30 Days of Compassion

The Oxford English dictionary defines compassion as "the feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it."

There's no question that the world is in short supply of compassion, but how does it show up in our lives? What does it bring up for us in our relationships? Who are we showing up for and why? In giving to others, do we still find compassion for ourselves? What does that look like?

I took thirty days to explore this further. Every day I would set a timer and write about compassion meant to me that day. How was compassion showing up in my life? Was I truly compassionate for the people in my life or for myself, or was I conflicted? What seemed to impact my level of compassion for others from day to day?

At the time I started this exercise, and over the past two years, there were a stream of stress and life events that made me feel compelled to take a hard look at myself. Part of why I started this blog is to explore these topics, and I knew this compassion exercise was going to stretch me. And it did.

Here are some overall lessons I came to recognize about compassion as well as some observations I made about myself in the process of "30 Days of Compassion":

• Being compassionate can mean listening to others without our preconceived notions of

  what is right for them.

  

  Often a person just wants the space to talk freely and be themselves without being told what to do, or "fixed." If we can give others a sounding board, we are more likely to make them feel safe. We can accept that others may have very different needs that we do, and that what is right for us may or may not be right for them. Listening with this perspective can give us a a better chance of really being there for them.

  
  

• Self-compassion sometimes involves letting go of our own fixed notions of ourselves. If we can let go of our wisdom and experience for a moment, and just be open what is being evoked in ourselves in the here-and-now, there may internal queues that point us towards something we may want to address. If we are too rigid and cling on too tightly to our old familiar notions, we can miss "seeing" the reality of something that could be really important for us based on things we are feeling and sensing in ourselves. This can be a helpful reminder when we feel stuck - to take a step outside of our own self-limiting beliefs, or revisit old and potentially outdated assumptions about ourselves.

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  Compassion is part of the continuum of human experience; it does not exist in a an isolated bubble. We can have a struggle for connection but also crave our own independence. We can be grateful for every breath we have yet at the same time experience profound grief and loss. In fact, a death or loss can make us more grateful and also more compassionate to those around us who are still alive and/or may be suffering. Each of us is a rich tapestry of intermingled feelings, states, thoughts, memories, emotions and projections. Part of the act of compassion may be to understand and accept this in both ourselves and others, without trying to reduce the often paradoxical or layered nature of human experience to one black and white picture. I believe this makes our outlook more human, more nuanced, and potentially will help us become more loving with ourselves and others.

• We can focus on self-compassion rather than self-esteem to build our own wellness.(credit: Jennifer Tzeses) I came across a wonderful article by Jennifer Tzeses on Self-Compassion vs Self-Esteem. I love the idea of focusing on self-compassion over self-esteem to build wellness. Check it out. "Self-compassion can decrease depression, increase happiness and life satisfaction, and lead to better physical health." - Jennifer Tzeses

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  Compassion can mean that we embrace imperfection and/or failure in ourselves and others. It can help us take action without waiting for the perfect moment, and also help us give ourselves a break every now and then. We can do the same for others. We can know that we may fail but that it's not just OK to fail, it's part of the process of being alive. Once we let go of perfectionism and allow ourselves to fail, we may find something much more interesting and satisfying behind the scenes, and perhaps we can have richer relationships with others as a result - because we are accepting them for who they are. My experience is that people respond well to this, even if it happens on a subtle level. If you feel stuck and paralyzed by perfectionism and fear of failure, you may want to explore quieting that inner voice of judgment, that may be trying to protect us from failing, or be rejected, hurt or judged.

  • Side note: Admitting that I did not know how to solve a problem myself and asking for help has actually helped me at work, and made me more open to collaboration on solutions. But I had to accept that I might look incompetent or that I had failed in my job somehow. It also helped me to better recognize my strengths and weaknesses, and be more open to learning how to improve them.

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  The more stressed or overwhelmed I became, the less compassion I felt I had to give to others, and the more I needed to take time to care for myself. If I did not take time to care of myself during these times, it would not uncommonly lead to burnout, both physical and mental. This may be obvious but I have found that it's been a hard lesson to learn for me.

• Often it was easier for me to feel compassion for others before myself, or I would feel guilty about putting my own needs first.

  In my past it was an almost automatic response to put others first before even considering the impact on me, and it created a lot of problems. Inevitably there would be some type of fallout, whether it was my being resentful and the other person having no idea until I blew up or imploded and "crashed." I wrote about this in more depth in this post. From a lot of life experience and therapy, I slowly learned from insights about why this happened in my own life, but staying on-point here, these experiences would sometimes make me question my own empathy and compassion - but empathy and compassion were not the problem.

  

• It is a beautiful quality to be a loving, empathic and giving. It can be a tremendous strength to have empathy for others and act on our compassion out of a place of love. It can help build our connections with others and it can be satisfying to give to others. We certainly should not beat ourselves up for this. And there are certain types of love such as parental love which by definition do involve self-sacrifice, I believe this is quite understandable. Yet even then we need to remember to check in with ourselves to make sure we are still taking care of ourselves. And if we are not taking care of ourselves, we need to have enough self-awareness to recognize that we need to make adjustments, and it may take some courage but we need to be able to express ourselves before we burn out, or explode at others because we have kept things inside for too long.

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  There are many times when I needed to tune out the world and focus first on myself, on what I really wanted from life, or simply return to a place of inner quiet without disruptions.

  We need to refill the tank when it gets empty! In an age where we are supposed to respond to texts the instant they are sent, where work/life balance can become non-existent, where there is an overload of social media pressure to "live our best life," it can seem virtually impossible to take the time to focus on ourselves and recharge. However, I believe it is essential, and for me it is a grounding principle that makes it more possible for to give to others. We introverts may need extra time to replenish our energy, and I believe we all need to take time to take reflect on what we want - because that too can change over time. However, this can require setting some boundaries around our time, and that can trigger some conflicting emotions within ourselves and other people who may or may not understand. People may not always be happy with us for doing this this - and that's OK too.

A compassionate act can sometimes be used in ways that may not help us.

• As a coping mechanism to avoid looking at ourselves. If we are always focused on others we don't have to look at what's happening inside of ourselves. We can lose connection with the source of strength inside of us.

  
  

  

  
  

• To avoid accountability or ownership for recognizing we may have hurt someone else, or as a way of justifying passive aggressive behavior.

• To avoid taking responsibility for our own lives, or avoid our daily responsibilities altogether. Life will not stop for us and allow us not to pay the bills - at least not without consequences. (I am not saying that we always have control over working or life events that may prevent us from working)

• Caring for those who need it out love is an amazing thing to do. However, coddling or caretaking those who can already take care of themselves, particularly at our own expense, may not be the best way to practice compassion, and it can sometimes create and enforce unhealthy relationships where no one really gets what they want.

• An act of compassion should not be used as an excuse to avoid conflict. Some of us may dig into kindness out of fear of confrontation with others, or to avoid expressing our own anger because we may not know how to have a voice for ourselves. We may believe we do not deserve to express ourselves. Don't forget to ask yourself what you really want, then try to voice your needs in your own way. If you cannot seem to do that, take some time to think about why, or find a friend or therapist to talk through it. Your needs matter just as much as others' do.

  

Why would people have trouble recognizing their own needs? Why would someone have ample compassion for others yet little to none for themselves?

• As a child if we have either been taught or we interpreted from a very young age that we need to sacrifice our own needs for the family or a parent, or that we had to be a "nice guy"(phrase credit: Robert Glover) in order to be loved, it may feel unfamiliar to prioritize ourselves. Perhaps we were even rewarded for acts of sacrifice. Or some of us never felt safe being ourselves or expressing ourselves, and we may learn one way or another that this is how we should show up in the world. When this continues into adulthood, our mindset can actually feel more comfortable when we sacrifice ourselves for others than it is to help ourselves. This can create some pretty unhealthy dynamics. And let's face it, in the workplace, seldom will we be told to work less.

• There is a popular theory in psychology called the "hierarchy of needs" (popularized by psychologists Maslow and Erikson) based on the idea that there are certain basic needs we need to satisfy before we can address others. If we are about to become evicted, or we do not have money to eat, it may be difficult to feel compassion for others, let alone think about ourselves. As an extension of that, just because we have physical safety does not mean we feel loved or that we feel emotional safety. Without emotional safety it may be difficult to practice self-compassion or express ourselves. There is an interesting article about the hierarchy of needs here).

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  Trauma and guilt can throw us in turmoil and wreak havoc on our ability to have compassion for ourselves. A traumatic life event can leave us numb, or we may feel guilty about either something we did or something we could have done. As a result we can end up feeling like we feel guilty for putting ourselves first, or saying no to others. From personal experience I have found that therapy can be enormously helpful in dealing with this type of trauma and guilt.

• We are allowed to have needs, and I believe we can reflect, learn and eventually reframe our reactions and ways of being in the world so that there is a truly a space for who we are and what we need in the world. If we can embrace who we are, and express ourselves, I believe we can have a better life and we may realize that we do not have to resort to what Robert Glover has termed "covert contracts" in his book "No More Mr. Nice Guy." I also think it will make our true acts of compassion more fulfilling as well, because it will not feel like it is coming at the cost of our own well-being.

  

• Be your own bar of what is success, not based on the internet or on others.

  • In society we sometimes laud success as a value in itself, and conflate someone' else's idea of success with our own happiness, or idealize those who appear to have chosen success and chosen themselves at all costs. It is very romantic to see a video clip of someone who had laser focus on nothing but their goals, and exclude everything (and sometimes everyone) else to work on themselves. My experience has been that in a world of Instagram posts and Tik Toks, this is seldom the whole story. Focus, determination, passion and wonderful qualities (super inspiring to me to see folks who were compelled toward their passion). But these things in the extreme can also come with a price, particularly if we have forgotten to maintain human connections. I googled that Ingmar Bergman Ingmar Bergman said he was successful at film because he was driven by demons that haunted him, including fear, rage, laziness, control, and boredom. My point is that it is good to take time to think about a life that is aligned with your own personal values, from work, to money, to relationships. (There is a separate post on this topic here)

• Explore your relationship with setting boundaries and saying no to protect your own time and energy. I came across Sari Gilman, LMFT - Gilman has an interesting book on my to-read list called "Transform Your Boundaries" where she outlines "seven boundary patterns that will help you tune in to your individual wisdom", such as "caretaker" or "workaholic." She talks a lot about the very dynamics outlined in this post, but centered around boundaries and self-care, and I have found it very helpful to hear her insights.

  
  

In the end what a healthy relationship with compassion looks like is different for each person. For me I came to see that self-compassion is just as important as compassion, but how that manifests can be different for each of us. You will ultimately be the best judge of what is right for you.

We can ask ourselves some questions as a form of self-inquiry:

• What does compassion look like in your current relationships? What would it look like in your ideal relationship?

• What would a life look like aligned with our own personal deepest truths? Do you think it would make you more or less compassionate to others?

• Do you think anything needs to change about how you are experiencing compassion for ourselves and others? How would you act differently?

• How does it make you feel to give to others, or empathize with them? Does it put you at ease, or do you fear losing yourself?

• If you are in an acute state of stress, are you remembering to take care of yourself?

• If you were your own coach or advisor what do you think you need to hear the most right now?

• What makes you feel loved?

• Do you need space or companionship? Do you take time for each?

• Do you feel your acts of compassion or love are received by others? Why or why not?

  
  

These questions may start you thinking about the role of compassion in your life and your relationships with others, and with yourself. This was a 30-day exercise, but obviously we are all works in progress throughout life, and I wish you every success in your crazy journey on this planet. Our time on this earth is short, let's make it as amazing as possible for each of us.

And let's take the time to take better care of ourselves - and each other.