Overview

Many people misunderstand Compassion. For example, many people mistake compassion for ‘love’, ‘kindness’ or ’empathy’. Although these qualities may be involved, often they are not (!). Others mistakenly view compassion as ‘a weakness’ (when really, from both a psychological and a physiological perspective, it can be one of our biggest assets in terms of resilience and managing stress in both ourselves and others).

So then, what is compassion really about ?

Compassion means having a sensitivity to the causes of suffering (in self or others) with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it.

This is a 2-part definition: Part A) ‘sensitivity to suffering’ (meaning, to have the capacity to fully grasp the causes and impacts of one’s suffering and to be able to remain present to it vs running away from it because it is ‘too painful’ or ‘hard’), and Part B) the ‘commitment to alleviating suffering’ (meaning, being willing to do whatever is required to be of assistance).

Compassion arises in us when we witness suffering in others (or experience suffering ourselves) in a certain way that motivates a subsequent desire to help. The purpose of drawing from (or developing) Compassion is not to avoid difficulties – it is quite the opposite. Compassion is about having the courage and the strength to turn towards pain and difficulty within ourselves or for others, because this is what is needed. But, this can be tricky, and (especially with Self-Compassion) it can be easy to fall into self-defeating patterns of feeling overwhelmed, threatened, ashamed, or self-critical.

Compassion brings together many attributes ranging from awareness, empathy, and distress tolerance, to courage, a caring intention, strength and persistence. We need to employ these skills to prevent us from becoming overwhelmed. Without a good understanding of compassion and the development of these skills, we may distort or amplify what is really going and this will block helpful actions and make a situation worse.  

Compassion in Practice

Most people come to therapy wanting to alleviate their suffering (i.e., to ‘make the pain stop!’). This is understandable, because pain hurts (!). However, there is often ambiguity about how much of themselves they are willing to invest in the process of self-care.

Although it makes sense that we need to stop making things worse in order for the pain to stop, this actually requires a nuanced understanding of Part A of the definition of Compassion (i.e., ‘sensitivity to the causes of suffering’). When we are insensitive to the causes of suffering, and simply want the pain to go away, we are very limited in what we can achieve. In other words, we actually need to understand and to be sensitive to the causes of the suffering before we can truly do something about it.

But, this can be hard. For instance, whenever we are insensitive to the causes of suffering, are not moved by the suffering, or do not have the distress-tolerance skills ‘be with’ suffering, we cannot truly stay present to it long enough to be helpful (even if we want the suffering to stop). For many people, this is their biggest challenge. As is discussed in several articles I have written (i.e., here, here, here, and here), difficulties in this area have a lot to do with our upbringings (including our attachment style, and what we have been taught about emotions), and our physiologies (i.e., how the mind, brain and body work). 

Compassion requires us to take responsibility for our actions while simultaneously recognizing that so many factors in life are not of our choosing – so much of our lives has been determined by factors outside of ourselves (we didn’t choose our parents, our genders, our evolutionary histories, our ‘tricky brains’, the countries we were born into, the families we were born into, or our developmental or trauma histories). 

Despite this, many of us still go around blaming and shaming ourselves for what we did wrong. Yet, viewed through a lens of Compassion (again, Part A of the definition: ‘sensitivity to the causes of suffering’) we can realise that while SO MUCH in our lives is not our fault or choosing, it does still remain our responsibility to do something about how we choose to act (Part B of the definition: ‘commitment to alleviating or preventing further suffering’).

Hopefully, you may begin to understand that Compassion and Self-Compassion are not simply about being soft or kind. Rather, it is about drawing upon a wise non-condemning understanding that empowers us to take charge and be accountable.

Physical and Psychological Benefits

• Increased capacity to act assertively in terms of caring for ourselves and others

• Increased resilience (improves our ability to handle stress, and setbacks)

• Reduces our susceptibility to anxiety, depression, and other mental health difficulties

• Reduced triggering of our threat system, which results in positive health benefits including reduced stress, an increase in Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and improved immune system functioning
• Increases our capacity to meet our needs during difficult moments (soothing, kindness, encouragement and support, vs self-criticism)

• Provides an ever-stable refuge of self-worth vs focusing on Self-Esteem (discussed below…) 

Empathy & Sympathy

Although being ‘sensitive to the causes of suffering’ (Part A of the definition of Compassion) requires a variety of attributes (which includes empathy), Compassion is not simply ’empathy’ and empathy on its own is not compassion. For instance, an emphatic killer can cause someone great pain and torture – specifically because they are good at understanding other people’s feelings (!). Clearly, empathy is not compassion. 

Compassion is also not sympathy (feeling ‘sorry for…’).  This is because sympathy is passive. In contrast, Compassion is active because it involves both feeling AND then doing something about the feeling (eg, think of a mother or father as they cradle their sick and fevered child). 

Self-Esteem vs Self-Compassion

Self-compassion offers huge benefits that self-esteem does not: Self-esteem is about being better than everyone else in order to feel good about yourself (i.e., being ‘special’ and above ‘average’). But this is a logical impossibility because if everyone is better than average, this simply shifts the average higher resulting in a never-ending cycle of competitiveness.

Acting from a place of self-esteem can lead us to putting others down, defensiveness, hostility, and overlooking our own shortcomings because these may be too painful or threatening to acknowledge. We can engage in these behaviours either consciously or unconsciously (but regardless, our actions will most likely always be perceived by others as narcissistic and insecure).  

However, self-esteem’s biggest flaw is that it is only there for us when things are actually going well – but what happens when we fail? During times of failure, our self-esteem shrinks into the shadows and and our inner-critic becomes dominant to dish us up punishment (i.e., we may then feel shame, hopelessness, or even self-hatred). 

As I have discussed here, this simply triggers our brain’s Threat System, which then gets in the way of us moving forward because we either self-destruct or need to engage in protective-behaviours (which can lead to undesirable consequences). Yet, Self-Compassion is the antidote (!)

Unfortunately, just like how Compassion is often poorly misunderstood, Self-Compassion is also a hugely misunderstood concept! Self-compassion is not merely self-kindness (eg, ‘just be kind to yourself’) – it is about taking responsibility for working with difficult feelings so that you are better able to deal with life’s challenges. Self-Compassion requires responsibility and courage to be present with emotional pain in one’s self or in others, and the courage to do something productive about it.

However, many people find the idea of Self-compassion highly threatening. Unfortunately, these are often the same people who experience intense shame and self-criticism. One of the most common barriers to developing self-compassion is our own “inner critic”, which often has origins in our developmental past. To understand why this may be, it makes sense when we appreciate how a person has learned to associate warmth, closeness, and soothing, with Threat (vs safeness).

This happens through a person’s developmental history via their early painful interpersonal or emotional experiences (such as childhood experiences of shame, rejection, bullying, or parental hostility, neglect or unresponsiveness). So, because self-compassion encourages a response that taps into emotions that a person has learned to associate with threat, self-compassion can in fact trigger threat! 

For many of us, self-compassion is hugely difficult and triggers our threat system. For this reason, it is a response that is either avoided or is completely blocked. If this sounds familiar to you, I recommend you read about the Fears, Blocks & Resistances to Self-Compassion and related articles I have written, below.

Further Resources

• The Benefits of Self-Compassion

• Fears, Blocks & Resistances to Self-Compassion

• Dealing with your Inner Critic

• The Physiology of Self-Criticism

• Understanding your Window of Tolerance 

• Your Brain’s Threat System

• Calm yourself with Soothing Rhythm Breathing

• A list of all articles that I have written