culvitating the 'compassionate' cure
A lot of people, pop culture and songs preach that love is the most important thing in life. However, the powerful force of love can require years of cultivation and trust to find inside of you for another person. I’d say compassion is one of the most important things in this world, in this life, if not the most important thing. Nothing else is as vital to this world working the way it does while also providing hope and potential for better. Yeah, there are a lot of tragic things. That doesn’t mean the way the world works isn’t ultimately a good one. And it still works well enough for me, because at the end of the day, despite all the bad, there is love. And there is care.
Although related, compassion is not synonymous to empathy. By definition, compassion is having a cognitive understanding of another’s emotions whereas empathy is the act of physically experiencing another’s emotions as one’s own. Studies have shown that empathy often leads to distress whereas compassion fosters acts of kindness and altruism.
Compassion shows up in quiet ways all around us. There are people who stay up the entire night to comfort a friend or stranger. And people who donate their time, money and efforts to charitable causes to support families they’ve never met. There are babies who are not yet caught up in the ego of life. There are children who hold out their hands for other children with skinned knees. There are people who decide to be better than they were yesterday. People who stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.
There is affection in volumes that no man has the ability to measure on this earth and that is the one thing I am most grateful for. How we treat each other, how we shape each other’s lives, how we talk to each other, how we are willing to sacrifice our pride so someone else knows they are not alone: these are the important things.
The number of lives we touch. Our willingness to hold others, not because we need something to fill the spaces between our fingers but because we know there are edges of cliffs people are falling off. Knowing that the universal experience of being human is something we are experiencing together and our interconnectedness is how we survive.
my journal excerpt:
we are all earthquakes waiting to happen, but loving each other is the best chance we have at surviving the aftershocks.
A powerful way to cultivate compassion is to start with ‘compassionate self-awareness’:
Forgive others and let go of tendencies towards revenge. The most memorable marks on me are the ones made by kindness when I expected cruelty. The healing power of seeing someone who you’ve had unfavourable interactions with in the past and being able to smile, embrace or even share a safe space is beautiful. This doesn’t mean you should call and interact with those who have hurt you, instead you can practice distance healing which I once learned in a meditation class.
Read more fiction books. A person who expands their mind with reading stories that puts them in the narrative of characters, has the power to empathize more in real life. Narrative storytelling can emotionally guide you through hardships and realities that you otherwise may never be exposed to allowing you to figuratively travel to different countries or timelines in bodies that are of different races and genders than your own. Some books have truly transformed the way I view the world (eg Honolulu, Hate U Give, and Everything Here is Beautiful, to name a few).
Practice random acts of kindness. If this sounds too vague to you and you don’t know where to start there is a Kindness Calendar from Action For Happiness that you can download packed with different daily actions for every month. There is now an App you can get on your smart phone that acts as a little personal coach to hold you accountable.
Turn judgement into compassion. I find the opposite of compassion to be judgement. Be mindful of your thoughts and conclusions. As human beings one of our biggest flaws is that we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by our perceptions of their actions and intentions. And because it’s such an uneven scale, we can’t evaluate anyone or anything without it passing through our cultural filter. Our perception is impaired because of our guidelines that we don’t even realize are skewed. So, often we shrug our shoulders and accept the way we assess life without thinking further because it’s easier to look at things from one angle.
The truth is that it’s too easy to be inaccurate about who people are because as Anaïs Nin said, “We don’t see people as they are, we see them as we are.” Put a sharp pause on anytime you find yourself making conclusions based on limited information. Stay curious and give people the benefit of the doubt. Ask questions and get out of your comfort zone and be in uncomfortable conversations so that you can build on your understanding. Judgement is one the largest factors holding you back.
“Do not be so proud and do not laugh at the poor. Your boat is still out at sea who knows what will happen?”
I leave you with one of my favourite quotes translated from Gurmukhi to English. There is merit in understanding that our situations are ever-changing and no human circumstance is an impossible outcome for any of us. When we internalize this, we can think differently about the suffering of others and the privilege but impermanence of our comfort. By eradicating pain and suffering from others we create a safer and healthier future for all - including ourselves.
