Pema Chödrön writes that it’s harder to feel compassion than kindness.
The reason is that to feel compassion for another person we must feel their pain. Or, if we are talking about self-compassion, we must feel our own pain.
Of course, we are hard-wired to avoid feeling pain. We actively do anything we can to circumvent pain.
So it’s no surprise that we find compassion difficult and that we are lacking it in our culture.
All the ways we keep busy or distracted — food, alcohol, drugs, sex, work, social media, busy-ness, thought loops — are ways we avoid pain, and therefore block compassion.
Creating a more compassionate society begins with holding compassion for ourselves. It begins with a willingness to sit in the pain and feel it.
This is a practice, and it’s meant to be done a little at a time. We can begin with a little toe dip and gradually expand our capacity for more, over time.
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