Compassion is a dirty word!
in some contexts, especially to ourselves!
Compassion, Meh! – I can offer this to others, but hell no, not myself!
“Oh what a disgusting idea that I am compassionate towards myself”. These are the actual words of a client when I mentioned in passing, that terrible word, compassionate. She was horrified. Her reasons? Well, they were around being weak, letting herself off the hook, would not be sharp and not complete her goals, things would slip, people would not admire her anymore for all her strengths and all the stuff she got done, she would lose her edge and not be as efficient or good at her job, amongst others. Phew! Big stakes!
photo with thanks, from : Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
If you have not read my article on the Self critic, it is very linked, our self-critic can be the voice that prevents us and tells us all the reasons why we should not be compassionate to ourselves. Here it is.
It is not an uncommon reaction and one I have noticed over the years, several times a week from my clients. But what is it, this compassion? How would you define it? We often use or reject words without really giving them any thought as to what they really mean.
I would invite you to take a moment, and write down your definition of compassion, before moving on, your own definition, not our friend, google or ChatGPT!
When I did look up the definition of compassion, thanks Google, it is pretty confusing!
For example:
“a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering” from dictionary.com
The online Oxford dictionary has more than one definition so I picked this one, (it has that cringe word pity in it): “The feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it; pity that inclines one to spare or to succour”. (I also had to look up what ‘succour’ meant, it is :” Aid, help, assistance”). Anyone else never heard that word before?
Then there is the Cambridge dictionary, (promise this is the last one, I did get a bit obsessed), “feeling or showing sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others, and wanting to help them”.
Some of that is a big cringe! Makes you want to shy away from it and agree that compassion to ourselves is a big no-no? Not many of us want to receive pity.
But just before you do that, there is a theme here, of noticing someone is in distress, feeling that distress and wanting to do something to help. I think?
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