Loopydays

For my next al anon meeting the topic is Compassion. I am trying tonged my head around what I feel compassion is. I find it hard to feel compassion as u equate it with pitying someone , which I try not to do.
I know that I find it very difficult to feel any kind feelings towards my RAH - hard to do that when it is never reciprocated. Has any one any insight to what compassion is?

Pelican

I define compassion as the mutual respect of another life.
I respect the life of another as being significant.

The respect of another's life does not give me the authority to control the outcome of their life.

The mutal respect of another's life does not take away from the value of my own life either.

I have compassion for your life. You are significant. Your life matters. You are important. I give you the dignity of living your one precious life as you so desire. My compassion during times that you may be suffering is to identify with your suffering and offer encouragement. My compassion during times that you may be celebrating is to delight in your successes.

Compassion is mutual respect of another's life and all it entails.

m1k3

Pelican, that is very much my view of compassion now. I used to think it was seeing the suffering in the world and doing something to fix it. But as I work my practice I see that it is recognizing the suffering that we all share. I also understand now that the only suffering I can fix is mine. Compassion is something that binds me to everyone else and makes me more human. Compassion to me is like the doctors say, do no harm.

Your friend,

Loopydays

Thank you both- this makes such a difference- I was stuck in thinking it was pity. I live in a very catholic country,where people tend to say 'god love him!' and I have always seen it as an excuse. Now I have something I can work on!

Pelican

Here is a helpful tip from one of our sticky posts:

4. Inability to Differentiate Love from Sympathy

Maybe you are hooked by the inability to differentiate the difference between love and sympathy or compassion for your relationship partners. You find yourself feeling sorry for your relationship partners and the warm feelings which this generates makes you think that you are in love with them. The bigger the problems your relationship partners have, the bigger the "love" seems to you. Because the problems can get bigger and more complex, they succeed in hooking you to lower your boundaries so that you begin to give more and more of yourself to your "pitiable" relationship partners out of the "love" you feel. The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this hook is: "It is OK to have sympathy and compassion for my relationship partners, but that does not mean that I have to sacrifice my life to "save" or "rescue" my partners. Sympathy and compassion are emotions I know well and I will work hard to differentiate them from what love is. When I feel sympathy and compassion for my relationship partners, I will remind myself that it is not the same as loving them. The ability to feel sympathy and compassion for another human being is a nice quality of mine and I will be sure to use it in a healthy and non-emotionally hooked way in the future in my relationships."


Here is the link that contains the entire article:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...tionships.html

Tuffgirl

This is the definition from Websters: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it

And here's the difference in the meaning to me now - I often felt I had to act on the desire to alleviate it. And act with full-on in your face we're gonna fix this now behavior.

Now, I can have compassion and allow others to find the way to alleviate their pain and suffering in their own way. I can be available when asked, but I have boundaries on what being "available" looks like. I can let others do for themselves instead of feeling responsible to do for them.

JenT1968

probably OT but I recently attended a healthcare conference about person-centred care and one of the keynote speakers led a discussion on compassion, (I won't even get into the patent lack of compassion that was evident in that room: pity, paternalism, and dismissiveness yes, but not a whole lot of compassion).

The conversation started with how it was hard to feel compassion without understanding, and that it came at a heavy emotional cost for the proffessionals. The speaker (very humble, gentle psychiatrist) was brilliant, really excellent, there were people from A&E there who dealt with attempted suicides and thought them completely selfish timewasters, so she gave the story of what drove one of her patients to attempt it, in briliant, but terrible detail.

she didn't shame anyone in the room, and brought us all along wihth her. her summing up was that compassion wasn't sympathy or empathy or pity, and that you didn't have to understand a person or their life or their choices in order to have compassion, and nor would it take such an emotional toll, if you started from a point of complete respect for other people's absolute right to sovereignty over their own life, veiwing them as the authority on that life and an equal in all respects.

That to have compassion for an elderly patient who wanted their tea at a different time than everyone else, one didn't have to understand why: just understand that it was important to him, and therefore if it could be accomodated, would be a compassionate thing to do, and if not, take the time to explain and see if another solution could be found.

And to be compassionate towards an addict who tried repeatedly to take their own life one didn't have to understand addiction, or their choice to continue using or why they felt their life wasn't worth living or what had happened in their childhood, but accept their absolute right to make those choices, understand those choices weren't made in order to waste NHS resources, or hurt society or to take the proverbial out of A&E staff, but were because of complex personal reasons.

She said the desire to do something about it, had to have a rider on it that "helping" wasn't compassionate if it over-rode the patient's (in this case) desires.

It was a very interesting discussion.

Tuffgirl

Jen, that was excellent. Thanks for sharing.
~T

Loopydays

Thank you so much- your comments have really helped. Last night really tried to have a long look at myself and realized that I had lost my compassion over the years- it had disappeared behind the wall I had built, and am now trying to break down. The relief when this finally hit me was huge,and so I sat with tears flowing, and for the first time in my life I experienced cleansing tears.
I truly realized that if the past 5 weeks since my husband has been home from rehab has been difficult for me,then it must be hell for him-
We still have a lot of work to do- and if he isn't addressing issues as quickly as I am- thAt is his life- but I shall keep on the journey with alcoholism and Al Anon- and learn how to change my behaviour. I wasn't as nice a person that I thought I was!!

pinkdog

Compassion is not sympathy. It is empathy. I know how you feel. I want you to feel better. Like the Golden Rule. How would you want someone to treat you if you were having the same issues. That's my definition of compassion. :ghug3

SoaringSpirits

As codies we have a tendency to hear a word like this and apply it first to our A. Don't forget to focus your compassion on YOU. It was easier for me to show detached, loving compassion toward my AH once I was able to show compassion for myself (and act on my desire to alleviate my own suffering) first.

ConeyIslandHigh

Selfless understanding.

transformyself

I can't do compassion right now with AH, and I know what it looks like so I'm sure of that.

For me, I am experiencing compassion when I am emotionally and intellectually and spiritually able to be still and see others for what they are and allow them to be there and support them in the appropriate way for them at the time.

I have helped two wonderful women die at home with hospice in the last year and that was the most compassionate thing I've ever done. Giving of myself, no expectation, allowing them to walk their path.

I"ve also given strangers money, rides and food because I saw they needed it. That felt like compassion to me. Doing what's good for others with no expectation.

Can't do that with AH though. He gets no more of me. He's lost that privilege.