Fierce Compassion

Why do we think loving our Selves will make us lazy?

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Fierce Compassion

Photo by Hala Al-Asadi on Unsplash

Above my desk is a post-it note that reads, “Compassion is not tame.” I don’t know where I first heard this, maybe from Clarisa Pinkola Estes’ book Women Who Run with the Wolves, or Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance, but I can’t know for sure. 

What I do know is that ever since reading this, it’s become a mantra that I live by. 

When I share this quote to others, I sometimes get met with confused nods or an audible “hmmmm” followed by a change of subject. Those curious enough will ask me what I mean, and I always struggle to come up with a succinct answer. 

So I’m venturing today to explain what I feel when I read that post-it above my desk. 

In Spring 2017 I graduated with a Masters degree in Integrative Health. I wrote my thesis on self-compassion, because at the time it was a foreign, unattainable concept that I desperately wanted to feel.

The research from Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer confirms time and time again that self-compassion is a key factor in achieving sustainable growth and change without the threat of eventual burnout or anxiety. It’s also been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, among a list of other promising findings. 

Being someone who felt completely burnt out at age 25, this all sounded appealing.  

In Kristin Neff’s model, she defines self-compassion with three pillars:

1. Mindfulness: in order to be able to recognize when and where we could be offering ourselves more compassion, we must be aware of our present moment thoughts and feelings. 

2. Self-Kindness: the practice of meeting your present moment experience with kindness and love. Neff explains this as meeting and nurturing yourself as you would nurture a child who is struggling. 

3. Common Humanity: when we can recognize that feelings of inadequacy and suffering are not unique, and that in fact these are natural and normal parts of the human experience that everyone goes through, we are able to feel a little less alone and more accepting of our Selves. 

These three pillars are great, don’t you think? They’re to the point. More importantly they feel true. They give us a framework in which to cultivate self-compassion. While doing my research for my thesis, this all felt like such a relief for me. Here is the solution to all my self-doubt and lack of self-worth! 

So off I went after handing in my thesis, feeling as though I knew the answers and spewing the self-compassion gospel to anyone who would listen. 

The problem, I soon realized, was that no one would listen. 

Because self-compassion isn’t appealing in our world. It doesn’t promise instant gratification or external validation.

The major pushback I would get from people was the fear that if they were too nice to themselves that they’d become complacent and lack motivation. These people were married to the voice inside that said push harder, keep going, you’re worthless and lazy if you rest or take a break! 

Quite frankly, I understood. That voice inside my head had gotten me super far, too. I’d won two national hockey championships by the time I was 18. I’d graduated from a top college. By all metrics of our society, I was winning. And yet I was utterly and inexplicably exhausted, and  it was obvious to me that others around me were, too. 

People often mistake compassion with submissiveness or meekness. The obedient nurturing person who is kind to everyone, even those who don’t deserve it. The people pleaser. The archetype of the flowery, soft-spoken mother who puts everyone else’s needs before her own. 

These images of what we think compassion is makes us believe that compassion is only possible in the absence of anger or a backbone. Hell, even healthy boundaries can sometimes feel at odds with what we think compassion is. But I’ve come to realize that this is a false dichotomy that keeps us stuck in our stories of suffering. It’s a false dichotomy that’s fed to us from a young age in our patriarchal and capitalist world. 

In fact, it was my anger that inevitably led me to compassion. It was through the process of waking up to my anger - and allowing myself to feel it fully - that I was able to access compassion towards my Self and others. 

It takes a ton of energy to push harder, keep going, you’re worthless and lazy if you rest or take a break all the time. There’s so much anger, because those are fighting words. 

See for yourself. 

Close your eyes and say to yourself  “you need to keep pushing harder. You need to keep going. You’re worthless and lazy if you rest or take a break.” See what happens somatically, in your body. Do you tense up? What happens to your breath? Where are your shoulders in relation to your ears? 

What if we used all that pent up energy and channeled it into feeling compassion instead? 

For me, compassion was birthed out of a deep anger and frustration that I felt towards the life I was living. I wanted things to be different. I wanted to feel like I could be myself. I wanted to be seen and heard. 

Slowly, overtime, all the moxie I was putting into feeling angry began to shift and alchemize into a fiery compassion. The same fervent energy…transformed. 

In this way, compassion was never some passive, tame, or timid thing. It was vehement, emotional, and intense. It was a moment to moment choice; I could either feel ferociously angry or fiercely compassionate. 

I chose the latter, again and again and again. 

There has been nothing complacent or lazy about this choice. 

So what does it mean that “compassion is not tame?” I think what it means, at least to me, is that compassion, towards our Selves and to others, is a revolutionary act that takes courage.

Revolutions are often birthed out of anger and injustice. 

I think our compassion is birthed from a similar place. 

Compassion is not submissive. It is not meek. It is not lacking boundaries or a backbone. It is not synonymous with laziness. In fact, it’s the opposite. Compassion is one of the most wild, radical, feral, and affirmative acts we can take. 

And we must choose it if we want to feel the presence and peace that we crave. 

Xo, 

The Fiercely Compassionate Part

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What I’ve been reading this week:

• Alex Elle
  ’s piece on pruning the relationships that no longer fit called “Prune. Weed. Shed”

• This piece about Gaslighting from the New Yorker (trigger warning: it does talk about sexual assault)

• Susan Cain
  on Metta (lovingkindness) meditation. This is a beautiful practice in compassion.

• Loving everything from

  Alex Dobrenko`
  over at his substack, Both are True