The Layers Beneath: A Journey with Compassion, Judgment, and Healing

There’s a warmth that has been steadily filling my heart these days, like a gentle current of compassion expanding outward, radiating from within. I’ve felt it grow with every step I’ve taken on this path of healing. It feels so real, so tangible, like the sun warming my skin after a long winter. And yet, in the same breath, there’s a lingering shadow, a tension I can’t quite ignore. Lately it has been showing up as judgment, directed at people who claim to be deeply religious but whose actions don't align with the love they preach. It frustrates me, angers me even. I’ve asked myself over and over, why does this bother me so much? Is it ego, or is it compassion? Or both?

The truth is, I find both in me. And holding them together, without trying to get rid of one or the other, has been a challenge, a delicate dance between what I feel I should do and what my heart is calling me to become.

When I see people whose words and actions don't align, it triggers something deep within me. I feel compelled to call them out, to expose the hypocrisy I see so clearly. But when I pause and look deeper, I realize that this urge isn’t always born from a place of kindness. It feels like a knot, tangled in the stories of my past. There’s a part of me that wants validation for the growth I’ve achieved. I want the world to see how far I’ve come, to know that I’ve learned to live with integrity and alignment. I want others to meet me here, where I am, and when they don’t, the frustration feels sharp.

And yet… there’s another part of me, one that feels quieter but more constant. It whispers that everyone is on their own journey. It reminds me that I, too, have been out of alignment many times before, fumbling through life as I tried to figure out who I was and how I wanted to show up in the world. This part of me sees the struggle beneath the surface, the fear and wounding that often drive hypocrisy. It’s not so different from my own wounds, those moments when I wore masks to protect myself from pain, when I said what I thought others wanted to hear, even though my heart wasn’t in it.

I find myself standing at this crossroad, where ego and compassion meet, neither one fully right nor fully wrong. Ego tells me I should hold others accountable, that people should be called out for their contradictions. Compassion, on the other hand, asks me to let go, to honor their journey, even when it looks messy and misguided.

The real work lies in discerning which path to take. Not from a place of needing to be “right,” but from a place of peace. Do I speak up because it will serve both my soul and theirs, or am I speaking from a place of unresolved frustration? Sometimes it’s both. And that’s okay too.

This realization feels tender, like holding the soft underbelly of my being in my hands and knowing I can’t force it to harden, nor would I want to. The compassion I’ve cultivated within myself isn’t conditional. It doesn’t ask that I or others be perfect before it can flow. And yet, there’s still this human tendency to want fairness, to want the world to reflect the values I strive so hard to embody.

What’s been most freeing is giving myself permission to hold both truths. I can feel angry and compassionate at the same time. I can want to call someone out while also recognizing that silence might sometimes be the more loving response. There’s no perfect formula for this, only the moment-to-moment choice to listen to my inner voice and trust what it tells me, even when it’s complicated.

If I’m honest, I think part of my frustration with those whose actions don’t align with their words stems from my own healing journey. For so long, I believed I had to meet impossible standards to be worthy of love, standards set by family, society, and, yes, religion. I spent years trying to be the “good daughter,” the “healing daughter,” the one who carried the weight of the wounds I inherited and tried to transform them. And I’ve come a long way in realizing that I am already enough, just as I am. But it’s still hard to see others, especially those in positions of spiritual authority, holding onto narratives of conditional love.

What I’m learning is that compassion doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior. It doesn’t mean pretending everything is okay. But it also doesn’t mean carrying the burden of fixing others. Compassion is about releasing the need to control the outcome. It’s about choosing to respond from my heart, not from my wounds.

And so I ask myself this, over and over: What would love do in this moment? What would love say? Would love need to be right, or would love simply witness, allow, and let be? I don’t always get it right. Sometimes my ego still slips in, whispering that I need to teach someone a lesson. Other times, I catch myself just in time and remember that the best thing I can do is to offer be a silent witness of their growth and expansion and then let them find their way in their own time.

What I’m learning is that being right isn’t always the goal, being aligned with love is. There’s a difference between speaking truth to be heard and sharing it to serve the moment. Some truths are necessary to express, while others are best held with quiet trust, knowing that everyone must discover their own path in their own time. It’s not about dimming my fire or compromising my values, but about discerning when love asks me to witness rather than correct. True freedom lies not in always being right, but in embodying both truth and compassion, allowing each to flow as the moment requires.

If there’s one thing I hope to offer through sharing this, it’s the invitation to explore your own heart in the same way. To ask yourself: Where does my anger come from? What does it reveal about my wounds? How can I hold space for both the parts of me that want to call others out and the parts of me that simply want to love?

It’s okay to feel both. It’s okay to not have all the answers. The journey of healing isn’t about arriving at a perfect state of being, it’s about learning to be with yourself, as you are, in all your beautiful complexity.

We are all walking this path together, each of us carrying the weight of our own wounds, each of us trying, in our own imperfect way, to find our way back to love. And if we can offer ourselves a little more grace along the way, perhaps we’ll find it easier to extend that same grace to others. Not because they deserve it, but because we choose to give it, freely, lovingly, without conditions.

And in that act, we reclaim the very thing the world so often withholds: the simple, transformative power of unconditional compassion.

This is my practice. It’s messy, and it’s ongoing. But with every step, I feel my heart expand just a little more. And that, I think, is enough.

☥