Quotes About Compassion

In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people's feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him

So what I say is this: You can have compassion without forgiving. There are many ways to move on, and pretending to feel a certain way isn't one of them.

I regularly made an effort to remember one of the most important lessons from my training: There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses?

Sometimes the changes you want in another person aren't on that person's agenda

Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.

Your feelings don't have to mesh with what you think they should be," he explained. "They'll be there regardless, so you might as well welcome them because they hold important clues." How many times had I said something similar to my own patients? But here I feel as if I'm hearing this for the first time. Don't judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don't be afraid of the truth.

In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people's feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty.

you're going to get hurt sometimes, and no matter how much you love somebody, you will at times hurt that person, not because you want to, but because you're human

Even in the best possible relationship, you're going to get hurt sometimes, and no matter how much you love somebody, you will at times hurt that person, not because you want to, but because you're human.

You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me.

But unlike neurosurgeons, we gravitate toward the sensitive area, pressing delicately on it, even if it makes the patient feel uncomfortable.

Our training has taught us theories and tools and techniques, but whirring beneath our hard-earned expertise is the fact that we know just how hard it is to be a person. Which is to say, we still come to work each day as ourselves—with our own sets of vulnerabilities, our own longings and insecurities, and our own histories. Of all my credentials as a therapist, my most significant is that I'm a card-carrying member of the human race.

we are asking forgiveness of others to avoid the harder work of forgiving ourselves.

Forgiveness is a tricky thing, in the way that apologies can be. Are you apologizing because it makes you feel better or because it will make the other person feel better? Are you sorry for what you've done or are you simply trying to placate the other person who believes you should be sorry for the thing you feel completely justified in having done? Who is the apology for?

maybe part of being a good dad is allowing yourself the full range of human emotions, of really living, even if living fully can sometimes be harder than not.

Our experiences with this person are important because we're probably feeling something pretty similar to what everyone else in this patient's life feels.

but maybe part of being a good dad is allowing yourself the full range of human emotions, of really living, even if living fully can sometimes be harder than not.

You can have compassion without forgiving. There are many ways to move on and pretending to feel a certain way isn't one of them.

Even though I'm the one who should be holding her hand, even though she's the one with the missing appendages and a massive infection, she's reassuring me. And though this could make a great story line on ER, in that millisecond, I know I won't be working on that show much longer. I am going to medical school.

Cuando caes en la compasión del idiota, evitas agitar las aguas para no lastimar a otra persona, aunque las aguas necesiten ser agitadas y tu compasión acabe resultando más perjudicial que tu sinceridad.

Late-in-life love has the benefit of being especially forgiving, generous, sensitive — and urgent.

When working with couples on empathy, often I'll say, "Before you speak, ask yourself, What is this going to feel like to the person I'm speaking to? " I make a mental note to share this with John one day.

I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you. Namast'ay in Bed . . . that's exactly how I feel!

Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room,