Compassion and Empathy
“Sit with them in the dark and show them how to feel the discomfort.” Dr Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
The first time I personally grappled with grief, powerlessness and anger at injustice was during the early years of the AIDS pandemic. I had felt rage at the patriarchy as an activist years before, but I felt empowered then. By working together, we were seeing changes. With AIDS, there was a hard stop. The callous indifference to saving gay men’s lives through a lack of funding for research and treatment had immediate and devastating consequences. They died.
Compassion is the daily practice of recognizing and accepting our shared humanity, so that we treat others and ourselves with loving-kindness, and we take action in the face of suffering. It is fueled by understanding and accepting that no one is immune to pain or suffering. Compassion is not a practice of “better than” or “I can fix you”.
“Compassion recognizes a relationship between equals, not healer and wounded. We need to know our darkness to be present with the darkness of others. We need to experience our shared humanity.” Pema Chodron
Empathy is the most powerful tool of compassion. Empathy is an emotional skill set that allows us to understand what someone is experiencing and to reflect back that understanding.
Meaningful connection requires a combination of compassion and cognitive empathy. We seek to understand how someone who is suffering feels, not feeling it for them. We want to know, what is the experience like for you? We listen and stay out of judgment. We touch into something within ourselves that helps us identify and connect with what the other person might be feeling.
“Compassion does not mean immersing ourselves in the suffering of others to the point of anguish. It’s the tender readiness of the heart to respond to one’s own or another’s pain without despair, resentment, or aversion.” Jack Kornfield
We have all known joy, hurt, heartbreak, shame, grief, and love. To the extent we allow ourselves to feel these emotions, we can afford to connect with what someone is feeling about their experience.
We also know these empathy fails, either doing them ourselves or from others.
Sympathy or pity: I feel sorry for you, and the superiority of This doesn’t happen to people “like me”
Judgment, blame and disappointment: You should feel shame. You’ve let me down. What were you thinking? How did you let this happen?
Minimizing or competing: It wasn’t that bad. This is what happened to me one time.
Advice and problem solving: I can fix this. You just need to … (often stating the obvious)
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” Prentis Hemphill
The better we are accepting with ourselves and others, the more compassionate we become. We see clearly and stop prioritizing being liked over being free. We are better able to set boundaries and hold people accountable for their behavior. It’s okay to disagree with me. It’s not okay to ridicule my ideas and beliefs.
We engage with compassion and empathy towards ourselves, and in our daily life and relationships. There is a link with our nervous system. These are hard to access when we’re in fight/flight/freeze survival mode. This is an deep practice of understanding and cultivating how we want to relate.
Join us in our free Sunday community classes where we have an ongoing exploration and practice of connection. This week because of Christmas Day, we are meeting at 1PM Eastern for a social conversation instead of our usual 10AM class.
In a few weeks I’ll be opening registration for a new ten week intensive course Trauma informed Coaching and Counseling that begins February 21st.
