What is compassion?

The Oxford Dictionary definition of compassion is: ‘sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others’.

Chances are, when you hear the word ‘compassion’ you think of kindness. But while kindness (not to mention sympathy and concern) play a part, actually scientific study has found that the core of compassion is courage.

You might be thinking: is there really a scientific study of compassion? The answer is yes! Paul Gilbert, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, has been researching shame and shame-based difficulties for the last 35 years, and he developed Compassion Focused Therapy to treat it. Compassion Focused Therapy is a type of psychotherapy and its foundation is ‘compassion mind training’ – in other words, learning how to be more compassionate towards yourself and other people. Gilbert also launched the Compassionate Mind Foundation, and on the foundation’s website he defines compassion as:

‘A sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it.’

The ‘courage’ part, Gilbert explains, lies in the willingness (that word again) to explore the nature and the causes of suffering:

‘The challenge is to acquire the wisdom we need to address the causes of suffering in ourselves, and others.’

Why do we need to learn self-compassion?

Imagine you’ve just come back home after an interview that didn’t go well. You might beat yourself up: ‘I’m useless, why didn’t I prepare more?’ It wouldn’t take you long, however, to realize that if you engage with that self-criticism it very quickly affects your confidence and ability to feel resilient. You may not, for example, want to go to any more interviews.

A more compassionate approach, on the other hand, can keep resilience alive. Consultant Counselling Psychologist Dr Michael Sinclair explains: ‘If we imagine sex or food, we have a whole physical arousal around it – we have an emotional and physical reaction: our mouth waters, the pulse quickens. If we bring a more compassionate self-talk to our experiences [say, of the interview after-math], the same happens: we have an emotional and physical reaction: we feel immediately calmer, safer and soothed.’

And therefore, it would follow, emotionally stronger.

What is Compassion Focused Therapy?

So back to the therapy that Professor Gilbert developed – the elements of which you can easily practise yourself to cultivate more self-kindness.

As we’ve already touched upon, Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a type of psychotherapy particularly useful for those suffering from deep feelings of shame and guilt – things we all suffer from, from time to time, but which rob us of our inner strength.

Biological evolution forms the backbone of CFT, that is, this idea that the way we think, and the way our brains are wired, is down to evolution.

Professor Gilbert believes that we have three regulation systems, or three modes of thinking and reacting:

• The Threat System: this relates to fear and anxiety, that primeval way of protecting ourselves we’ve already talked about, when sensing threat to our physical and emotional wellbeing.
• The Drive System: this involves emotions and thoughts (and chemicals) that make us determined and motivated to achieve goals. This system can make us feel quite single-minded and determined about things, often in adverse situations. It’s that ‘I won’t let this get the better of me!’ feeling.
• The Shooting System: this helps us feel safe. It activates in stressful situations when the other systems aren’t working. But it’s a very natural, evolutionary state and this is where the compassionate mind and the basis of compassionate training come in. When we’re in an adverse and stressful state, we can use this system to calm down, feel safer and think rationally.

When we’re self-critical, our thoughts become threat-focused: what if the interviewer thought I was an idiot? What if I can’t ever go to an interview again? This is our Threat System in action – in other words, our flight or fight system – and we act irrationally, trying to run away from or eradicate the threat. The problem is, though, when we’re in that state, we can’t reflect. We’re just running away and that affects our resilience and ability to grow and learn from our experience – to thrive going forward.

When we are in the compassionate mind (the Soothing System), we are in a safer, calmer space and are more able to rationalize and think coolly about how to move on and help ourselves in a wise way.

The central technique of Compassion Focused Therapy is Compassionate Mind Training (CMT), which teaches skills and attributes of compassion. CMT helps transform problematic patterns of thinking and emotions related to anxiety, shame, self-criticism and depersonalization (separating yourself from your pain) into more helpful patterns of thinking that enable us to calm down and think rationally.

Be kind to yourself

In her book Rising Strong, researcher and author Brené Brown takes us through the ‘Rising Strong’ process she identified and developed for what she calls ‘getting up after a fall’ or, in other words, overcoming whatever adversity comes our way.

Compassion is a big part of this process and is something that can be learnt by anyone.

In fact, in order to help understand how to cultivate and practise self-compassion, let’s look at the ‘rising strong’ process.

Brown breaks it down into three specific parts: the Reckoning, the Rumble and the Revolution. It’s a multi-faceted process (not to mention a fascinating one) that can be described as follows:

1. The Reckoning: This is the part when you realize you have been ‘triggered’. This simply means realizing something has happened that has knocked you emotionally off course. In other words, it’s coming into contact with adversity.
2. The Rumble: This is the stage where you explore your feelings and emotions around the situation you find yourself in. What stories are you telling yourself about your predicament? Are they true or untrue? If you dig beneath the surface of what’s happened – what emotions are you really rumbling with here? Jealousy, fear or self-righteousness, for example.
3. The Revolution: This is when you use what you’ve learned in the Rumble part to grow and change as a person.

If we are wise, it’s in the Rumble part of this process that we can take the opportunity to cultivate self-compassion. As we’ve already discussed, self-awareness is always the first step in any journey of personal growth and it’s the same when trying to grow compassion. So, the first thing to do is to get curious about our thoughts and feelings.

Brown outlines three vital questions in her book that we should ask ourselves while rumbling with a difficult situation or trauma. Doing this can really help us to develop compassion and therefore build inner strength.

1. What more do I need to learn and understand about the difficult situation I find myself in?

   For example, say you have fallen out with your mother and it’s causing you great distress, what more could you understand about the conflict? How did the argument start? Who – if anyone – started it? What other factors were affecting things – for example, were you both tired? Had you been drinking? Could this row actually be about something else entirely? Something deeper, that with more reflection (and compassion!) you could excavate?

2. What more do I need to learn and understand about the people in the story?

   What was your mother’s standpoint in the row? Were other people discussed or involved in the argument? What were their parts in it? Get curious and examine the details because the more you understand, the more you will build your capacity for compassion.

3. What more do I need to learn and understand about myself?

   Look closely at your reactions: are you engaging in familiar behavioural patterns? Are these helpful or working for you? And if not, why not? Could you come at the problem or situation from a different perspective?

The importance of boundaries when it 
comes to compassion

We’ve already established that developing and exercising compassion, both in terms of ourselves and other people, not only makes us feel stronger, but helps to build more strength too. It’s quite basic really: when we are nice to ourselves and other people, we feel better. And when we feel better and happier, we feel stronger.

One thing that might surprise you, however, is that being compassionate does not mean always putting yourself out, saying ‘yes’ to everything and generally being a martyred saint. In fact, on the contrary, all those things are likely to drain your inner reserves of strength. Interestingly, through her research, Brené Brown, author of Rising Strong, discovered that rather than the people who put themselves out all the time, it was the ones who had the most defined and well-respected boundaries who were the most compassionate. Why is this? ‘Because their boundaries keep them out of resentment’, she says.

It makes perfect sense if we do not place value on our own time and what we can and cannot do – or more importantly, what we want and do not want to do – then we cannot expect other people to. What happens then is that we become resentful and bitter and end up feeling taken for granted – all of which are emotions and experiences that drain us of our strength and resources. If we can learn to enforce healthy boundaries, then we can avoid this. What’s more, we will be living with more honesty and integrity – a life that is in line with our values.

Another way in which to cultivate our capacity for compassion is to be courageous enough to wade into our darkness. By this, we mean to confront our worst fears and our weaknesses, to acknowledge our failures and embrace our pain. After all, it is only when we know our own dark side that we can be truly compassionate to others going through their darkness – that 
we can begin to know how they feel.

“Appreciating and valuing yourself is the most important component of self-love.”

Liggy Webb, consultant in behavioural skills and author of Resilience

Perhaps it’s worth remembering too that a great by-product of developing and practising compassion is that we stop comparing ourselves to other people and judge others less. Instead, when we practise compassion, we look for and see what is good 
in ourselves and others and, in turn, show the very best side of ourselves. Since comparing oneself and the envy and feelings of injustice that can bring are all huge strength robbers, this is a major bonus!

Loneliness makes us less resilient

We are becoming a more isolated society and this is affecting our ability to tackle and manage crises and to bounce back – as well as our physical health. This is why:

“In times of adversity … it becomes increasingly important to make positive connections with those 
around you.”

Liggy Webb, consultant in behavioural skills and author of Resilience

If our expectations of social contact are not met, our body alerts us that something is wrong. We feel physically threatened. If the loneliness persists it starts to interfere with our ability to regulate the emotions that we associate with loneliness. This basically means that things get blown out of proportion: our sadness, fears for the future, fears there’s something inherently ‘wrong with us’ increase and distort the way we see ourselves in relation to others.

Tests by US psychologists Roy Baumeister and Jean Twenge showed that the expectation of isolation reduces our willpower and perseverance. This is manifested by our struggle to control our habits and behaviour. For example, we might engage in more destructive behaviours like smoking, drinking and casual sex for instant gratification, but these only increase our sense of aloneness and reduce our resilience. Lonely people report more exposure to stress and are more likely to withdraw from engaging with others, which makes them even more lonely. More interestingly, perhaps, loneliness and lack of connection with other people actually affects our cardiovascular system and our immune system.

On the flipside, relationships are good for us! Love promotes health and strengthens the immune system and our cardiovascular functions. In 2007, the ‘Focus on Family’ report by the Office for National Statistics reported that married people of both sexes had better health. It’s not just about spouses or partners though. People with a good circle of close friends reap health benefits. In 2006, a study of 3000 nurses with breast cancer found that women without close friends were four times more likely to die than those with 10 or more friends.

How can we become more connected?

So, if the secret to resilience is connection, the question that poses itself is: how can we become more connected? By working on our relationships – that’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it? Relationships with other people are our main source of connection. They are also our main source of support when going through tough times. But there is also growing evidence to say that our relationships with other people influence hugely how we cope in the face of crisis. In other words, how resilient we are.

The more support you can draw from the people around you, the more confidence you will have in your ability to get through what you need to get through. And it’s not the number of friends or people in your life that matter, either, it’s the quality of those relationships, so being able to create and then tend to them is a hugely important life skill for real strength. In order to maintain healthy relationships, it is vital to know:

• How they work and what is expected of you as a partner in a relationship.
• Not to take them for granted.
• To make commitments and put in the time necessary to keep them in good shape.

Let’s explore ways to do all of the above:

• Talking: by sharing our thoughts, feelings and struggles, we increase our own and other peoples’ understanding of them and therefore our feelings of connection.
• Appreciate family: our family members are the people we are most likely to neglect or take for granted, but they also offer the most potential for deep, meaningful connections. So try to appreciate and accept who your mother, father, sister is, rather than trying to change them; work with what you have, rather than bemoaning what you don’t.
• Random acts of kindness: being kind causes elevated levels of dopamine in the brain and so we get a natural high, often referred to as ‘Helper’s High’. Acts of kindness are often accompanied by emotional warmth. Emotional warmth produces the hormone, oxytocin, in the brain and throughout the body – it’s the same ‘soothing’ hormone we learned about in the ‘compassion’ section. Acts of kindness can range from volunteering to simply giving someone a compliment. Telling someone they look nice or have lost weight can give them – and you – a glow that lasts the day.

Connect to your purpose and find meaning in your life

‘Connection’ does not have to mean connecting with other people, it can be about connecting to your PURPOSE. Having a purpose means having a reason to do something and it leads to other wonderful things in relation to real strength. If we have a purpose in life we are more likely to be:

• Determined and driven.
• Happier.
• Have higher self esteem.
• Therefore, more resilient.

A great deal of research suggests that people who have purpose and meaning in their life are healthier, more resilient, happier, and more in control of their lives. They also experience less stress, anxiety and bouts of depression.

We need purpose in life just as we need to feel like we belong and connect to others, because we need to feel like we are adding value. Knowing our purpose guides us in how we choose to live our lives and what we choose to strive for over other things. In short, having purpose connects us to ourselves.