COMPROMISE I have been thinking lately about this one word - Compromise and about how much in my life I find myself compromising. I know when you share your home and your life with someone else, compromise is something that always happens. If both are willing to compromise then normally it is a sign of a good relationship.
I also realise how much I compromise with myself. When I have lots of admin to do, yet am desperate to get outside into the sunshine, I compromise. I do a little bit of admin, just enough to keep myself and others happy then drop the stuff that isn’t a priority yet and take myself off outside and into the sunshine.
I no longer compromise with my health. Having had some health issues these past couple of years and of course getting older by the second I decided that I owed it to my body to do the very best for it and not to compromise any longer. My body is the means whereby my spirit can experience being human, so I owed it to my spirit to do the very best for my body. I now regularly see a herbalist, I have purchased an exercise bike on the recommendation of my physiotherapist and I only buy the very best of supplements.
I sometimes compromise on my spiritual journey. The days I don’t seem to have time to meditate or do any of my spiritual practices and I know that I need to put them higher up on my list of priorities yet I still don’t seem to find the time. I have the time for tea breaks, time to get the washing done, time for clients, so again I find that compromise is useful. When driving somewhere I include my spirit self and chat to it and sometimes, at traffic lights I listen to it. When walking in nature I open myself to nature and to hearing that still soft voice of my spirit self, appreciating nature with me. Before each client session I ‘tune in’ and dedicate the session to the highest good. So there are lots of reminders that we might live primarily in a third dimensional human world, but we are also spirit and that we need to include spirit in that human world.
Compromise doesn’t have to mean ‘giving in’. Sometimes in our very busy lives where we are trying to do so much in such a short space of time, compromise can sometimes help us get a small portion of what we want when we want it. Sometimes it can help us in our relationships and sometimes it can help us to move further on, a little slower perhaps, but a move hopefully in the right direction.
Compromise can also help when we are stuck in choosing two options, we want to do both, we don’t have the time to do both and it can be very interesting to see just how creative we can be with our compromises to fulfil both options.
I have been noticing more recently the areas where I compromise and whether that compromise is authentic. I am being more mindful of the reasons I might make a compromise in whatever given situation.
It isn’t a bad thing to compromise as long as we are true to ourselves. For instance if I find myself doing something I don’t want to do but it would make someone else happy, I try to find a compromise so that the other person can be happy and I can be happy helping them to be happy. If for example someone wanted me to do their shopping every morning, and that could mean me giving up something I loved doing, I would negotiate a compromise whereby I did a bigger shop less often and still had time to do what I wanted to do. Luckily I am very rarely in a situation where anyone asks me to do things I don’t really want to do, but that is an example of compromise to get the best out of a situation.
Of course we have to be clear with what we want and don’t want in our lives, then we are in a strong position to compromise if we have to.
I certainly have to compromise with what I pack in my suitcase when going on a trip, which reminds me, I’m off to Scotland tomorrow and I have some packing to get on with.
Wishing you a wonderful life - Patricia June 2023
