Compassion

Compassion is the desire to alleviate suffering by expressing a fundamental loving kindness toward yourself or others. What does this translate into? Be kind. Period.

When we practice compassion, we remember that there is not your suffering or my suffering, there is just suffering.

-Unknown

Introduction to Compassion

I am Compassionate

Compassion is not pity, but the willingness to be with suffering up close and personal without aversion or attachment. Being kind takes negotiation. What and how much can I do? How much time and money will it take?

Compassion is not so much about doing more, in fact it actually may be about doing less. The more mindful you are, the more space you create to respond to life in a different way. Because you are changing the neural pathways and pleasure centers in your brain, you are becoming more compassionate by practicing compassion and you are noticing compassion, in yourself and others because you are focused on it. In this way, compassion is contagious!

The very same day I finished a blog on compassion about acts of kindness, (pay for coffee for the person behind you or let someone cut in line ahead of you) I experienced an act of loving kindness myself. I attended a networking event and at the end of the program, they drew names for the beautiful flower centerpieces. A woman at our table, who I had smiled and said hello to, won the centerpiece and immediately turned to me and said, “I want you to have it”. Wow! What a beautiful, simple, act of compassion!

My focus on compassion has been around my finances, not for myself, but for others and has provided me with an unexpected experience of compassion. A young girl asked to use my phone because she ran out of gas and I bought her gas instead. When I went to get two front snow tires for my old jeep to get through the winter, they said they could mount them, but I wouldn’t be able to use the 4-wheel drive for safety reasons. The manager came out and said he couldn’t let me go through the winter with an unsafe car and put four new tires on for the price of two.

Words Associated with Compassion

Sympathy, empathy, concern, kindness, consideration, care, benevolence, kind-hearted, love, gentle

Why do I want compassion?

Scientific research suggests that being compassionate can improve health, well-being, and relationships.

Giving to charity activates pleasure circuits in the brain, and compassion training programs, even very brief ones, strengthen brain circuits for pleasure and reward and lead to lasting increases in self-reported happiness.
Tuning in to other people in a kind and loving manner—can reduce risk of heart disease by boosting the positive effects of the Vagus Nerve, which helps to slow our heart rate.
One compassion training program has found that it makes people more resilient to stress.
Brain scans during loving-kindness meditation, which directs compassion toward suffering, suggest that, on average, compassionate people’s minds wander less about what has gone wrong in their lives, or might go wrong in the future; as a result, they’re happier.
Brain scans show that when people experience compassion, their brains activate in neural systems known to supportparental nurturance and other caregiving behaviors.
Compassion helps make better spouses: Compassionate people are more optimistic and supportive when communicating with others.
Studies of college friendships show that when one friend sets the goal to support the other compassionately, both friends experience greater satisfaction and growth in the relationship.
Feeling compassion for one person makes us less vindictive toward others.
Employees who receive more compassion in their workplace see themselves, their co-workers, and their organization in a more positive light, report feeling more positive emotions like joy and contentment, and are more committed to their jobs.
More compassionate societies—those that take care of their most vulnerable members, assist other nations in need, and have children who perform more acts of kindness—are the happier ones.
Compassionate people are more socially adept, making them less vulnerable to loneliness; loneliness has been shown to cause stress and harm the immune system.