaning of their own existence. And yet, they all did share a somewhat similar problematic issue. At some point in my interactions with them, each one used the same word, “STUCK,” to describe that issue. I am or I feel …. “stuck.” Ultimately, all of these cases will conclude with a similar lesson regarding compassion.

In this context, “stuck” broadly refers to the long-term inability of someone’s life to advance in a way that feels meaningful to them. However, this can result from any one of a multitude of divergent causes. In the cases at hand, pain (mental, physical, emotional or all three) is always involved and seems to be un-resolvable. In fact these clients rarely have any idea what the cause of their pain is. It’s truly a mystery. Nearly all of them have gone to multiple physicians, tried pharmaceuticals, and even alternative treatments. Some of them came to my practice openly acknowledging their stuck-ness up front as their primary reason for seeking help, while others tried to hide it when requesting an LBL session purely for spiritual enlightenment. Later on, the non-acknowledging group always revealed that they had been hoping they could avoid any mention of their personal pain and hoped to resolve it by skipping straight to spiritual self-discovery. In this article I will attempt to explain why the avoidance of mentioning their pain seldom succeeds, and how the development of compassion is often an underlying lesson.

Sixty years of carefully-gathered LBL data has taught us that our souls usually incarnate with well-thought-out plans and intentions. They deliberately bring challenges to human form, and endeavor to tackle them here on Earth because they have found this to be an effective way to develop their capabilities and measure progress. During LBL, souls have also revealed that there certainly are other ways to make progress, but incarnation tends to produce more dividends for their investment of energy. It seems reasonable that the hurdles one must surmount on planet Earth could intensify and concentrate the goals our souls are pursuing. During a client’s LBL I frequently respond to this by saying, “Okay, but why must incarnation so often include the experience of pain and suffering?” I don’t ask that because I want to complain (or maybe I do just a bit), but I ask it on behalf of my client in order to further the dialog between my client and his/her soul, about pain. For instance, we usually want to know whether or not we can anticipate an eventual positive outcome that will make the pain worth enduring.

It seems only natural to me that we, as humans, should question the inclusion of pain in our souls’ plans since we are the ones who must endure it! We’ve learned from LBL work that pain, as we experience it on Earth, does not seem to exist in the spirit realm. So, souls make use of earthly pain, especially fear, sadness, anger, and feelings of worthlessness, as a growth and learning tool when we incarnate. If such pain is a tool, I find it hard to deny that it certainly is a very potent one. Is it excessively potent? If anyone reading this would like to start a revolt, I will be inclined to support your efforts. We understand that the spirit world is not devoid of powerful emotions. The most obvious ones we have identified through LBL research are love (could we have more of that on Earth, please?) and, what Michael Newton expressed as a feeling of profound longing. Bearing in mind that the human brain significantly limits our full understanding of our soul’s experience, I believe we can somewhat appreciate the impact of deep longing as an aspect of soul life. We’ve learned that our souls long to rejoin with the Source that created them/us. Michael pointed out that it is this very longing that motivates and propels the soul to seek meaningful understanding through virtually every imaginable kind of experience. Therefore, the soul also longs to pursue and perfect certain qualities in itself. Two of the most obvious ones we’ve confirmed again and again through LBL sessions are humility and compassion. For our souls, the eventual mastery of these two qualities seems to be a must-do goal! Speaking for myself, as a human being, I don’t think I can even approach any sort of comprehension of what it might be like to actually attain such mastery! Might that lead me back to my Creator?

To the experienced hypnotherapist, pain that doesn’t have an apparent cause, or pain that arises way out of proportion to whatever triggered it, is appreciated as a clue that could indicate unfinished business from the past. We suspect that something happened and it could have occurred during the client’s childhood, in the womb, or in a past lifetime. By the way, in my 25 years of practice, I have never encountered pain that was initiated in the spirit world. Pain, as we experience it, seems to only arise during an incarnation. In fact, as I write these words, I have confirmed this yet again this very morning during an LBL session. I’ll call the client Bob. Bob’s soul, I’ll call him Lahrs, appeared as a masculine high-energy soul, with a disarming sense of humor, who was obviously eager to answer questions. To make a lengthy dialog short, when asked about the possible origins of human pain, Lahrs said that almost anything can be created in the spirit world, but to actually experience earthly pain, it must necessarily be initiated during an incarnation on earth, because we simply don’t generate that kind of pain in the spirit world. Then he said and I’ll quote now, “Pain generated on earth must also be resolved on earth. Once that is achieved, the lesson is completed and the eternal value underlying the lesson can be realized.” At that moment, I was beginning to anticipate where the session was about to go, and was thinking about how many times in other LBL sessions I have heard similar statements from elders, guides, etc. Hence my next question was, “Would you, could you, explain to Bob what that underlying eternal value actually is?” And this morning the answer was, “Bob knows the answer now.” I quickly turn to Bob and, with obvious emotion, he says, “It’s compassion.” And then Bob’s soul quickly drives the point home saying, “It’s always compassion.”

By this time we had already been through all the spiritual-healing parts of the session, so I asked, “Does all of this mean that Bob can begin to enjoy his life now without feeling stuck every time he wants to do something fun and interesting?” We got an instant and enthusiastic “It’s all in Bob’s hands now, but the answer is YES!”

Each case in my group did navigate to and through a successful spiritual journey. Each time, we eventually came to one or more wise and loving entities who provided answers and explanations. A pivotal question that always came up in some form has been, “Is there some ongoing value to having endured this pain for so long or at such an intense level?” The answer in each instance has included or led to information about compassion. Many times there has been a deeper explanation of how the healed client will no longer be pulled down by the suffering of anyone else who happens to be experiencing the kind of pain that the client is so familiar with. There has been much emphasis on how healing pain and subsequently releasing new-found peace and joy in oneself is never a selfish achievement. In fact it makes one much more helpful to others who are in pain. Furthermore, self-healing always provides an inspiring example of what is possible. And that can potentially reach multitudes!

Since roughly the midpoint of my life, I have been aware that my own soul is quite focused on the work of developing compassion. Maybe that’s why these clients have come to my practice. I’d like to think so. If the mastery of compassion is truly a primary goal of our souls, I might imagine that all of us, on (and off) the planet, are somehow working, at whatever level we can, on this same lesson. In recent years my professional practice has helped me to define compassion rather differently than I once would have. I am aware that my evolving perspective has been hugely enhanced by my clients and by the many learned souls that clients have brought into my office for brief visits. Whatever the process has been, the basic understanding, so far, seems clear. It is essentially this: Compassion doesn’t need to fix anything. Compassion doesn’t need to explain anything. Compassion is not accompanied by pity. Real compassion is …….. mostly silence. 

Jimmy Quast, LBL Hypnotherapist

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