Compassion is a theme that keeps cropping up in my life these days.
On Friday, I had to give a negative reward to my daughter when she failed to show compassion to a houseguest.
Last night I thought of compassion again. I had just finished finished reading “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Pulitzer Prize winning author Junot Diaz, and was watching a “talk” by him on YouTube. When asked about his challenges as a professor of literature at MIT, Diaz told his audience that his biggest job is to teach compassion. He says, “You don’t get to MIT by being a compassionate person.”
This morning I was at cooking school. Mediterranean week. Amidst the pilaf and the hummus and the stuffed grape leaves, I met a psychologist who, besides cooking, specializes in couples therapy. When I asked her about her psychological theory, she said she mixes Buddhist thought into her traditional psycho-dynamic therapy. Buddhist ideas for couples in crisis? What do you teach them, to be patient and wait? No, she says, mostly I teach compassion.
Compassion. I looked it up.
“The humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it.”
Unlike empathy, a feeling also prompted by the pain of others, compassion has an added bonus — it gives rise to action. Compassion is about understanding another’s challenges, pain, and suffering, AND actively trying to improve their situation. Compassion improves all relationships.
Now that we are in a recession and less busy charging through lines at Costco and stepping on each other’s toes, compassion seems to be in fashion. The Obamas have instituted national days of service and as we all head into a holiday season, projected to be leaner than most, we may be reminded of the true meaning of the holidays. Most religions celebrate light in the darkest days of winter and incorporate a theme of remembering those less fortunate — and doing something about it.
But what about our most intimate relationships? Our love relationships? I will be so bold as to declare that compassion is the very essence of love. Compassion is the trait we showcase when we are attracting a partner and falling in love. Compassion is the magic dust we sprinkle on our fights to help us repair the damage. And compassion is the glue that keeps couples together when the going gets boring and the grass next door looks neon.
Compassion works on us too. Compassion is the feeling we can use to love ourselves more. To accept our own flawed path and ill-timed lessons of life. When we can feel compassion for ourself, that is, understand our own suffering and do something to heal it, then we have so much more to give in a love relationship.
So the next time you find yourself at an impasse with love, stop and entertain the feeling of compassion. Are you being too hard on yourself? Are you being too hard on that other human being in your life? Dig deep at these moments to scoop from the geyser of compassion that flows inside every person. Compassion is the only thing that works every time.
Great article, but I’d change the order of importance by moving the last two paragraphs to the forefront. To be able to be compassionate to the world and to others, most of us first need best to learn how to be compassionate to ourselves. That is probably the hardest of all.