2) Mindfulness & Self-Compassion

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Category: Connect

Published: Sunday, 31 January 2021 14:06

Written by Cherry

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'When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.'    

                                Pema Chödrön - 'Start Where You Are'

In his book 'The mindful path to self-compassion' Christopher Germer writes :

'Mindfulness has to be experienced to be known. It can't be expressed adequately in words. A moment of mindfulness is a kind of awareness that comes before words, such as the twinkling of stars before we call them the Big Dipper or a dash of red at the door before we recognise it as a friend wearing a new red dress. Our brains go through this preverbal level of awareness all the time, but we're normally too caught up in the drama of everyday life to notice.' (p.17)

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'Compassion comes from the Latin roots com (with) and pati (suffer), or to "suffer with". When we offer genuine compassion, we join a person in his or her suffering. Being compassionate means that we recognise when someone is in pain, we abandon our fear or resistance to it, and a natural feeling of love and kindness flows toward the suffering individual.' (p 33).

When considering healthcare it's useful to consider the difference between empathy and compassion .. in his article 'Overcoming Burnout: Moving from Empathy to Compassion' psychopharmacologist Ronald Siegal wrote:

'... resonating empathically to pain day in and day out can be overwhelming, leaving us exhausted, emotionally shut-down, and burnt out.

There's an alternative to this empathy fatigue that until recently received little attention from clinicians or researchers. It involves deliberately cultivating compassion rather than empathy .. Compassion involves a particular sort of empathy - empathy for painful experiences - the stuff we hear about all day at work ... but compassion also involves an additional element. It includes an altruistic wish, a desire for the other person to feel better or be well. When our friend or client is hurting, we feel his or her pain and we have a wish in our heart for our friend to feel better. These needn't be pie-in-the sky wishes. We might wish, for example, that  friend or client with stage four cancer have a peaceful last few months, or an easy death, not necessarily a miracle cure.' (Praxis Blog, July 3, 2019)

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On self-compassion Germer says:

'Self-compassion is a form of acceptance. Whereas acceptance usually refers to what's happening to us - accepting a feeling or a thought - self-compassion is acceptance of the person to whom it's happening. It's acceptance of ourselves while we're in pain.

'(It) is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others. it's a small shift in the direction of our attention that can make all the difference in our lives, both when we're in intense pain and as we negotiate the travails of daily life. WE all have the instinct for self-compassion, perhaps forgotten or suppressed, that's even stronger than the instinct to resist suffering. Fortunately, self-compassion can be cultivated by anyone.' (pp 33.34)

It is often said that we need to tend to ourselves before we can truly tend to others. If our own body/mind vessel is empty, paradoxically our offering to others may be at huge personal cost.

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With Tibetan Buddhism roots, mindfulness (clear-seeing) and compassion are together sometimes referred to as two wings of a bird:

'The two wings of clear-seeing and compassion are inseparable: both are essential in liberating us from the trance. They work together, mutually reinforcing each other. (Tara Brach: Unfolding the Wings of Acceptance, May 4, 2012, from website tarabrach.com).

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In secular mindfulness the 'Breathing Space' form has been used in MBSR, MBCT and other mindfulness based programmes - acting as a bridge to bring awareness into our lives as we encounter everyday stresses, strains and distractions. In 'Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living', Erik van den Brink and Frits Koster weave multiple compassionate threads into this practice form - using breathing spaces with kindness and compassion - based on our need to regulate our innate threat and drive systems with soothing practices that provide kindness, compassion and connection.

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