Too often it is fear that guides our actions when compassion would better serve.

Dawn Hammill
Too often it is fear that guides our actions when...
Too often it is fear that guides our actions when...
Too often it is fear that guides our actions when...
Too often it is fear that guides our actions when...
About This Quote

Too often it is fear that guides our actions when compassion would better serve. If we can overcome fear, we can make a difference for a lot of people. Here’s an example: A teenage girl who was going through a difficult time asked me to be her sponsor. She had been raped, and she needed support.

She explained that she didn’t know what to do about it because she felt so angry, afraid and powerless. I remember hearing her say this and thinking, "Wow, you really need help here." But what was important to me was not how I felt about the girl but how she felt about herself. I told her that I believed that she must have been very young when this happened to her, that she had no real concept of what was happening to her body. I asked her if she had seen the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster, in which Jodie Foster played a character who really understood how the human body works, and is able to enter into someone else’s mind.

I thought that if this young girl could understand what was happening in her body, she might be able to find some strength in herself. She said something I will always remember: "Well, my body is telling me that I don’t have any control over my own mind." I encouraged her to see how powerlessness could condition the mind in ways that are hard to undo—and impossible without help from outside sources. Then I said something that I have heard countless times since: "So you are saying you are scared?" She replied, “Yes." "What about?" "I am afraid of what I am going to do with myself." She said this in a quiet voice filled with despair. “And so?” I asked.

“And so I have no idea how to deal with my life in any other way than the way it has been done for me.” This young woman had been raped by someone close to her—and had suffered enormous trauma as a result. The rape was not the only thing about her life that was unbearable; there were other problems as well—problems that had almost overwhelmed her before coming through my door—things like anxiety and depression and suicidal thoughts—thoughts which were likely triggered by the rape itself. But here she was telling me of all this; of all the things she did not know how to do; of all the things she did not

Source: Galiene: A Twelfthcentury Tale Of Love And War

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  1. Too often it is fear that guides our actions when compassion would better serve.
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