Understanding Compassion
By
Dr. Lorraine Cassista

     Have you ever suffered pain, physical, psychological or emotional? Of course you have! We all experience pain at one time or another. We presently have a nation suffering like never before. How do you experience pain and suffering? Do you allow yourself to feel what you are feeling or do you rush to alleviate the agony? It is not easy to be in your pain, to allow yourself to feel all that you feel, nor is it easy to be with another’s pain. How often have you had a child, relative, or friend grieve and rush to ease their struggles? Believing we are being compassionate, we often try to distract or take away their pain instead of being with them in their pain. We do this to ourselves, as well, by eating or drinking too much, seeking revenge and/or harboring ill feelings toward ones who hurt us to keep the more painful feelings at bay. This is not true compassion. This is acting out of our own needs to alleviate our own feelings of discomfort, suffering and pain.

     Compassion is based on the ability to have a reaffirming, loving and understanding relationship with ourselves, because only when we have a loving and understanding relationship with ourselves can we have one with others. You must first love yourself before you can give and accept love from others. If you are to love yourself, you need to address and face head-on the past hurts, pains and fears that have kept you bound in the prison of your own emotions. If you have a tendency to internalize your emotions, that is not healthy. We must be compassionate with ourselves before we can truly be compassionate with others.

     What is true compassion, then? Compassion is defined as pity, a deep sympathy and sorrow for the suffering of others accompanied by a strong desire to help and alleviate the suffering. True compassion, then, is the ability to be one with others, to stand with them in their pain and help them to alleviate their own suffering without losing oneself in the process. It means allowing them to experience their pain, sorrow, grief, and etc. without trying to fix it. The expression of true compassion allows one to move from the role of victim to one of power. It is listening, truly listening to others without judgment, without providing advice or making decisions for them so they can sort through their feelings and make decisions for themselves. It doesn’t mean saving them. It means empowering them to save themselves. We all have the ability to solve our own problems, sometimes we just need to have someone listen to us, understand us, be there for us, and empower us to figure out what it is we need. When you are compassionate toward others, you are, in effect, being compassionate toward yourself as well.

     Being nice is not the same as being compassionate. Some of us have the need to be nice because it fulfills our need to be accepted, wanted or needed. When you bend over backwards to be a nice person, constantly seek the approval of others, strive to make them happy and try to live up to the expectations you think they have of you, it becomes a tiresome job that you drains you and leaves you feeling empty and used. You need to fill yourself up by learning how not to give yourself away in the process. Being too nice can leave you feeling drained, feeling taken advantage of and not being appreciated. Being a doormat is not what compassion is all about. A compassionate person responds to what you need, not by providing what they think you need, but helping you to provide for yourself. They do not take power away from you by doing things for you; they help you to find your own power. Being compassionate means being able to nurture and comfort and assist in healing without becoming sick yourself.

     How compassionate are you? Do you take care of yourself? Are you true to yourself by listening to what you know inside to be true for you? Are you gentle with yourself or do you demand unrealistic expectations from yourself and others? Do you place harsh judgments on yourself and others? Do you treat yourself and others with respect? In these troubled times for our country, it is even more imperative we take a closer look at how we treat ourselves and how we treat others. It always has been and always will be essential we live with compassion!