What quality could bring us all greater happiness, peace and wellbeing? According to both ancient wisdom and modern science, the answer is compassion.
Compassion is a powerful universal value. It’s defined as an empathetic understanding and care, alongside an altruistic desire to alleviate suffering. Essentially, it’s all about relating with kindness, rather than stances of judgement, criticism and contempt. In doing so, compassion helps to bolster our resilience, improve our relationships and support our physical, mental and emotional health.
Compassion can be directed towards ourselves and others – and in both cases is proven to positively impact our wellbeing. Studies have shown that increased compassion for others is related to greater happiness and self-esteem, along with decreased depression and anxiety. It’s also shown to promote social connection and help buffer against physiological reactivity to stress. Being compassionate towards ourselves is proven to improve our psychological wellbeing and is associated with emotional intelligence and wisdom. Self-compassion is also shown to help protect against burnout and support our capacity to cope with difficult situations.
Cultivating compassion
The best place to start practicing compassion is within. Many of us are tougher and more critical of ourselves than we ever would be towards others. Self-compassion involves treating ourselves with the same loving awareness, kindness and patience we would show a good friend. Learning to be more forgiving and accepting of ourselves helps us to build a better internal relationship and navigate difficulties with greater ease. It also supports us to make changes through a sense of care for our wellbeing, rather than feelings of inadequacy.
There are many ways we can cultivate self-compassion. One is to give ourselves greater tenderness and care – especially when we fail, make mistakes or are going through a tough time. Another is to notice the way you talk to yourself. Is it supportive or harsh and critical? Could you reframe this in a more encouraging way?
Practising mindfulness can also help. Learning to observe and to be with our thoughts and emotions – rather than avoiding or conversely over-identifying with them – can help us to maintain perspective and balance when we experience difficult situations and emotions, or don’t achieve the results we hoped for.
Practices such as these are powerful tools for nurturing a sense of self-compassion. And they can help us to treat others with greater compassion too, recognising our common humanity and desire to be peaceful and well.
Loving-kindness meditation
Loving-kindness meditation – a Buddhist practice also known as metta meditation – is another wonderful way to direct goodwill towards ourselves and others and to cultivate compassion. There are many different variations on loving-kindness meditation. Below is a short practice that offers a great starting point:
1. Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes.
2. Begin to deepen your breath. Visualise or feel the breath moving in the centre of your chest – the heart centre.
3. Bring your focus first to yourself. Mentally repeat: ‘May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease.’ You may wish to bring an image of yourself into your mind’s eye as you continue to repeat these phrases. Connect to the feeling of wishing yourself warmth and happiness, and any inner sensations that arise.
4. After a time, shift your attention and bring to mind a loved one. Then repeat the phrases: ‘May you be happy. May you be well. May you be safe. May you be peaceful and at ease.’ Focus on the kindness and intention embedded in these words.
5. Continue the meditation, with the option to bring to mind friends, family, pets, acquaintances, your wider community, those you have difficulties with, and eventually all living beings. Repeat these same phrases of goodwill towards them, allowing yourself to feel the inner sensation of heartfelt kindness.
6. Once you have finished, take a moment to once again feel the breath in the centre of your chest.
7. To close the practice, open your eyes and bring your attention back into the room.