CULTIVATING COMPASSION

I thought it would be easy to create a reflection about Cultivating Compassion, our congregational theme for the month of October. After all, compassion is such a positive subject, filled with warmth, connection, and love…right? But Rev. Scott Tayler, the UU minister at the heart of the Soul Matters Sharing Circle, convinced me otherwise.

"[C]ompassion is not just niceness and thoughtful feelings," Rev. Tayler writes in this month's thematic OVERVIEW. "It's about something deeper: an impulse that drives us to action." It's one thing to empathize with someone else's pain, but "compassion…urges us to do something about that pain," he explains. "When we feel compassion – real compassion – we don't just understand another's pain, we want it to stop. And then we do what's needed to make it stop."

Pity says, "I see your pain."

Sympathy says, "I understand your pain."

Empathy says, "I feel your pain."

Compassion says, "I am with you in your pain and I will help."

– Rabbi Esther Adler

The degree to which we are willing to respond to another's pain can be challenging. Perhaps a good place to start is with ourselves. It is difficult to offer true compassion to others unless/until we are able to offer compassion to ourselves, and mastering the skill of self-compassion is not something we are encouraged to learn or practice. Here are some thoughts about the importance of self-compassion:

"Self compassion isn't about escaping your darkness

 but learning to love yourself there."

– Jennifer Healey

Author

"If your compassion does not include yourself,

 it is incomplete."

– Jack Kornfield

   Meditation teacher

"Having compassion for yourself means

that you honor and accept your humanness."

– Dr. Kristen Neff

   Self-compassion researcher

(You may learn a lot about your capacity for self-compassion by taking Dr. Neff's Self-Compassion Test.)

Among the Spiritual Exercises in this month's Ministry Packet is an opportunity to experience and explore self-compassion. To encourage us to do that, the folks at the Soul Matters Sharing Circle created Your "Be Gentle with Yourself" List. They suggest we choose and engage with at least five of the options on this list, after which we might consider reflecting on that experience by asking questions such as these:

• Was there a common theme among my choices that helps me understand my deeper longings?

• Did I struggle with choosing or doing any of the activities?

• What did I learn about myself and others from engaging with the activities I chose?

Cultivating our compassion muscle, toward both ourselves and others, is not easy in today's world. "We are being conditioned to shut down," Rev. Cameron Trimble explains. "The barrage of cruelty, confusion, spectacle, and spin…wears on our capacity to feel…. That is the danger of this moment – not just political collapse or climate unraveling or the erosion of public trust – but the numbing of our souls." Rev. Trimble's antidote to all of these dangers is to engage in tender self-compassion. "The way forward is not found in shock or speed," he suggests, "but in our willingness to sit in the quiet, to return to our breath, to feel what is true, and to let that truth shape us into more faithful, courageous people."

Rev. Trimble seems to be talking about our ability to keep Love at the center of everything we do. Isn't that what true compassion really requires of us? The Latin roots of the word "compassion" mean "to suffer together." But for me, the true meaning of "compassion" is "to love together." And loving – together – is at the very heart of our Unitarian Universalist principles.

What will you do to cultivate greater compassion this month?

Seeking a deeper dive into CULTIVATING COMPASSION?

Check out the one-page CULTIVATING COMPASSION Overview,

and the complete CULTIVATING COMPASSION ministry packet.