“WE ALL HAVE A NATURAL DESIRE to express goodness. Trusting our inherent goodness, we act naturally out of our compassion and wisdom. There is no need to weigh and judge what we will do or how others react. We do not need to try to be good. Goodness came to us at our first breath.” ~William and Nancy Martin from “The Caregiver’s Tao Te Ching: Compassionate Caring for Your Loved Ones and Yourself.”
I see Goodness not as something you do, but something you are. This natural goodness is in all of us. It’s not about obedience or judgement that many of us we taught as children, of which I failed terribly. Just like knowing we are connected to Spirit, always! We are the ones who move away or cover that connection that it feels so far away. Yet, It’s always there. Our goodness is always there. It may be covered by old beliefs, or limits we put on ourselves, not enoughness heaped on us from a parent or teacher, but it’s still there underneath it all. Try this, Put you hand over your heart. Imagine reaching down into your heart and pulling out your goodness as a golden orb. Hold it in your hand. Allow the light to pulse and expand until the orb shines on your face like the sun at sunrise, as the light grows, allow it to flow in and through your whole body, right down to your toes. Feel all that goodness that was already in you. Breathe it all in. You are that light, that goodness.
This practice can help open to the natural good within. A surge of light and hope and compassion in that heart of yours that all comes with your inherent goodness. Finding a way in helps to see our goodness is already there. You already have qualities of goodness if you look. Acts of Kindness, courtesy, generosity, caring, selflessness, these are what you do, but if you don’t have goodness underneath it all, you find these things arduous and worthless, or ask why would I do that? Or what do I get out of it? However, Do you care for a pet? Care for a child or grandchild? Do you find joy in helping someone at the store, or have you cared for a sick loved one? These are the acts of a person with that inherent goodness. Another way to share and see goodness: Take a long look into the eyes of another, said to be the windows to the soul, you see them, really see them. If you take a deep enough look, you see to the core of their being. You see into their heart, to their golden goodness. Hold that for them and for yourself. This is a practice that will help you, and the other person crack open to that natural Goodness within. It can make you feel vulnerable to look or have someone look so deeply, and yet, it feels good to be seen, and to know the goodness is there.
Opening to goodness requires a leap of faith and trusting that it is already there. “We do not need to try to be good. Goodness came to us at our first breath.”
Barbra Fang Babcock, RScP