410: What True Compassion Is and How to Employ It By Default, part cinq (What Lies at the Heart of Living Simply Luxuriously)

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“Just as we are wired to be in connection with each other, we are wired with an impulse to help, with an instinct for compassion.” —Deb Dana, author of Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

Empathy in action.

While to empathize with another is a good step, a step that acknowledges our shared humanity, it is when we are motivated to act to alleviate the suffering that it becomes compassion. This compassion we are going to talk about today is a gift we give others as much as we need to give it to ourselves.

Compassion is a choice, but it is a natural choice to choose and each time we do, along with being curious and honoring our true self, “daily living takes on a sense of expansion and possibility.”

When we began this 7-part series at the first of the month, I shared with you the guiding axiom that defines who TSLL is written for: “The thinking and compassionate person’s blog with everyday ‘sides’ of living well to savor.” In Part One we talked about what being a ‘thinking person’ meant in the context of living simply luxuriously, and it was shared that ‘thinking’ goes hand-in-hand with being ‘compassionate’. They are equally important.

Without compassion, we can learn all the skills and gain all the knowledge that would be helpful, but if we are only thinking, we become a robot, unfeeling, and unable to see the humanity, the sentient souls (any creature capable of feelings, sensations, and consciousness), that surround us, and are part of our world. We are also unable to honor our true self and reach our full potential.

When we pair being a thinking person with being compassionate, we are on the path to building a life of true contentment. Of grounding ourselves each day in an enduring peace that no matter what is swirling around outside of us, we can hold ourselves in this calm and choose a loving, constructive path forward. We then arrive on the other side of the unwanted moments with a conscience that is at peace.

Today’s episode, part five, will explore exactly what compassion is, the many benefits of engaging with compassion and how to make it become our default in how we live our everydays.

When we observe compassionate acts by others, we spontaneously are inspired, elevated as Deb Dana shares to want to help others and/or become a better person ourselves. Conversely, when we extend compassion, we inspire others in positive ways we may never know. An exercise in paying it forward materializes without effort, rather as a natural effect.

As we explored in Part Four of this series as we dove deep into the three different types of our nervous system, the observation of a compassionate act prompts a beneficial response in the ventral system, the most evolved part of our nervous system. The response is to rest, the vagal ‘brake’ is utilized and our nervous system learns by example to be compassionate a way to calm the nervous system.

By slowing down our days, holding ourself fully in the present moment so that we see these acts of kindness and compassion that truly do surround us each day, but prior to our awareness, we took them for granted, we strengthen our nervous system, specifically the ventral system, which elevates our quality of life in the everyday. Keeping us calm, at ease and able to regulate our emotions as we are able to see all that is, observe and respond if necessary rather than react. This all begins with observing someone’s action of compassion and we can be that person for others.

“We are each made for goodness, love, and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The quote that began our conversation today states an awesome finding by research – compassion is part of our human nature. It is only through cultural conditioning that we are weaned away from being compassionate. Even more beautifully, Buddhist psychology explains why it is in our nature to be compassionate: “It arises from our interconnection with all things.” First of all, I think this is very good news to note, and since we are forever capable of learning as the brain is plastic, we can rewire our brain, as we talked about in-depth in this episode #393 to return to doing, and thus trusting, that being compassionate is the wise and brave choice. It is the choice that brings us closer to peace, not only for ourself, but others and thus the world.

episode #393: How to Change Your Mind (literally), So You Can Change Your Life

What We Misunderstand about Compassion

Benefits of Compassion

Yet another beautiful part of being a human being, and now knowing that we are by nature inclined to be compassionate is that exercising this skill improves our well-being. We are hardwired should we choose to be brave enough to be compassionate, to be healthy, content and thus happy. So it is up to each of us to stop getting in our own way.

Let’s take a look at the benefits.

Health benefits

Reduced risk of heart disease
Strengthened immune response
Increased resilience to stress
Decreased anxiety and depression

Relationship benefits

See the humanity in others – see commonalities
Capable of forgiveness (not forgetting)

Community/World/Cultural benefits

Reduce/Prevent Ignorance
Reduce/Prevent Injustice which stems from ignorance and fear
Reduce/Prevent Racism
Reduce/Prevent Exploitation
Reduce/Prevent Violence
All sentient beings are seen, respected and honored

Life Journey benefits

Become brave enough to open our heart and true self up to the world
Be vulnerable without ‘armoring’

How to Put Compassion to Work by Default in Our Everyday Lives

Throughout this 7-part series, I have tried to be intentional about the order in which I shared each segment. If you haven’t yet read Part Four, I encourage you to do so now, or be sure to do so in tandem with today’s post because how we welcome compassion into our daily lives by default requires having the knowledge of the nervous system.

As was shared in Monday’s post, there are three parts of the nervous system, and there is a hierarchy, similar to the three ‘mind’s we’ve talked about in the past in this post. The Dorsal Vagal is the system of shutdown; the Sympathetic is the system of action – fight or flight so to speak; and the most elevated and advanced, where we want to hold ourselves most often is the Ventral Vagal, the system of connection. Be sure to learn more about each of these in this post.

Become skilled in understanding the nervous system

Holding ourself in the part of the nervous system that is the Ventral Vagal is necessary in order to both extend and receive compassion. Case in point, “the vagus [nerve] is sometimes called the compassion nerve.” When we understand what each of the three nervous systems prompt our body (not necessarily our mind) to do, we know that it is impossible to be compassionate when we are in a state of flight or fear or completely shutdown.

Quiet the mind

Being compassionate is really quite simple. Because it is our natural inclination to be so, it is the resistance that causes us suffering. Something we talked about in Part Two, suffering is not inevitable, and only caused by throwing the second dart – in this case our choice to not be compassionate.

How we can consistently be compassionate is to be able to quiet the mind. Quieting in the mind comes from being skilled in mindfulness and meditation. Meditation is a tool to help us be more mindful. It is not stopping our thoughts, but rather learning the ability to rest in awareness which is essentially, stepping back from our thoughts and not being led by the nose wherever our ’emotion of the moment’ wants to take us. That is when conditioning wins, and we merely go along for the ride. However, to live a life of contentment, we must acknowledge that our mind can be our ally if we understand how it works, and helping us to do this is meditation.

When we quiet the mind, we notice what our flight or fight response (Sympathetic) might have been or our apathetic (Dorsal Vagal) response would have wanted us to do. By pausing in awareness, we note this. We acknowledge where these fears arose from, and because we have healed (something we talk about how to do in Part Four), we shift back into alignment with the Ventral Vagal system and then are able to be compassionate.

Engage with loving-kindness each circumstance you meet (paired with integrity)

“Our individual lives and whole society,” as Jack Kornfield teaches in his book The Wise Heart, “are built upon innumerable acts of kindness.” No matter how ‘survialistic’ other voices in our world would want us to believe, at our core, as human beings, we survive not by ostracizing and harming, but by being kind. That is why each of us and our kin and loved ones came to be and live and experience life.

This interdependence rests on the shoulders of compassionate acts. “Compassion is not a struggle or a sacrifice. Within our body, compassion is natural and intuitive.” It initially is recognized when we individually feel pain or our physically hurt, and our first response is to take care of ourselves. That is compassion. Being compassionate includes being so to our own self just as much as to others. It is through trauma and fear that we begin to abandon the practice of compassion. And this makes sense when we understand the nervous system. We are in fear, so we are then residing in the Sympathetic, and if we are retreating or doing nothing, we are Dorsal Vagal system. In neither of these can we be compassionate; we are simply trying to survive.

Enter engaging with loving-kindness. Both to others and ourself, when we do this, we begin to ever so gradually and then more comfortably align with the Ventral Vagal, and this enables us to engage with compassion. It is very literal. The alignment with our Ventral Vagal system must occur in order to extend kindness and also be able to observe it and then we can be inspired to engage in such a way. This cycle continues and we will see our default eventually is of being compassionate.

While we will never know what will happen in the world each day when we wake up and step into it with our full and loving self, when we have the knowledge of how to think well (as explored in Part One) and understand how to engage with compassion, we will find ourself at ease knowing we can and will bring more peace to the world in our actions and words and be at peace within because our mind is not resting in fear or apathy (as explored in Part Four). Thus, life, each day, becomes a joy to live, and we do so fully and enthusiastically. Savoring the ‘sides’ we have chosen (read Part Three here where we explore what and how our ‘sides’ elevate our experience when we keep them in their place respectively to being a thinking and compassionate person), and elevating our everydays and stepping more fully into living a life of true contentment.

The series continues next Monday, where we explore in Part Five, the Art and Power of the Skill of Savoring.

~Explore the syllabus of TSLL’s Contentment Masterclass here.