Photo by Karolina Grabowska
In this ever-increasingly divisive world, it is becoming more important that people practice compassion cultivation—but where does compassion actually begin?
BeCompassionateNL offers effective Compassion Cultivation Training meditation courses for individuals looking to relearn how to engage with people. In this world of increasing disunity and controversy, a lot of people are beginning to see the cracks in the seams of society and the glaring lack of compassion that should be foundational to daily engagement with other people.
BeCompassionateNL is open to all students.
But FIRST, what is compassion?
Simply put, compassion is the desire to alleviate suffering . Kindness is the desire to see life going well for others. Compassion when cultivated skillfully motivates us to live in ways which will decrease suffering for ourselves and others. Compassionate empathy is cultivated when we become aware of our own suffering and that of others. As we deepen our compassionate empathy, we are filled with a strong motivation to relieve all forms of suffering and to share peace and joy with all of life.
True compassion is when there is a profound understanding that at times all living beings will suffer. Each of us will suffer in different ways and at different times in our lives. As a human being we may suffer because of minor disappointments and setbacks and we can suffer due to catastrophic accidents, financial losses, illness, warfare. Compassion calls us to recognize suffering , cultivate a strong desire to change this and to accept that as one human being alive with eight billion others that alone we cannot change the future of our planet. As one individual we can relieve some suffering . We can also join with others to relieve all kinds of suffering .
There can be no compassion without learning to self-stewardship.
To build the stamina and strength to embody compassion for others,, we must learn how to be compassionate with ourselves. Self-stewardship includes knowing how to push ourselves forward, when to take a rest, being aware of our limits, and learning to take of ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally and finanancially.
Is compassion for one’s self really that important?
If you learn how to be compassionate with ourselves , we can achieve greater contentment. We become happier as we become more aware and in tune with ourselves. Life may throw hardballs at us but you can learn to always find the silver linings. This may makes us more willing to take a risk and to move past failure. We may grow our resilience by being more self-compassionate. With support we can learn to heal even from intensely stressful and traumatic events. This will take lots of support and we must be very patient with ourselves. Cultivating self -compassion may lower our likelihood of experiencing depression, anxiety, and other difficult mental states . The comprehensive understanding, which flows from being compassionate with ourselves also leads to better overall relationships as we learn how to navigate in this world and to temper our negative impulses.
Depending on how we are raised, our social and economic conditions growing up, and the dominant cultural surrounding us learning to cultivate self- compassion and self -kindness may be very challenging as parenting styles over the past few centuries often taught that babies and children will benefit from being treated very harshly. Tragically billions of bablies and children are abused and neglected by parents who have never been taught how to nurture and love a baby and how to properly care for children and young people. Many researchers find that child abuse and neglect and domestic violence is rampant at every level of society and changing this way of being in a family is very challenging.
Here are some little steps to grow and be compassionate with yourself.
Seek help and support to move away from abusive relationships. .
There is now overwhelming evidence to show that authoritative parenting is much healthier than either authoritarian or jellyfish parenting. Many parents and families become enmeshed in abusive and destructive relationships, and this is very dangerous for babies and children in their care. All of us have a a responsibility to watch for any signs of abuse and neglect among the people we meet. However safely helping babies, infants, children , adolescents, and adults trapped in dangerous situations requires lots of training. If we find ourselves trapped in a painful and dangerous situation, self-compassion calls us to seek help as soon as we can, move out of danger, find safety and support.
Tragically many of us who experience abuse become conditioned to accept this as normal.
Most dangerously we often arer taught to blame ourselves for the bad attitudes and behaviours of a person or persons who abuse us.
It is vital to realize that no one deserves to be abused, bullied and mistreated.
Forgiveness
Everyone makes mistakes. Some people are too quick to forgive other people’s mistakes but yet judge themselves very harshly. Many cultures condition girls, children and women to accept absuse , neglect and mistreatment. Other condition people to feel entitled to all kinds of special treatment. This is massive problem for people who life in very unequal societies Sadly in 2023 most of us live in very unequaly societies. We may forgive small errors in ourselves and others. We must never forgive those who justify abuse, exclusion, injustice and all who support one law for the rich and another for the poor.
Responsibility
Enjoy life but we must never forget our responsibilities to ourselves , the people around us and our living planet.
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