Empathy & Compassion
“What is Empathy & Compassion?”
Empathy
Feeling
Empathy is a visceral feeling that another feels.
Compassion
Action
“Non-discriminative passion” – Sadhguru
Compassion is an other-oriented emotional response to perceived suffering that involves wanting to care or those in need by offering your hand – (Goetz et al., 2010).
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion” – Dalai Lama
“I always looked at empathy and compassion in primarily one way – to understand others and feel compassionate towards them, but as I started reading more about this first step towards wholeness, I discovered a deeper understanding of empathy and how there are many layers to genuinely feel the compassion. It’s not just a natural tendency one may have but actually a habit we can cultivate to improve the quality of our own lives and develop more meaningful relationships with everyone we interact with.” – Deepa Patel
“How is it going to benefit me?”
- National Institutes of Health showed that the “pleasure centers” in the brain, i.e., the parts of the brain that are active when we experience pleasure (like dessert, money, and sex), are equally active when we observe someone giving money to charity[7]
- Study at University of British Columbia, participants received a sum of money and half of the participants were instructed to spend the money on themselves; the other half was told to spend the money on others. At the end of the study, participants who had spent money on others felt significantly happier than those who had spent money on themselves[8]
- A group led by Sheethal Reddy at Emory with foster children showed that a compassion intervention increased hopefulness in the children[9]
- Steve Cole at the University of California, and APS Fellow Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina showed that it lowers inflammation in body. The results were reported at Stanford Medical School’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education’s (CCARE) inaugural Science of Compassion conference in 2012)
Mental Wellbeing
- Promotes overall wellbeing, happiness, social connection, self-esteem, and self-kindness[1][2] [3][4]
- Decreases symptoms of depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and reactivity to stress[10][11][12][14]
- Therapeutic approach for individuals with affective disorders characterized by high self-criticism.[13]
- Helps with addiction, reduces smoking among participants with low readiness to change [15]
- Improves memory, enhances cognitive functioning, positive cognitive restructuring, and higher interpersonal orientation[16]
Physical Wellbeing
- Enhances immune function
- Lowers inflammation which can contributes to chronic medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke, heart attack, and cancer[17][19]
- Positive aging, and increase longevity[18]
- It helps recover from disease faster[20]
- Helps relieve pain by stimulating the midbrain Periaqueductal gray (PAG) which is involved in descending endogenous opioids that inhibit ascending pain signals before they reach the cortex[21][22]
Social & Professional Wellbeing
- Promotes positive parenting by improving parent-child relationships, increases affections.
- Improves relationships, romantic partners will be more likely to be faithful, and remain in long-term monogamous bonds[6]
- Reduces burn-out among medical professionals[23]
- Important motivator of cooperative behavior between patients and staff achieving important care outcomes[25]
- Increases teacher job satisfaction, organizational commitment, sense of emotional vigor, and better learning within classrooms[24][26]
“What do I need to do?”
- Practice empathy/compassion every minute of the day
- “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion” Dalai Lama
- Have positive thoughts about yourself and others
- Dalai Lama: “I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day.”
- Start practice within your house, extend to friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and strangers
- Have a self-compassion break
- Keep a compassion journal
- Self-Talk: Think of a situation that is causing you stress and tell yourself “I am struggling in this moment and that’s ok”, “I am not alone”, and offer yourself soothing words of acceptance.[27]
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” ― Theodore Roosevelt