Compassion

When people judge situations or people, I often raise my eyebrows. Don't worry, I do, at least, I know I do. It is very easy to have a judgment about something or someone, and speak for one side or the other. It is a very natural thing to do in a world of dualism. Our egos try to compare ourselves to others. People like to think of themselves as better than others and therefore different. So judging is a way of improving your self-image and therefore blessing your ego.

When people start meditating or take courses to do so, they often hear about compassion. How does the ego deal with compassion? People who are spiritual in their quest for higher goals or for themselves want to increase their compassion for other people. Why?

Historically, when it comes to self-development, one of the major themes has always been a cheerleader-like mentality of boosting one's own self-esteem. When life gets tough or we face a challenge, we are told to boost ourselves. "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and by golly, people like me."

Yes, there is a function for self-esteem, and it is a necessary aspect of the human psyche. The problem many experts realize about the emphasis on self-esteem is twofold:

1. Self-esteem is based on a judgment, namely the judgment of self-worth.

2. Self-esteem is usually based on others' opinion of you.

Self-esteem is strongly based on validation. Because of these fundamental flaws to the concept of self-esteem, a shift is taking place in modern personal development. This shift involves moving away from self-esteem and ego, and toward self-compassion. The current paradigm suggests that self-love or self-compassion is synonymous with narcissism and egoism. But what scholars are discovering is that self-compassion is actually better for people if it were done collectively. When people have the capacity for self-compassion, not only are they better equipped to handle life's challenges, they also naturally become more empathetic.

They did not get this way of living or understanding from their parents or from their schooling. Everything is about achievement and why, for God's sake, not be better than others. Excelling in everything, like school, jobs, earnings, houses, cars and other material things. This is what parents had to fight for in their lives. Of course they want their children to have a better life, but is that the real purpose of life? The material world? I agree that we have to stand firm in this material world, but what is the meaning of it all if the spiritual meanings are lost.

Self-compassion is not about building yourself up and overcoming your failures, it is about accepting yourself as you are. It's about accepting your faults and understanding them. To some people, this sounds like making excuses for failure. It isn't. Self-care is about acceptance, not distraction. Instead of saying to yourself, "I'm strong, I can do anything, I'm bulletproof," instead be realistic: "I have strengths and weaknesses. My weaknesses are... My strengths are..."

Kristin Neff, of the University of Texas, writes in her article Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself:

"Self-compassion thus involves being touched by and open to your own suffering, not avoiding it or detaching from it, generating the desire to alleviate your suffering and healing yourself with kindness. Self-compassion also involves understanding your pain, shortcomings and failures without judgment, so that your experience is seen as part of the larger human experience."

Self-compassion is a mindset. There is no one specific thing you can do, but first and foremost: be honest with yourself.

We all have that friend who tells us exactly how things are, despite the impact it can have on our fragile ego. In fact, this is often something we look for in a friend. This is not a process of self-denial, but of self-evaluation. You have to be honest with yourself and how you feel, long before you can ever identify where those weaknesses we all have really are. This is important because until you know what those weaknesses are, you can never address them. As you become more aware of yourself, your feelings, your struggles and your strengths - something amazing happens: you become more aware of those same strengths, weaknesses and struggles in others.

When you hop through the world thinking you are bulletproof, you get the mindset that other people are weaker because they are not like you. There is no such thing as bulletproof in life. By realizing that, you put into perspective the playing field of how you see the people around you. It then becomes a matter of perception. Ultimately, remember: there is strength even in your weakness.

Most importantly, by addressing your feelings rather than detaching from them, you learn where you fit best in each situation. This is a combination of the two points mentioned above. Example: in a business environment, if you know that being authoritative makes you uncomfortable, you will be a better team leader than manager. I call this the "good cop, bad cop" approach. I'm the carrot, he's the stick. I don't make myself out to be "too nice," I put myself in a situation where that perceived weakness becomes my strength.

Compassion is not something that is particularly instilled in our upbringing. We all have it, but through conditioning from many parameters like parents, school, friends, work and other social things, we have lost it somewhere and become disconnected from it. And sometimes it is very easy to find it again. How can we feel it? Where is it in our body? Is it in our mind? It's certainly not in your mind, which is the department of your ego. So stay away from that if you want to discover your compassion for others. Of course, it comes from the heart. But how does it feel? Can we find it? Of course we can.

A little story:

Once there was a man in a small village behind a mountain. He lost his wife early in life and all he had left was his only son. The boy grew up and married a woman he loved. After the marriage, the young family moved into the family home with the father. Soon they had a son of their own and soon after another. They lived happily and in peace, but the house began to become too small for the family. The old man became ill. He could no longer bring wood for the fire or sell the fruits of the farmland in the markets. The couple had many expenses to support him. He was always around, doing nothing, and the young wife slowly began to hate him. After a few months, the young wife could no longer bear to live with the old man, clean for him and feed him. She said to her husband, "Either he goes, or I go and take my boys with me!"

The son's heart grew heavy with the burden of choice. He lay restlessly in bed long after his wife had slept peacefully and deeply. Days passed and he could look neither his father nor his wife in the eye.

One morning he said to his older son and father, "Let's go together to gather some wood on the other side of the forest. I can't go alone. The wood on this side is wet and does not burn. Take your walking stick with you, father, or you won't get very far." The old man and the boy prepared themselves and the three of them set off along the path to the forest. At the door, the man kissed his wife and promised that his father would not return with them. They reached the end of the forest and sat down in a quiet place to eat something. The old father was so exhausted that he fell asleep within seconds.

"Get up, my son, we are going back now."

"Yes, father, I will wake grandfather."

"Don't wake him, let him sleep. We can get wood closer to home, we don't have to carry it from here."

"But will he find his way home? He will wonder where we went..."

"Your grandfather is an old man now, he doesn't need to go back with us. We can leave him here, he is no longer needed," the young man replied with a heavy heart and the image of his beautiful wife in his mind. Father and son had not even lost sight of the old man when the boy suddenly walked back. Before the father could say anything, the boy returned with his grandfather's walking stick.

"We don't need that anymore, son. Leave it with the old man."

"No, we don't need it now, father, but when you get old and we don't need you anymore, I don't want to have to carry you all the way here. I'll give you this walking stick so you can walk yourself to this side of the forest."

A tear fell from the man's eye. Then another. He took the walking stick from his son's hands and walked back to his father to wake him up. They walked slowly back home and when the man told his wife what had happened, they both agreed that the old man should stay with them. From this day forward, the old man was honored, loved and cherished until his time came to leave this world.

Compassion is not just seeing someone suffer and helping them or feeling sorry for them. It's about knowing that every creature, every person, everything is yours. In fact, if you have compassion, you can easily see that it is already happening to you. There is nothing that is not you. Every person is you. Maybe not now, but in another time, in another place. That is you again. Compassion means learning to love yourself no matter what. And we learn best by doing, don't we? When we regularly show compassion to others, we learn to love ourselves and the world a little more. I can't imagine a better way to change the world than by showing compassion to yourself in every form in which you are in the world. The sad you, the selfish you, the poor you, the angry you, the happy you, the beautiful you, the proud you, the lazy you, the good and the bad, the giving, loving and attention-seeking you. Just as the father forever changed how his son viewed the elderly and the aged, you and I change the world a little each time we decide how to behave.

Is compassion something you want to teach others? Definitely do...

Every time you decide to be compassionate, you change the world a little bit. And you change yourself into a better person, thus the world as well.

"Small drops of water make the mighty ocean."