Compassion is a response to suffering.
- You become aware of some sort of pain or suffering, and there is a part of you that is moved by that.
- upset, distressed, and/or touched by it
- And there is another part of you that thinks, “I can do something to relieve the suffering. I want to do something to relieve the suffering.”
- Compassion can be listening, taking action, standing up for someone
- Ideally, it includes the sense of hope, empowerment, and love to it.
- It is a response to suffering driven by an actual desire to see that suffering relieve and taking some kind of joy or meaning in that act of trying to respond.
The way we learn compassion is to first of all recognize this is a basic human instinct. Pretty much, all people have the capacity. It is often about figuring out where in the process you are shutting down or being less effective.
- For some people the learning is the awareness aspect. If you don’t see the suffering because you are so focused on yourself.
- to wake up and see more clearly
- Other people are overwhelmed by the suffering and feel powerless or the need to escape it. So the strength that needs to be developed to tolerate that distress is to choose action rather than be overwhelmed by it.
- For other people, it is about training the resources. You want to be compassionate, but no one has ever really demonstrated what it is like to actually listen and other related skills.
- Being self-compassionate is harder for most people.
- You must first decide that you are worthy of compassion.
Re-source: Refocus
Listen with your heart and not your mouth.
- Bring attention to your physical heart.
- Sense your lungs on either side of your heart and just imagine you are breathing in and out of your heart.
- Start to bring some awareness down there and feel that.
- Then imagine that you are dropping your ears to where your lungs are.
- It’s a visualization to imagine your ears are where your lungs are.
- Then imagine dropping your eyes down there.
- So you got your nostrils, your ears, and your eyes where your heart is.
You listen with your whole body and you turn your attention to the person who is sharing.
- Your body is open, your eye contact is not particularly aggressive, and you are breathing in what the other person is sharing and just let it land without having to respond.
- You set the intention to understand what the other person’s experience with the assumption that there nothing you have to do or say back.
craving and resource from “Impact Theory” from Tom Bilyeu interviewing Kelly McGonigal”