Compassion is selfish and you need it.
Thinking about compassion as a moral imperative — that we should be nice — is missing the point and choosing to make our lives miserable. Here’s how to use it to your advantage instead.
Compassion is one of those words that’s used a lot but not widely understood.
It comes from the latin: Compati, meaning ‘suffer with’.
It doesn’t sound very alluring, does it?
But to suffer with can simply mean to understand and fully accept that others are feeling ‘something’ which is perfectly valid to them but doesn’t have to affect us.
Put into practice this can help us feel less stressed and defensive, more open and curious, and more likely to have an easier path through life.
1. Understanding reality
That others feel things, and these feelings are perfectly valid to them is inarguable to most people, I imagine.
Although often — particularly in conflict — we want to deny the idea that others are feeling something or if they are, that their feelings or ideas are invalid.
This might be because our interpretation of their feelings implies that we‘ve done something wrong, or that they’re objecting to something we feel is important.
But at the same time we rarely question or deny our own feelings. In fact we often hold on to the idea that our feelings are the very definition of reality.
If you’re angry, it must be because there’s something to be angry about, surely?
Therefore, it must be the same for others.
Which means that when we deny or ignore that others are feeling something, we are literally arguing with reality.
So here we have the premise that when we don’t practice ‘compassion’ we are choosing to argue with reality. And I propose that every time we argue with reality, we can only lose (as Byron Katie originally said)
Let’s now look at why we’re all feeling these feelings — and how come we all feel differently about different things.
2. Understanding our delusions
Putting it crudely, our feelings and ideas are the result of our unique, individual conditioning. The experiences we had growing up and the stories we were told by those around us, from our parents and siblings to the messages we got from TV.
Our feelings are not a reflection of objective reality. They are by definition subjective. A collection of stories and ideas made to feel real as they shaped our understanding of the world.
There’s nothing weird, weak or fanciful about this — without this process we wouldn’t be able to navigate daily life.
Research shows that 80% of the information we use to make everyday decisions comes from inside our heads — only 20% is ‘live data’ from our senses.
Without this data bank and reference guide we’d fall apart every morning when we tried to understand what breakfast cereal was or how to put on some trousers.
But it’s not so useful for relationships, communication and conflict because we’re experiencing the words and actions of other people through the lens of our past rather than understanding what’s really going on for them, right now.
By this, I mean that how our brains learned to relate to others in the past — particularly strong reactions to people who were important to us at the time — trigger scripts that dictate our feelings about the people in the present.
So, the second premise here is that while all feelings are real and valid to those that feel them, they are also subjective and — essentially — a delusion about the objective world.
Where does all this leave us?
- All feelings are perfectly real and valid for the people that have them, regardless of whether we like them or not. And when we invalidate or dismiss those feelings, all we are doing is arguing with reality.
- All feelings are ultimately a delusion about objective reality, confusing conditioning and past experiences with what’s happening outside of ourselves. We believe that what we’re feeling must be right, and anything contradicting that is ‘wrong’.
3. Putting it into practice
You might be wondering why we would choose to accept these (seemingly contradictory) ideas and how on earth you put them into practice.
Firstly, when you regularly find other people’s views difficult, annoying, scary or obnoxious, it causes you to suffer.
Your heart rate can go up putting stress on your organs and wearing them out.
Your mind can race, keeping you awake, distracting you from your work or being with your loved ones.
Secondly, when you argue with or deny other people’s feelings you still know that they feel they’re right and this causes you further suffering (see above).
Put into practice, this thing called compassion gives you the choice to:
- Accept everyone’s feelings and opinions— including our own — as perfectly valid to the person that holds them.
- Accept everyone’s feelings and opinions — including our own — as temporary delusions that only really tell us about someone’s past.
When we can do this, we immediately take away all the stress and suffering that comes with believing we have to defend ourselves against, or deny, other people’s feelings.
(We also reduce the stress and suffering that comes from taking those feelings on — when we realise these are the result of subjective beliefs which can change and will pass, it doesn’t make sense to wallow in the pit with someone.)
When we use compassion to fully accept how someone is feeling, rather than closing down to it or fighting it, we have more options available to us — we can be curious, for example, instead of self-righteous.
And when people feel that we’re curious rather than judging or condemning, only then are they open to the potential for change. When they feel no resistance, only understanding, they have nothing to fight against.
Lastly, when we accept our own feelings and treat them with the same lightness instead of being swallowed up by them or believing all the stories that our internal monologue tells us, we can turn that curiosity towards ourselves.
Instead of ‘Poor me!’ we can try asking why we feel this way, and what might we need to change if we didn’t want to get triggered into irritation, anxiety or stress by certain people or behaviours. This is ‘Self-compassion’.
None of this takes the responsibility away from others (or ourselves) for our words and actions but given we can’t control what others do or say, wouldn’t life be better if we had a bit more selfish compassion in our lives?
Want to learn more? Join ‘How to fight well’ — a six-week online course in how to get more confident and comfortable with difference and disagreement. Book a place for 2019 here
