How To (really) Foster Compassion
Three lessons learned from life in raw
Two years ago I stood at an emotional crossroads. The road I chose helped me to cultivate compassion and put love at the top of my agenda. I offer you three pieces of advice on how to do the same…
I’m a lucky man. Though there have been challenges, I’ve never been on the streets or struggled for a hot meal, never had to stand up for something as fundamental as my sexuality or my gender or my background, never been through such emotional turmoil that I’ve stopped to really question the person I’ve become.
It’s given me a guarded experience of life. The ‘luxury’ of being emotionally disconnected. I’d been taught to be ‘strong’, to ‘get on in life’, never to cry; shorthand for uncompassionate.
Then, almost two years ago to the day, our firstborn son was delivered to us. After 5 days of testing, scans, blood tests, and the battlefield setting of a maternity ward, they told us he had a profound and incurable brain disorder.
In the months that followed, I was given the choice: bend or break. I chose to bend, change my world view and embrace compassion.
We are made of stories
From the day we begin to grasp language, our world is created by those around us. The nicknames our parents give and the school-report boxes we’re stuffed into: stories like ‘scruffy’, ‘intelligent if only they applied themselves’, ‘day-dreamer’, shape us in ways that can stick for the rest of our lives.
James Victore, artist, author, and passion-stoking school-of-life disciple says a surefire way to become more inclined to something is by retelling the same story. A good way to foster anxiety, for example, is to keep introducing yourself as an anxious person. If you want to be known as unreliable, shout it to the rooftops. (For more, Feck Perfuction is an awesome and accessible introduction to James’ writings.)
When the news about our little boy was delivered, I was holding onto the story I’d always told and been told: one of emotional strength. And my first thought was to remove my wife from the situation. I wanted her out of the doctor’s review room so I could ask hard questions: “Will he die?”, seeing it as my responsibility to take the brunt of the emotional blow so I could protect her. She proved, in that moment and forever after, that she had more than a match for my outdated version of ‘strength’. She asked the impossible question herself and the first cracks in my armour showed.
“Doctor, how long will he live for?”
I cried, not properly — it took me months to understand the difference between really crying and letting a few tears slip past a bitten lip— and for the first time I saw the shadow of the story that had shaped me since I was a kid. If I was crying, did that mean I wasn’t strong?
Slowly, my worldview shifted. I learned that ‘strength’ is way too much of a generalisation to live by; that flexibility and adaptability outshine rigidity; that sobbing in the arms of loved ones is a gift of deep compassion and shared connection, not weakness.
Ask yourself: what are the stories that have been shaping you?
Who told you you were weak? Who told you you couldn’t sing? Who says you don’t deserve to be loved for who you are?
The goal of an exercise like this isn’t to give yourself a short-term shot of inspiration, but to give a name to the feelings that rise up. Instead of ‘fixing’ your own behaviours, the first step is to be curious, and if you can get to the bottom of where your defining stories came from you might start to see yourself in a different light. You could even glimpse yourself the way others do.
For further reading, try Richard Hollway’s 2020 release Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe.
With practice, curiosity will lead to self-understanding and self-kindness. You might choose to keep some of the stories you’ve been told. You might go easier on yourself. You might let in love. And that’s the root of the superpower for loving others.
Side note: you will never be weak for accessing your emotions.
I would encourage anyone with a lump in their throat to see if they can let it go. Especially if it feels harder than keeping it lodged there. And, with kindness, I would invite them to see how much more the world seems to glow when those tears come.
Listen: really, truly listen
Over the months of getting to know our little boy and the health challenges he faces — epileptic seizures, a life-threatening swallow, global developmental delay — we’ve sat across the table from specialists and consultants of every stripe. We’ve explained our story to friends and family. Talked to strangers on the street.
The reactions we’ve had can be put under five headlines:
1. I hear you, I’m here if you need me.
2. That sounds really hard, I can’t imagine how difficult it is for you.
3. I have a family member who…
4. Have you tried these practical resources?
5. I believe everything will turn out fine, modern medicine is incredible.
From my experience, the lower down the list you go, the less helpful these responses are (note: this is particularly in relation to new, high-pressure situations). In fact, when we heard number 5 from a passing technician in a hospital, it came over as callous and hurtful.
I’ll break the whole list down, but first, the takeaway:
Are you really listening?
When someone is under extreme pressure or trauma, the most important thing is to hear, or to put it in more compassionate terms: to allow someone to be heard.
Anything beyond listening and being present, even if your intentions are good, could very easily fall foul of fulfilling your own need to feel helpful. This is a pitfall. The goal isn’t for you to feel helpful. The goal is for the other to feel supported.
Here’s the full breakdown:
1. I hear you, I’m here if you need me: In my experience, this is exactly the sentiment to show you are on the same frequency as the person in need. “You are heard.”
My wife and I have a pact to always share our hardest thoughts, even if it feels wrong. Without seeking to fix or compare, we make the other know that they’ve been heard.
2. That sounds really hard, I can’t imagine how difficult it is for you: Although this leaves the mouth with the right feeling of compassion, it can find the ear in a different way.
First, you’re changing the subject. By using words like ‘hard’ and ‘difficult’, you’re implying a comparison to something else. What is ‘hard’ unless there's something ‘easy’ to compare it to?
Second, you’re oversimplifying things. By choosing any descriptive words you’re telling the listener you’ve judged the situation and come to an immediate conclusion.
In our example, people were talking about our beautiful little boy. In our darkest hour, we didn’t want to be thinking of other children and we definitely don’t want a line of people telling us it’s all dark and gloomy and ‘difficult’ when we’re head over heels in love and our house is full of his laughter.
3. I have a family member who… As in point 2, this moves the conversation away from the person in need. Every situation is unique. Focus on this one.
More importantly, this is an attempt at problem-solving, a huge misstep when it comes to practicing compassion. Remember the goal is to listen, not to fix. Even if the comparison is well made and there are some really useful tidbits to share, when someone is in deep emotional strife it’s not the time to offer advice and insight. There are several painful steps between trauma and practical action.
4. Have you tried these very practical resources? This is in the same territory as 3. It means well, but it moves the focus away from the person in need. What’s worse is that it’s matter-of-fact, when the hard times like these are desperate for matter-of-heart.
5. I believe everything will turn out fine, modern medicine is incredible. This, if you’ll let me be poetic, is like ‘flicking your horror over your shoulder’.
In our case, the best clinicians in the country still say they can’t possibly know what the future looks like. Comments like the one above are offhand, impersonal, and, at least in our case, so far from the truth that they make us feel utterly helpless.
Bonus insight
If you drew a line between some of the helpful and unhelpful parts of the above reactions, it might look something like the difference between sympathy and empathy. The former being a kind of disdainful pat on the head, which puts the person in need into the ‘child’ position, not one of equality.
As Brene Brown, the superstar Texan researcher tells us “Empathy fuels connection, sympathy drives disconnection.”
Curiosity is the greatest gift to compassion
If stories have the power to shape who we are, words are the things we should be investigating. Whenever we reach for a common word or phrase, it’s an opportunity for us to be curious.
Take for example: “I am in pain”. The word pain brings with it a whole stable of supporting words. Usually negative. Often from a place of victimhood. “I’m in pain, so I’ll need taking care of, I won’t be able to do the things I normally do.” I don’t say this to trivialise pain, which can be debilitating, but to offer a different perspective…
What does it look like to investigate the feeling? Are there other words that can be applied before picking a catch-all phrase like ‘pain’? Is there a feeling of warmth, heat, a prickling sensation? It can empower us to unmask the detail of an experience instead of defaulting to our habitual responses.
In the example of our disabled son, we had an opportunity to take a position of victimhood: “Why us? Do we deserve this? Will we ever be able to lead a normal life?” or, alternatively, to investigate the feelings as they came up. “What does it mean to be a carer? What opportunities does this give us to learn?” And in taking that position, we approached our challenge as empowered guardians.
Leading us to one of the most powerful things we’ve learned.
Curiosity kills ignorance
If something feels ‘other’, like seeing poor social behaviour, and you can cultivate a feeling of curiosity before judging the situation, you will have access to a world of compassion. Even if someone is acting out of violence or hatred, before condemning them, what does it mean to imagine the circumstances that led to that moment? What are the conditions that separate you? Is there an alternative timeline, upbringing or context that would put you in the same shoes?
The same is true when someone is in need. Before you rush to offer solutions or sum up how you feel, try to be curious about their situation. Go in with an honest, earnest enquiry to learn.
When you feel yourself reaching for a quick fix or anecdote of your own, try a question instead.
Kind curiosity
As the parent of a disabled son, I find disability less of a difficult thing to approach. It’s not an active decision I made in my life, but a set of circumstances that have allowed me to move from a position of uncomfortable ignorance to kind curiosity. Compassion.
And over time I am cultivating this feeling not just for those situations I can empathise with, but in any moment I can stop and catch myself in a habitual pattern of phrasing.
“Before I choose the phrase to summarise how I feel about this, what does it mean to be curious?”
Enlightened self-interest
The deep-down, ancient, brilliant upshot of behaving in these ways…
– Asking questions of the stories that make us
– Listening to allow the other to be heard
– Having kind curiosity
…is that we improve life not just for others, but for ourselves. By learning to better signal to, communicate with and understand the people around us, we set a precedent for how we would like to be treated.
As many of the world’s great enlightened masters tell us, the more you practice self-understanding, the better you can serve the world.
A final piece of inspiration
I would encourage you to share these ideas with others as you practice them. Nothing galvanises compassion and curiosity more than being reminded and humbled by the people you love and respect.
Spend some time reading Thich Nhat Hanh (The Art of Living was my introduction) for a much more authoritative voice than mine.
I’ll be getting my next reminder at the kitchen table with my resilient wife and our mindfulness master of a son.
MrCrosbay (same username on Instagram) believes the world is a richer place when we connect in-depth and authenticity. Light and dark. Laments as well as love songs.
He is 50% poet, 50% language and story facilitator for organisations with purpose. Find him in the evening hours, tending to the fire.
