Compassion is a word that shows up in my thoughts, reading, and conversations a lot lately.
It’s usually tied to its best bud: empathy. My recent pondering and discussion have made me realize that my personal grasp of the concept hasn’t been quite whole.
When learning the art of compassion (a work in progress that doesn’t end until I die) there were a few easy-to-swallow, intellectual “gimmies” right off the bat.
Compassion can be learned. The only pre-requisites are the desire to learn it (a big ask for some, I know) and a boat-load of patience.
Compassion cannot be accessed without empathy. However, one need not be compassionate to show empathy. A lesson I learned the hard way.
Compassion for oneself is the way to show compassion for others. This one’s tricky for those whose inner critics are at the wheel. Those like me, whose inner voice wants them to suffer. This concept here is what lead to my mini-revelation today.
So what the hell is it? Compassion. And what about it didn’t I grasp right off the bat?
Here’s the definition from compassion.com… pretty compelling website name to me:
The Latin root for the word compassion is pati, which means to suffer, and the prefix com- means with. Compassion, originating from compati, literally means to suffer with
To suffer with. To. It’s a verb. The Oxford Dictionary labels it as a noun, but I’m arguing, albeit abstractly, that it’s a verb as well. Much like the word love.
And here’s the personal revelation I had this today: compassioning hurts.
It hurts, it is painful.
I don’t know which hurts more… giving compassion or receiving compassion. But that’s just it… compassion isn’t something finite to be given or received. It’s something you do, and when you do it, everyone benefits.
And doing it is not some warm and fuzzy, “let’s all hold hands and spiritually bypass the suffering in the world” kind of deal like I had originally thought. No. For someone so unfamiliar with practicing compassion, it freakin’ hurts my heart.
Like leg day after a year without stepping foot in the gym.
It’s pain with a purpose, though. It is not emotional pain for suffering’s sake. It’s pain that makes you stronger, that makes you respect yourself more each time you exercise your compassion muscle. (the heart?)
Practicing it doesn’t feel good, but it makes you stronger.
No one actually wants to drag their ass to the gym in the morning to put themselves under 315 and start squatting. But they do want to be stronger more than they don’t want to endure the growing pains.
So how does this neat but cliché physical metaphor translate over to my abstract, emotional practice?
Brace yourselves for more Brené Brown.
Compassion is action. To suffer with. It’s a verb.
And what does the action look like? Boundary setting.
I consider myself an empathetic dude (not always the case, btw)… but an empathetic dude severely lacking in the compassion department.
This is what I mean when I say one can be empathetic without compassion, but it’s impossible to show compassion without empathy.
Plenty of folks are empathetic. They’re like me…human. They feel everything and set boundaries with nothing or no one. They lend an empathetic ear to a fault and this leaves them emotionally burnt out and depressed with little to no energy left to muster up the strength for actual compassion.
The ones like me are addicted to feeling other people’s emotions as a way to sidestep actually feeling their own.
Why? For others, I’m not sure. For me, it’s fear that if I’m not 100% available 100% of the time to the ones I love then that means I am a horrible person. Scum of the earth, a selfish, masculine monster like the ones brought to light by the #MeToo movement.
If I’m not jumping at the drop of every hat that is the slightest discomfort of anyone I love, then I am a worthless piece of shit.
If I’m not neglecting myself for the good of my family members, then I’m a selfish, ungrateful brat.
If someone I love does something to anger me and I have the audacity to calmly tell them so, then I’m a disrespectful sack of garbage for even feeling anger at all.
This is the shit that my inner critic has me believing. And it’s exhausting… but it’s familiar. And there is comfort in that familiarity. There’s comfort in this brand of pain.
Compassion would mean respecting myself and saying “no” when I need to hold or create a boundary. And that hurts ten times worse because it proves the inner critic “right.”
The immediate pain of being berated by the inner critic is far more acute than the steady, dull accumulation of pain that is neglecting my own emotions… but this is short-sighted.
Much like skipping the pain of leg day brings temporary relief at the expense of long-term strength gains.
I know this is starting to get abstract. Forgive me, this is fresh in my mind and we’re a the edge of my conscious awareness here. Writing this is just me trying to process something I learned only a few hours ago, so take it with a grain of salt…. but my lesson was this:
Compassion is not some warm and fuzzy way to “feel good.” I do believe compassion for self and others eventually leads to the warmth and fuzziness of true connection, but I’ve been blind to the fact that the act of compassion itself hurts like hell sometimes.
And remember: You don’t need to be compassionate to compassion, you need to compassion to be compassionate.
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Previously Published on medium
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