February 21 – What Compassion Really Means

“To know that people care about how you’re doing when the doings aren’t so good-that’s what love is.” Oprah Winfrey

“To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten.” Anne Garborg

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” John Holmes

The term compassion originates from the Latin words pati and cum, which signify "to share in suffering." Brené Brown believes that compassion is not our instinctive reaction. In her view, when faced with pain, whether it's our own or someone else's, our initial response is typically self-preservation. We tend to safeguard ourselves by searching for a culprit, or at times, we shield ourselves by resorting to criticism or immediately attempting to find a solution. Compassion can be developed by daily practice. Empathy is a tool of compassion.

We perceive compassion as the innate and spontaneous reaction of the heart when confronted with the suffering of others. This reaction is most likely to occur when you encounter someone experiencing a challenging situation that closely mirrors a hardship you have personally endured. Dr. Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell explain in their thoughtful book, There Is No Good Card for This, “Empathy is when you use your imagination to expand your ability to feel compassion for people in situations beyond those you have experienced.” Brené Brown continues this thought in Atlas of the Heart, “We need to dispel the myth that empathy is ‘walking in someone else’s shoes.’ I need to learn how to listen to the story you tell about what it’s like in your shoes and believe you even when it doesn’t match my experiences.”

Compassion entails the acts of observing, experiencing, and acting in response. Crowe and McDowell tell us that, “First, we have to notice, and as simple as that sounds, we miss opportunities to show compassion all the time, because we can easily fail to notice someone’s pain or fear. Seeing or anticipating someone’s difficulty is a clear first step in providing them comfort. Emotions expert, Dr. Paul Ekman, says we also must feel for that person. He calls this emotional resonance. “This is when you feel enough to be concerned, but not enough to require getting your own support, too.” Finally, when you observe and experience someone else’s pain, you respond with a supportive emotion or gesture.

Crowe and McDowell explain that we sometimes have trouble feeling empathy when we have the fear of doing or saying the wrong thing or we have the fear of not having the time or bandwidth. They say, “We don’t have the capacity to reach out to every single person in need. But we can usually reach out more than we think we can and it gets easier with practice.”

Compassion becomes more effortless because it is gratifying, and our human nature is driven by positive reinforcement. When we perform acts of compassion for others, there are psychological, neurological, and hormonal shifts that take place.

Fundamentally, compassion involves embracing suffering. It signifies acknowledging that unfortunate events can occur in anyone's life, including good-hearted individuals. Unfavorable circumstances can affect anyone. Crowe and McDowell want us to know that “When you recognize that bad things happen to good people, and also, that bad things actually happen to you-it creates a connection around suffering that is a two-way street between equals.”

The most profound solace arises when we can descend into the abyss of suffering alongside another human being. It's about immersing ourselves in their experience and empathizing rather than sympathizing from a distance. It reminds me of a scene from West Wing where Josh is having a tough time. He asks Leo McGarry why he helped him, and this is the story that Leo tells him, “This guy's walkin' down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you! Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I'm down in this hole; can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. ‘Hey, Joe, it's me. Can ya help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are ya stupid? Now we're both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.’”

Activity: McDowell and Crowe talk about the ways that children show compassion:

They say, “I’m sorry”.

They ask, “Do you want to play with me?”

They ask, “Do you want to take a little break?”

They ask, “Do you want a little hug?”

As we grow up, we change from being completely unselfconscious and intuitive about how to comfort someone to being “self-doubting, freaked out messes”. Today, take a cue from kids and ask a friend, family member, or even yourself one of these questions. Or, even, just say the simple words, “I’m sorry.”

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