Compassion: complicated yet simple ...
... and worth exploring, since authoritarians fear it so much
When I was a Sunday School kid, many years ago, compassion was simple AF.
It meant blond Jesus surrounded by chubby-faced white children, the kind who were obviously far more angelic than I.
It meant breaking my eraser in half to give half to someone who forgot to bring theirs to school that day.
It meant not making a fuss, when everyone but me won a prize in the games at my birthday party.
And it meant accepting that my Dad’s devotion to his patients was a perfectly good reason for him to be somewhat absent from my early childhood.
When I was a kid, compassion was indistinguishable from martyrdom, and I am by no means alone in this.
But kid-Janette had it all wrong.
Compassion has four dimensions, not just one, and the more skilfully and strategically we can wield it, the more peace we can create in a chaotic world.
The other and the self
Like so many little girls, I was trained to notice and fulfil the needs of others while ignoring my own; a recipe for martyrdom and exhaustion.
Compassion in full 360º means compassion for oneself as well as for the other.
So what does compassion actually mean?
It’s from the Latin, and basically means ‘to suffer with’.
When I have compassion for you, I witness your suffering and feel it as part of our shared humanity.
When I have compassion for you, it prevents my sliding into judgement or blame, which opens up far more ways that I might support you.
When I have compassion for you, it unlocks patience and kindness within me, thereby helping me access my own creativity and lateral thinking.
The same is true when I choose to have compassion for myself.
Problem-solving suddenly gets a whole lot easier, stress is reduced, and possibility blooms.
And it works best - for myself and for the other - when I also master the other two dimensions.
The cherisher and the champion
The face of compassion we know best is gentle and kind, like white bread Jesus in that Sunday School poster.
It knows how to cherish, how to nurture, and how to be soft and tender. But that’s only half the picture.
Compassion can also be a fierce champion, standing up courageously on behalf of those who are suffering.
We see it in people who show up to protect their neighbours from ICE, or who show up in frog and clown and dino costumes, to say no to tyranny.
We see it in organisations like Doctors Without Borders (Médicins Sans Frontieres), and the individuals who sign up to provide healthcare services in troubles parts of the world.
We see it in huge numbers of people who choose to be allies for various non-dominant groups, even when they do it imperfectly and clumsily.
And, of course, it’s incomplete if we’re not cherishing and championing ourselves AND the other.
Put them together
There are four dimensions to compassion and they work best when we weave them into a strong tapestry. And if you’re like most folks, I bet there are some you’re really good at, and others which feel like an unfamiliar stretch.
cherishing the other - often conflated with self-sacrifice and martyrdom, highly encouraged in little girls
cherishing yourself - often conflated with ‘being selfish’, leads to depletion, self-loathing and misery, discouraged in women
championing the other - the dimension of compassion which the far right absolutely hates (and why you’ll see it condemned as ‘sinful’ by some)
championing yourself - often conflated with ‘being a diva’, also much hated by those in power when people from a non-dominant group do it
Each one of these deserves a whole article of its own, of course!
But if you feel like any of these is less familiar or less available to you, here’s my shortcut to help you reconnect with what is, after all, a part of your birthright.
Channel your inner Cancerian crab
Cancer is the sign most familiar with compassion. Neptune does it too, but on a different scale - and that’s a conversation for another day.
Look at Cancer’s representation, the crab.
Soft and squishy on the inside - that’s the cherishing, soft-hearted part.
Also comes equipped with a hard protective shell, and some pretty impressive weaponry in the form of pincers - perfect for the championing piece.
All of us have Cancer somewhere in our natal chart.
All of us have the potential for experiencing and expressing compassion in all four dimensions.
How is your inner crab?
Which dimension feels most difficult to access for you, right now?
When you imagine the crab energy supporting you in expressing that dimension, how does it feel?
Imagine you are an extraordinarily well designed creature with a robust shell for protection, powerful pincers for standing your ground, and the ability to choose when to lead with your shell and when to open up to the squishy.
Bask in that for a few minutes, and enjoy the power of the crab.
Repeat as often as you think of it, and observe what begins to shift. Come back and report in, I’d love to know what unfolds for you!