“How can I become more compassionate?”
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“I had an argument this week with my boyfriend about scheduling and making plans. I’ve been reflecting on it, and I realized that when I’m not looking about life through a compassionate filter, I’m incredibly quick to make everything about me, and that leads to me feeling hurt, annoyed, or defensive. But when I am able to look at things compassionately, I have this amazingly wise inner dialogue that says, “Okay, sometimes Boyfriend gets anxious about scheduling, and he is also natural people-pleaser – how can you approach this situation in a way that is fair to both of you?
Unfortunately, though, in most conflicts, I find myself being reactive or defensive. I’d like to be more compassionate instead, especially in these charged moments. What can I do?”
We all have moments where we’re fired up, triggered, or respond to things in a way that doesn’t reflect our most noble aims or highest self. Just this very morning I had one of these moments, where I responded to someone I love with all of my heart from a place of fear and lack, rather than from a place of love and peace.
It’s part of being human - but what you’re asking in this question is also part of being human, and to my mind, the single greatest thing about us: the ability to decide who and how we want to be, and then to carry out and execute on that decision. What an amazing gift this is! The promise of a better world actually hinges upon this individual choice, for every time we make a choice like this, we are contributing both to the collective well-being of the world and to our own well-being. The choice to become more compassionate is nothing less radical than 1) a decision to embark upon a lifelong project and 2) a decision to change the world for the better.
So, dear, you rock. Thanks for making this choice.
But… how do you live it?
The good news is that scientists have been concerning themselves with this inquiry in earnest for the last thirty years, and theologians, philosophers, and other humans have been thinking about it for the last few thousand years, so we have learned a lot about how to become more compassionate.
What is compassion?
Compassion is a core human need and a core societal need. Humans need to care for others and to be cared for to flourish, much like our society needs to have people caring for it (and it caring for people) for it to flourish. Compassion is the reason that our species is still alive; it is the reason we have relationships that lead to well-being; it is the central expression of our humanity.
Compassion is a complex topic to study and to understand because it involves multiple aspects of being, bringing together your brain, your heart, and your actions.
Scientists break it down into four key components:
Becoming aware of another person’s suffering
Feeling an emotional concern in response to that suffering
Feeling a desire to see the suffering relieved
Responding to relieve that suffering
You can see the flow of how it works in those components, flowing from awareness to action. The gorgeous thing about compassion is that it naturally weaves together you and another in a web of connection.
Compassion is different from empathy, which is defined as feeling withanother person’s suffering as though it is your own. While empathy is very powerful, it can often limit our ability to take action. Empathy often leads to something called empathic distress, where you take on that person’s pain to the extent that you are unable to act: you are in so much pain with them that you are not equipped to help. When we feel empathy, the part of our brain called the pain matrix lights up, which is where we feel our own pain, too.
Compassion, on the other hand, is about feeling enough awareness and love at the same time that you both want to help and are able to do so. So while empathy can be a crucial ingredient to kickstarting compassion - in your example, feeling empathy for your boyfriend’s anxiety - you’re right to want to stick with compassion, which can be used to help take action to support him, you, and your relationship.
What are the benefits of compassion?
In all those studies, here are a few of the benefits that researchers have found from practicing compassion:
Helping someone surges the endorphins in your brain, like a runner’s high, but instead called the helper’s high!
Leads to a feeling of a greater purpose in life
Reduces your stress and anxiety, and buffers its’ impact upon your health
Reduces loneliness and disconnection
Makes it easier to cope with pain, loss, and suffering (studies have looked at divorce, combat, parenting an autistic child, the transition to college, chronic illnesses, and peer bullying in teenagers)
Increases your positive emotions
Outside of its impact upon us as individuals, there is an enormous benefit for compassion upon others who are touched by it, and the broader world that is impacted by it.
People who receive compassion have been shown to:
Recover physically faster from illness and harm, and psychologically from grief
Have a stronger sense of themselves as whole and capable
Are able to move on faster with their lives following great loss or suffering
A world that is more compassionate is one where we have transformed our societal structures and institutions to more highly value people as their full human selves. The more that we demand, lead, and shape our institutions to reflect their highest capabilities, the more our world will change for the benefit of all. We can each start right now by ensuring we are embodying compassion as individuals and that we are fighting to create just and supportive institutions that support the people within them.
And now we get to the heart of compassion: living it. A moment-by-moment practice that is infinitely extensible.
How can I practice compassion?
As you express so beautifully in your letter, unless we make the conscious choice to work at compassion, to make it a habit and a practice, we will tend to take the default path: of reacting rather than responding, of defense instead of openness, of missing a chance to cultivate our kindest and most loving selves.
Studies have found that the best way to become more compassionate is to start cultivating your ‘compassion muscle’. Personally, I think it’s helpful to address from two angles: build a long-term compassion muscle and also learn in-the-moment tools you can use when you need them.
Your long-term strategy: practice loving-kindness meditation
Becoming more compassionate is something that needs to be developed as a skill, strengthened through practice. You can do this through taking up the practice of loving kindness meditation.
This involves an individual placing his attention first on himself, then on a loved one, then on someone who challenges them, and ending with the whole world, offering these wishes from a place of sincere love:
“May you feel safe and protected.
May you feel happy and peaceful.
May you feel healthy and strong.
May you live with ease.”
(Try it with this audio recording here!)
If you haven’t tried this practice before, you might be shocked to see how transformational it is.
Personally, I will never forget the first time that I did this practice. It was so challenging for me to offer love to myself that I had to ease into it by imagining someone I loved, then slowly bringing those feelings to the general vicinity of me. As soon as I got close, I began to sob, realizing that I had never said these types of things to myself, that I had never allowed a helping hand to come from within to say these things that we are constantly searching for from other people or from a line on a resume or a possession on a shelf. Instead of that script, I had been telling myself for years and years that I was not enough, that I did not yet deserve to be happy, that I was not worthy of peace or love or ease. To realize that I could give myself what I had so desperately attempted to win through being smart, accomplished, funny, skinny, pretty, or perfect was so radical that it shook me for days to come.
An eight week study found that practicing loving-kindness meditation led to an increase of positive emotions and an increase in personal resources such as self-acceptance, positive relationships, and physical health, which then resulted in greater satisfaction in life and fewer depressive symptoms.
If you want to be more compassionate, start here: commit to doing a daily loving-kindness meditation, which will start to transform your brain into a more compassionate state as a default.
This practice leverages one of the other amazing things about humans: the neuroplasticity of our brains, which is the ability to constantly change the structure of our neural networks based upon the way we think and act.
The mental activity that happens inside of your brain when you think and engage creates new neural structures, which then change the way that Future You thinks and engages. Neurons that fire together, wire together. For example, if you constantly see the world as a place where you are victimized, over time, it will become more and more automatic, wearing a victim ‘groove’ into your brain, until you immediately slide into a victim mindset with every thought.
Neuroplasticity means that you can look at your natural tendencies and politely say, “No, I won’t settle for this negative, reactive mind I’ve inherited - I’m going to make my own, one that is far more loving and present.”
You can also practice this outside of a traditional meditation space. Something that I really like to do is to mentally say, every time I talk to someone, “May you be happy, safe, and loved” in my head to them. I silently say it to strangers on the street, to baristas, to anyone walking by. It gives me a jolt of joy every time.
In-the-moment strategy #1: Just like me
Part of what true compassion seeks to address is our natural self-centeredness, our belief that everything in the world revolves around us. In order to treat every single human being around us with respect and care, we must put ourselves aside as often as we can. In heated moments like arguments, our emotions take the wheel from our wise rational self, and we are no longer able to retain perspective that the other person is a human we love, respect, and admire, and we thus fail to treat them as such.
To bring the wise self back in control, one strategy you might try is to remind yourself of the ways in which your boyfriend (or any other human) is just like you.
They are just trying to be happy, just like me. They are just trying to figure it out, just like me. They are not trying to hurt me or annoy me, just like I’m not trying to hurt or annoy them. Look for things you share: be it history, a specific connection, or even the fact that your paths are crossing at this time. At the very least, you share the fact that you are both human. Think about the last time you cried, and imagine this person doing the same. Imagine them as a child, and think about what kindness you would offer that child. Whatever helps you to feel connected to them and to challenge your belief that you are the center of the universe will work.
In-the-moment strategy #2: See their pain
If you think back to the definition of compassion, remember that it always arises in response to another being’s suffering. That means that we also have to practice being able to see and be present with another person’s pain, something that most people instinctively shy away from as though it is contagious. A quick way to practice this is by being present with your boyfriend’s pain when you see him suffering, and just sitting with him in it, without trying to solve it, soothe it, or fix it. This is, in fact, one of the hardest things to master, but to my mind, one of the most important.
I have a really stupid acronym - SLAB - that I use in these moments:
S: Stop talking.
L: Look at the human across from you and look for their pain.
A: Acknowledge their pain verbally, acknowledge their humanity with love.
B: Be with them.
Here’s how you would apply SLAB in your situation:
Whatever is happening in the argument, stop and silence yourself. Express that you need a minute if you do.
Look at your boyfriend and try to see his pain. Where is it coming from? What does it feel like? What’s pushing him in this direction? What is his biggest goal right now, and what is his biggest fear? Look at his body and try to see his pain manifesting there.
Acknowledge what you see, gently and kindly. You might say “I see your anxiety and the fear that must be behind it. I’m so sad to see you suffering so much, and I just want to tell you I love you and I’m going to be here with you in this pain no matter what.”
And then just be with him and see what unfolds from there - but I can pretty much guarantee that this process will ensure your wise, compassionate inner voice comes through far louder and clearer.
If anyone has any ideas for a better acronym, I’m all ears :)
Don’t forget to be compassionate towards yourself
Self-compassion is offering yourself the same gift that you offer others. Most of us tend to not be so good at this part of it, but remember that your compassion is incomplete without offering it to yourself.
Sometimes these practices might fail you. Sometimes you might be too tired and stressed. You won’t always be able to be your most compassionate self with your boyfriend - and in those moments, it’s important not to self-flagellate, but to practice self-compassion, learn from the experience, and move on.
In these moments, you can use the SLAB process here again, but just with yourself.
S: Stop talking.
L: Look at yourself and look at your pain.
A: Acknowledge your pain in some way (I like to write mine down) and acknowledge your humanity (I say, “I am a human being who is trying my very best right now.”)
B: Be with yourself, and offer yourself love and kindness (I usually say, “I am worthy of love, care and compassion right now, just as I am.”)
Your choice to be compassionate matters
I am so grateful that you wrote today, and I hope that there is something useful in this response.
I think that compassion is the most revolutionary thing in the world, as it has the power to completely transform people and society. As we become more compassionate, we begin to expand our circle of care, from ourselves, to others we love, to others we don’t know, to the whole world. As we expand our care, we begin to feel a personal responsibility for and a calling to reduce the suffering of other beings, and to take action to do anything we can to help towards that aim.
The more you practice compassion, the happier you will be.
The more people who practice compassion, the more our world will change.
It’s honestly that simple. That’s what The New Happy is all about ❣️
Your desire to be more compassionate towards your boyfriend is just the beginning; what you are really embarking upon is the next stage of your journey towards changing our world for the better. Your goodness lifts us all up. Thank you!
“As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate.”