Keep Cultivating Compassion for Others

Source: Josh Bartok/used with permission

Part 2 of a 2-part series.

by Lizabeth Roemer, Ph.D., and Josh Bartok

In part 1 of this series, we provided some suggestions for cultivating compassion for others, noting that caring for others helps us care for ourselves, and caring for ourselves is also of benefit to others. Here we provide some additional suggestions to help us all cultivate care and compassion for others, particularly when we may find it challenging to do so.

Acknowledging (and having compassion for) our own mistakes and limitations

When we are able to turn toward and recognize our own imperfections, and do so with care, it opens us up to be kinder to others when they, too, are imperfect or make mistakes. An earlier post provided suggestions for mindfully working with our own mistakes. We can bring similar practices to awareness of larger failures—times we hurt other people despite our best intentions or didn’t show up in the way that we want to for other people. When we practice this regularly, we can more easily recall the times we fell short of our own aspirations as we notice others who are acting in ways that we don’t agree with. We can remember that we don’t always like our own actions and that we have sometimes been hurtful or lacking. This can help us to care for another, potentially building a bridge to repair what may have happened between us.

When we reflect on our own mistakes, we may notice the ways we’ve gotten caught up in our own reactivity, our own desires or aversions, or in self-righteousness. We can see the ways these tendencies in ourselves lead us to cause harm, and, likewise, these tendencies are also what lead others to cause harm. And this itself is something we have in common with others. Moreover, a proverb reminds us that when we point an accusatory figure at others, we are simultaneously pointing three fingers back at ourselves.

Recognizing the nature of minds through awareness of our own minds

An earlier post on cultivating self-compassion described the ways that mindfulness practices that help us to see the nature of our own minds can help us to have more natural compassion for ourselves. Similarly, our awareness of the ways our minds work (for instance, sometimes busy, sometimes stuck in a critical loop, sometimes only able to notice potential threats) can help us to feel kindness toward others. We can compassionately remember that we aren’t the only ones who have minds (and bodies) that react unskillfully to situations, carry painful past experiences, and ruminatively anticipate the future. We can extend the compassion that arises as we notice our own internal workings to include the other humans we interact with, who have their own challenging internal workings. Moreover, we can use this recognition to foster in ourselves a sense of connectedness to others; it is an alternative to “othering.”

Recognizing common humanity

Research shows that humans naturally feel empathy for people they see as similar to them and can have more trouble empathizing with people who seem more separate or different (Batson & Ahmad, 2009). Often, this tendency is exacerbated by messages that can drive us apart from one another or encourage connection with one group and disconnection from another. However, we can counter this by working to notice common humanity with folks who might appear different or more distant from our experience. We can notice how they, like us, interact with their loved ones, celebrate joy, or appreciate nature to build our sense of connection and commonality, which will enhance our natural empathy and compassion. Exposure to the lives of people who seem more distant from us through novels, movies, shows, or interviews can also enhance our sense of common humanity. The previous suggestions also help to build a sense of common humanity—we all experience failures, and we all have minds and internal reactions that can interfere with our values-based actions.

Attending to context and systemic factors

Compassion for others is enhanced when we consider the fuller context of their lives. I (LR), as a white person who holds a number of privileged identities in the United States, do my best to continually work to recognize that people who hold various marginalized identities face numerous stressors and challenges that I do not regularly face, resulting in different lived experiences. Continually learning about systemic factors can help us to better recognize the toll of these factors and naturally enhances the compassion we feel for folks in various contexts. When we assume that others are operating in the same context as we are, we can fail to understand their experience, which can lessen our compassion and lead to us being hurtful in ways that aren’t consistent with how we want to be in the world.

Learning from the many writers, activists, and friends who hold marginalized identities we may not can contribute to our learning and facilitate our ability to deepen our compassionate understanding. One of many excellent examples of writing that can expand our perspective and help us understand oppressive contexts is Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race. For folks from marginalized backgrounds, recognizing one’s own context can facilitate self-compassion, while recognizing how structural and other contextual factors affect others can facilitate compassion for others.

Include yourself in compassion practices

Lapses in compassion for others, just like lapses in self-compassion, are a natural part of being human. When we do notice that we have responded to a person, a story, or an event with judgment instead of care, rather than getting caught up in a self-critical loop, we can practice care for ourselves, consider what is interfering with our compassion, reflect on how we want to choose to act in this particular circumstance, and then act from that more expansive awareness. And we can, and must, do this again and again and again.