Compassion: Hello Freedom. Goodbye Toxicity

Picture this: You're driving on a crowded highway in the middle of the afternoon. It's hot, and your car's air conditioner is on the fritz. You stayed up all night finishing a project for work, and your boss still wasn't happy with the results. Your mind is switching frantically between the fear of getting fired and the fear that you'll now be late to your son's soccer game because of all this traffic. Then, as your anxiety is reaching fever pitch, a woman in a minivan comes out of nowhere to cut you off. You slam on your brakes, barely missing her rear bumper, and you swear loudly, shaking your fist at her-making sure that she sees your angry gesture in her rear view mirror. You feel your anxiety turn to anger, and you spend the rest of the drive replaying the moment in your mind and watching that anger grow.

We've all been there. It's easy to lose our cool, especially when we're already tense or anxious, having a bad day or just in a bad mood. Sometimes we even feel like our angry outburst is just what we need to help our mental state. Let's take it out on them-we'll feel better! The thing is, it usually doesn't make us feel any better. Anger is wasted mental energy, and it only adds to our negative, tense, anxious and helpless feelings. Eventually, this anger becomes our pattern, affecting our relationships and leaving us feeling isolated and disconnected. So if anger isn't the answer, what is?

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Man, that guy has all the best one liners. Ok, so compassion is how to make it through difficult situations, but what does that really mean and how do I get there?

What is Compassion?

Compassion can be defined as empathy for others and a desire to help those in need, but it involves so much more than that. Compassion is a moving out of ourselves and into another, reaching out and trying to give rather than being so focused on receiving. It is a mental attitude toward others and ourselves, as we hope that everyone we encounter is blessed with happiness and relieved of suffering. Compassion is an integral part of all seven aspects of wellness.

We all know we're supposed to be "nice," but this concept often produces misdirected action. Acting with compassion is not the same thing as being nice, at least not the way we usually interpret niceness. Being "nice" has become synonymous with doing what we're told or expected to do, whether or not we believe that the action we're being asked to take is good for us, or others. We believe that being "nice" means putting ourselves out to make others happy, or doing whatever we must to keep from rocking the boat. While selfless giving is often a byproduct of a compassionate attitude, it's entirely different from the giving we do when we're hoping to get something out of it.

If we're giving just so others will see us as "nice," we'll feel resentful when they don't give back in kind. At the very least, we've put our energies into changing the way other people think and feel, which is a losing battle. And being seen as "nice" doesn't yield any of the gifts of actually being compassionate. Compassion doesn't have to involve action at all, though it usually does. It is a feeling or attitude that we generate within ourselves toward others. Sometimes, the most compassionate act we can perform is to respect someone's boundaries and leave him or her alone.

First S