Everything Is Connected
Compassion and Well-Being
Reflection By Robbin Brent
When we talk about God, we’re talking about the very straightforward affirmation that everything has a singular, common source and is infinitely, endlessly, deeply connected.
- Rob Bell
The understanding that everything is connected is foundational to the Living Compass Model for Well-Being. We introduced this on p. 9 with the image of a kinesthetic mobile, describing how, when we touch one area of well-being on the mobile we affect all the other areas. Similarly, as with the spider’s web we explored in week one, if we touch one strand, the entire web vibrates.
We’ve explored the idea of everything being connected throughout the reflections this week. Our ability to recognize and invite in love and care for ourselves is connected to our ability to love and care for others. Once we’ve experienced the gift of healing and wholeness that accompanies loving mercy and self-compassion, we now have a gift we can share with others. We reflected on how loving others by learning how we want to be loved is connected to deep well-being. And how a practice of compassion enhances our desire for others to be happy, as well as our own desire to be happy.
Everything is connected by the sacred strands in the infinite web of God’s love. These sturdy strands include compassion, mercy, intimacy, generosity, virtue, reverence, wisdom, patience, truthfulness, steadfast determination, loving-kindness, and equanimity, all coming from the innermost depths of our being. When we make a commitment to cultivate these and bring them into our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with our planet, we grow and strengthen the kind of compassion that has the power to bless and heal the world.
Making it Personal: What is your response to the idea that everything is interconnected in a sacred web of God’s love? Have you experienced the connection between one area of well-being and the other areas described above and illustrated through the mobile on p. 9? What other examples come to mind?