The way to Compassion

“The nature of humanity, its essence, is to feel another’s pain as one’s own, and to act to take that pain away. There is nobility in compassion, a beauty in empathy, a grace in forgiveness.” ~John Connolly

What is Compassion?

Compassion in its essence

is our ability to see

and acknowledge

in the deepest level

the experience of another,

with all colors, forms and texture

that this experience is being felt.

Compassion in its depth

is our ability to feel

and to know

in a profound level

what others feel,

no matter how far

or how close they are from us.

About Compassion

Compassion is not something that we need to learn but rather something that we already have within us. It is a genuine feeling that all humans can feel and it can be expressed in many ways. We only learn how to communicate or express compassion from our caregivers and the people who have shaped our lives especially during our earlier years. For example the mother feels compassion for her child and she expresses it to the child and then the child learns that behavior and starts to express it towards their toys or dolls and even their parents. Compassion is more or less within the psyche of the human nature and it's up to each person how they wish to cultivate that compassion within.

The inability to feel Compassion

Sometimes compassion may be affected from specific factors and life experiences, and therefore not felt and expressed in healthy manners. Although humans are able to feel compassion, they will consciously or unconsciously choose not to feel in a compassionate way, especially under specific circumstances. This can happen for several reasons. Today I will present to you three main reasons why this happens. I have organized and created three main categories of people that I have observed throughout the years inside my family, in my clients' and students interactive experiences and from my own personal experiences in life. Based on these three categories of people, I have named the kind of non-compassion, based on the way is expressed:

Three types of non-compassion and the reason(s) behind them:

1. Blocked compassion: People who suffer from emotional, mental, and even physical pain might be extremely difficult for them to contain the pain of somebody else, especially when the current pain they experience is so profound. On the one hand, this specific experience when overcoming, it can actually activate a deeper compassion within and towards the pain of others as one knows exactly how it feels and therefore empathize with another. On the other hand the experience of it can also cause the opposite result where one, especially when their pain and suffering is connected or related to the loss of trust towards other people, will not be able to feel compassion towards others and even their self, simply because they have connected compassion with their pain, and they formed the belief that it is harmful for them to feel or express compassion.

I will share anonymously an example from a client of mine who had blocked unconsciously his compassion: He have felt several times in his life that people around him are not able to feel compassion towards him, he felt neglected even the times he suffered and he needed support. All this experience made him believe that being vulnerable and having needs is painful and therefore he formed a personality that never feels vulnerable and therefore never asks for help and this belief blocked the compassion for his own self and the people around him. As you see life events can be detrimental in specific cases where people need to go back to the root of their wound, build safety and trust again and then heal their traumas so they can allow their innate values to shine again through them.

2. Wounded Compassion: Another group of people that is unable to connect with their innate power of compassion within themselves are adults who when they were children did not receive compassion of any means from their primary caregivers. These children become adults who are not programmed to feel, express and communicate compassion simply because their brain is wired not to. These people are most probably people who might have experience neglect, abuse of any kind, rejection, abandonment and other forms of trauma where throughout the years their ability to feel has been numbed. This appears also as a cooping mechanism that expresses itself by the avoidance of feeling - and therefore being traumatized again - in order to navigate through the several stages of pain especially when one is triggered. When one is being triggered by an external factor (another person) or even internal factor (thought) past wounds are felt again in a repetitive manner. When this happens the adult's immediate reaction and priority is to protect the wounded inner child and not to understand or feel compassion towards an external factor. When a trigger is activated the part of the brain that has stored the trauma from the past experience reacts in order to protect the person from being hurt again.

A different possibility in the above scenario is that the child who has been neglected learnt that in order to receive love from their caregivers and therefore survive is to do more for others and give more to others in order to feel that they deserve the love they need, a crucial aspect for their development and survival. This creates an individual with anxious attachment, who empathizes too much with the emotions and needs of other people around them due to their higher sensitivity towards their external world which never made them feel safe. All the above will guide the person to neglect their self and prioritize others as a copping mechanism to survive. Again this is how their brain is wired and this is how the individual is programmed to behave and act due to their earlier experiences in life. People who are extremely compassionate may forget themselves and their needs just because they have placed themselves totally in the place of another and truly felt them. This sounds very altruistic and it can definitely happen if one is not aware of their own wounds and how their past experiences are controlling their choices.

3. Withdrawn Compassion: Another reason of not feeling compassion for others can be also due to the constant experience of being neglected or invalidated or not being prioritized, especially during a very crucial or important phase in one's life, for example during pregnancy, sickness or childbirth, during a period of time where one has very specific and important needs not met and also during important events in their life that have been ignored by others. When one or more of the above incidents take place, one might feel deeply affected, especially when they expect the response or support of their loved ones during an immense stage of their life but this need is constantly not met. When such an incident happens within a relationship or during a lifelong interaction of two people, then the person who is affected or both rise their defenses in a level where they cannot be present or available anymore for the other. This can happen in an unconscious or conscious manner and it comes from deep disappointment alongside the need to protect one's self from the behavior of the other.

As human beings, we need to feel supported, seen, understood, accepted and loved in a daily basis and anything less than that will create rapture in our relationships, and stop the flow of compassion between ourselves and others. When we feel constantly that there is no flow of giving and receiving between us and others, especially in the emotional level, or when we feel that we constantly give without receiving within a romantic relationship or friendship, it is most probably because our friend or partner is experiencing blocked or wounded compassion and it is up to us whether we want to invest in such relationships by giving time, communicating and addressing the issue and finally supporting the other person in their healing process.

The above organized categories of non-compassion and how it appears to people are my own articulated discoveries based on my life, clients' and students' life throughout the years and it is not a product of evidenced-based research produced by myself or anyone else. This is neither a fixed opinion, it is more like an observation of life that can evolve in the future and which I took the initiative to communicate and express at the current stage. My wish is to provide some information and invite you to contemplate on the subject in the way that serves YOU the best. Furthermore, this is an invitation to think and observe compassion around you, how do you feel compassion, if you do and how is being given to you, or not.

I love you.

And remember,

Everything you seek, lies within your Self.

Heart to Heart,

Christina

© Christina Georgiou