Quotes About Compassion

do together in the part on learning to rise, when we own our hard stories and rumble with them, we can write a new ending—an ending that includes how we're going to use what we've survived to be more compassionate and empathic. When we deny our stories of struggle, they own us. They own us, and they drive our behavior, emotions, thinking, and leading.

For most of us, being an "easy mark" has come to mean being a chump or a sucker or a pushover—shaming identities that are associated with weakness and a lack of street smarts. For the strangers who broke bread at my grandmother's house, the mark was a sign of courage and compassion.

Wouldn't it be better if we could be kinder, but firmer?

All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion

regardless of our intentions, we can't force people to make positive changes by putting them down, threatening them with rejection, humiliating them in front of others or belittling them.

When we treat people as objects, we dehumanize them. We do something really terrible to their souls and to our own. Martin Buber, an Austrian-born philosopher, wrote about the differences between an I-it relationship and an I-you relationship. An I-it relationship is basically what we create when we are in transactions with people whom we treat like objects--people who are simply there to serve us or complete a task. I-you relationships are characterized by human connection and empathy.

I think it's also important to ask, "What need is driving this behavior?" and "Am I trying to reach, hurt, or connect with someone specifically, and is this the right way to do it?

Empathy is connecting to the emotions that underpin an experience

When we hear stories about shame that don't fit with our experiences, our first reaction is often to distance ourselves from the experiences—" My mother would never say that" or "I don't get women who don't enjoy sex" or "She's so naïve—her husband's a wacko." The distancing turns very quickly into blame, judgment and separation. This fuels the shame epidemic. Let

Empathy is a strange and powerful thing. There is no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It's simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly

Mean and nasty is my default setting. It doesn't take courage for me to be shaming back. I can use my shame superpowers for evil in a split second. Letting myself feel hurt—that's a totally different story. I think your default is my courage.

I'm not here so my business self can talk to their business selves. I'm here to talk from my heart to their hearts. This is who I am.

Laura's courage is acknowledging hurt without running from it, and my courage is acknowledging hurt and not hurting back. We also agreed that cruelty is never brave—it's mostly cheap and easy, especially in today's culture.

Shame and humiliation will never be effective social justice tools.

In the case of "schadenfreude," it simply means pleasure or joy derived from someone else's suffering or misfortune.

I say "counterfeit" because when we see someone who we don't like, we disagree with, or is outside our group stumble, fall, or fail, it's tempting to celebrate that suffering together and to stir up collective emotion. That kind of bonding might feel good for a moment, but nothing that celebrates the humiliation or pain of another person builds lasting connection.

the absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering. It

Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind

There is no us and them when it comes to numbing—we all do it. The question is to what degree. And, when we're talking about the pain surrounding addiction, it's never a self-contained storm, it's a tornado.

When we're looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, able to bend, and, most of all, we need someone who embraces us for our strengths and struggles. We need to honor our struggle by sharing it with someone who has earned the right to hear it. When we're looking for compassion, it's about connecting with the right person at the right time about the right issue.

When we are relieved or happy to see someone held accountable for wrongdoing, we're not automatically celebrating their suffering, but more often we're grateful for the healing that accountability brings to those who have been affected by the wrongdoing.

When someone else is suffering and we feel joy, there is decreased activity in the area of the brain that processes empathy and increased activity in the reward centers.

We invite compassion onto our lives when we act compassionately toward ourselves and others, and we feel connected in our lives when we reach out and connect.

Self awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead.