Compassion: it’s not what you think.
Compassion is not wimpy. It takes courage and strength.
There are 4 steps to compassion:
- To see and identify suffering.
- To feel distress or similar feeling as the person who is suffering. (empathy)
- To commit to decreasing or ending that suffering.
- To take action to end that suffering.
People often confuse empathy with compassion. It is important to distinguish between empathy and compassion because they have very different purposes and outcomes.
Let’s define empathy: feeling the feelings of another or feeling concern or distress when seeing someone suffering. Empathy is not the same as compassion, it is actually step 2 of our 4 steps of compassion.
Why is this distinction so important? Because if we get stuck in Step 2 of compassion (empathy) we risk going down with the ship. By this, I mean that if we are trying to help someone who is deeply sad, we will naturally feel sadness as we begin to listen and talk with them. But if we stay in this sadness and join this person for too long, we become over-identified with the emotions or overwhelmed by them. At this point, we are not helping anymore. We have complicated and added to the suffering. This is what I mean by being stuck in empathy.
If we become stuck in empathy, we can become burnt-out, depressed, and overly negative in our thinking. That is what I mean by going down with the ship. There are many practical techniques to catch ourselves when we are stuck in empathy and to shift ourselves into a compassionate state. Empathy and compassion have different neurological pathways. Compassion can be energizing and regenerative and uplifting. Some of that for me please!
Self-Compassion
Can you be a good friend to yourself?
Can you treat yourself the same way that someone who loves you or cares about you would treat you if they knew you were hurt or upset? For many of us, the answer is no.
The Good News
The good news is that we can train ourselves to be kind to ourselves through simple practices that take a few minutes a day. These practices can help us calm down when we are facing difficulty and stress. Three people have told me recently that they got off their high blood pressure medication after doing self-compassion practices.
Far from making us weak or letting ourselves off the hook, self-compassion can make us more resilient and better equipped to change unhealthy behaviors. It can make us happier, too. I know, I have experienced that!
I believe self-compassion can help us develop a more secure sense of self, more confidence that we can face the difficulty that comes our way, and help us develop more secure relationships. This has not been proven in research yet. I have experienced those things and many people I have worked with say the same. Them scientist folks better hurry and catch up!
Strength
It’s about time we talk about courage. The courage to face difficulty and try to help solve the problems around us. It takes strength to see our part in the problem, to admit that, and take steps to move forward.
- It takes strength to see suffering, to sit with suffering, to commit to alleviate that suffering, and to take action to alleviate that suffering. I like to call this compassion with strength.
- It takes strength to face this challenging world with an open heart and a strong spine and ask, “How can I help?”
- It takes strength to discipline ourselves, to take the time to practice and develop the capacities that lead to Healthy Mind.
- Heck, it even takes strength to admit we have a problem and to take actions to fix it!
We must be able to admit our faults and weaknesses a bit to get started – that takes courage and is called vulnerability.
Some of the strongest people I know are women who are single mothers and are raising kids and working hard to make ends meet. I worked with many people like this during my 20 some years of providing psychotherapy. Here are a few examples: a mother whose daughter (age 9) was dying; a mother whose husband was sent to prison for 20 years making her a single mom to two young boys; and a grandmother who brought her 3 adopted grand-daughters to therapy for years, wanting to instill in them the courage to stand up and protect themselves in ways she and her daughter were not allowed. These women were facing suffering and were willing to bring their children in for help with that suffering even though it was difficult to face. That is strength.