On Learning to Be Compassionate and Why It Is So Important

I’ve never been big on compassion. Instead, as the child of two fairly narcissistic people, I focused a lot on making my parents happy.

The rest of the time, I sank back into myself with the relief of a drowning sailor: You’ve done your time on the ship … now go to your rest.

By the time I was ten, I felt world-weary and exhausted. And somewhat grumpy.

My sights never got turned towards others with any real sense of caring or desire to help. I was never one to hand out dollars to street corner beggars, teach reading, or feed the homeless.

I was too busy just trying to hang on, afraid that the bottom could drop out of my own life at any moment. For most of my adult life, the bottom I was nowhere near any kind of bottom. But I believed I was … and that was enough to keep me locked in survival.

Then my daughter Teal died in 2012 and the bottom really did drop out. And ironically, it is only then that I began to discover my natural compassion. Losing a child does that to you.

All the things you were always so afraid of suddenly seem small by comparison, and so life is no longer scary. Instead, it’s just what is. You develop a new appreciation for reality, and you eschew all that is mired in illusion and false hope.

And so you can raise your head and look around, unimpeded.

That’s when you begin to realize that there is a world outside of yourself.

In my post-Teal life, I find myself connecting to strangers who I once might have judged. And I reach out with a new lightness that is both unusual, and yet very authentically me. Turns out this is the part that was getting squelched all those years ago.

When I hear that judging voice in my head, I find it fills me with remorse; I am repulsed by it. And yet, I cannot turn it off quite yet.

It still has something to say to me … what, I’m not exactly sure.

I dreamt of a lion the other night. It had once been fearsome, toothy, all those lion-esque things. But in my dream, it lay down beside me, put its head on its paws and rested. Simply because I was kind to it.

This is the richest discovery in this period of my life — the extraordinary power of loving kindness. Instead of going after those who I once judged mercilessly, I realize now that they are doing the best they can. Really. Even when it doesn’t seem like it.

Because if they actually could do any better, they would. Right?

I notice a powerful thing when I let go of being self-righteous: I don’t suffer either. It’s the old Buddhist parable of the two arrows. Buddha’s teachings point out that when suffering happens, through either an arrow life delivers to us, or one that we send out, a second arrow follows.

This is the one we inflict on ourselves. In other words, when I judge another harshly, I immediately feel several things: self-righteousness, anger, and contempt.

And yet, my opportunity at that moment is to drop the judgement and simply be kind. If I’m the one who wants to send out the first arrow, I try to stop. I remind myself to be like the lion in my dream, and chill the hell out before the arrow ever hits the quiver.

Then I sit on my hands, or take myself for a walk. Or I meditate and journal if it really gets bad. And sometimes I don’t succeed.

If that first arrow flies, then I know I must immediately make my amends. And forgive myself as well. Because that second arrow is always in my hands, wanting to be sent. Yet it is also in my control.

How do I forgive myself so easily? Simple. I now realize I’m a total work in progress.

I’m not going to get this human thing totally right anytime soon. I’m just not – and expecting it is simply too much to ask. So I practice self-compassion, and I move on.

A little compassion can take us far in this short life. It is the grease that keeps the wheels of kindness moving.

And so all of life becomes far more enjoyable.

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