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All Front Page Sections, Empathy and: Animals, Art, Compassion, Education, Empaths, Health Care, Learning, Justice, Teaching, Work, Self-empathy, Self-compassion, etc Please Click 'Follow' to receive updates. It also helps us rise in the rankings and gives us more exposure on Scoop.it. Join the Cause: Let's Find 1 Million People Who Want to Build a Culture of Empathy and Compassion http://Causes.com/EmpathyThanks so much. Edwin Rutsch, Editor http://CultureOfEmpathy.com
May 10-12, 2013 – Cultivating Compassion in Daily Life. In this 4 session seminar we will explore the benefits and cultivate the tools of of practicing compassion. Compassion is not the feeling of sadness for others, it is in desire to remove suffering. The practice of compassion is an active one – actively removing suffering in oneself and the world.
My grandfather was compulsively compassionate. As a child, I remember this quiet and gentle soul, offering love, understanding and a helping hand, to whomever he came across. Thieves and con men were no exception. When his family objected, he smiled and offered compassion anyway. Compassion was a trait at the center of his being. When I started the Ali Hasan Mangi Memorial Trust in his memory in 2008, the aim was to create a model village in his ancestral hometown of Khairo Dero, a village in southern Pakistan. A model that could be replicated elsewhere in turning poverty-stricken and forgotten rural hamlets into habitable places; complete with access to clean water, a sanitation network, housing for all, education, income-generating opportunities, and health-care services. By Naween A. Mangi
A new study suggests mindfulness meditation can help us overcome the "bystander effect. In the study, Paul Condon and Dave DeSteno of Northeastern University and Gaelle Desbordes of Massachusetts General Hospital assigned people with little or no meditation experience to one of two eight-week meditation classes, or put them on a wait list for a class. One class was a mindfulness meditation class geared toward focusing and calming the mind. The other covered similar terrain but also discussed compassion and suffering. By Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas
How can we define compassion, in a workable and understandable way, as a starting point to understanding the greatest weapon you and I will ever have ? Lets look to the internet, and Wikipedia, the first choice for the computer generation. Wikipedia describes compassion as: “Compassion is the virtue of empathy for the suffering of others. It is regarded as a fundamental part of human love and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism – foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.. Why is compassion so powerful ? I believe it changes us, and our understanding of the world. Compassion reflects the non dualistic nature. We are all in this together. And nobody gets out alive. We feel compassion because, when we see suffering, we should realise that another person’s suffering is also our own suffering. And our suffering is their suffering. We are all one, so all our suffering is one too. Even the suffering of animals is also ours to share. We all exist on this planet together. As human beings, we should be working towards relieving the suffering of everyone we meet, no matter what the nature of their suffering may be, and no matter what our relationship with them. Extract from Peach Blossom Warrior
Thinking about Health Annual Conference
26 – 28 June 2013, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Birmgingham Can the language of compassion capture the moral problems confronted by the NHS, or might it obfuscate and distract us from more subtle and demanding issues? Through a series of plenary addresses, workshops, panels and shared opportunities for discussion, ‘Compassion Fatigue’ will provide an opportunity to explore the language of compassion, and the impact that it has on the practice of health care provision. Workshops will address the politics of compassion; compassion and spirituality; compassion and nursing; compassion and the experience of the patient. Panels will bring together the perspectives of GPs, nurses and patients.
Previous research indicates that lower-class individuals experience elevated negative emotions as compared with their upper-class counterparts. We examine how the environments of lower-class individuals can also promote greater compassionate responding-that is, concern for the suffering or well-being of others. In the present research, we investigate class-based differences in dispositional compassion and its activation in situations wherein others are suffering. Across studies, relative to their upper-class counterparts, lower-class individuals reported elevated dispositional compassion (Study 1), as well as greater self-reported compassion during a compassion-inducing video (Study 2) and for another person during a social interaction (Study 3). Lower-class individuals also exhibited heart rate deceleration-a physiological response associated with orienting to the social environment and engaging with others-during the compassion-inducing video (Study 2). We discuss a potential mechanism of class-based influences on compassion, whereby lower-class individuals' are more attuned to others' distress, relative to their upper-class counterparts.
if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~Dalai Lama I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I’m not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I’m not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks. The key to developing compassion in your life is to make it a daily practice. by Leo Babauta
How do we suffer with each other in our particular circumstances? How do we suffer with people like the friends and family members who are grieving in Connecticut? How do we share in the suffering of people around us every day? And how do we suffer with people like Adam Lanza, after and before they perpetrate such crimes? To many, this sounds like giving in to defeat ... as if we're merely saying it's the poor who are blessed. I've been in too many business and personal situations in which everyone's intuition is flat wrong. That's reason enough to believe that the way of compassion might be worth a try. By REV. WILLIAM L. BULSON
Even if guns were to vanish, the specter that haunts our young men would still hover in silence, darkly.
A partial solution to these toxic circumstances could be a coordinated cultivation of what might be called an empathic habit. Most people surely felt an impulsive empathy for the parents and survivors involved in the Sandy Hook massacre, as shown by the countless memorial services and candlelight vigils that took place after the murders. But empathy could help best if exercised before rather than after such tragedies.
Empathy could serve many of us: those who have not yet put themselves in the position of a person who is losing their power and those who can aim a gun at someone without imagining themselves on the other end of the barrel. For those of us who belong to a demographic that is doing increasingly better, a trained empathic reflex toward those we know to be losing for our gains could lead to a more deferential attitude on our part and could constitute an invitation for them to stay with us. To delight in their losses and aim at them the question, “How does it feel?” will only trigger a cycle of resentment and plant the seeds for vengeance. It is crucial to accommodate the pain of others.
By CHRISTY WAMPOLE
In Vietnam, archaeologists say, a Stone Age community took care of a man who couldn’t take care of himself.
While it is a painful truism that brutality and violence are at least as old as humanity, so, it seems, is caring for the sick and disabled.
And some archaeologists are suggesting a closer, more systematic look at how prehistoric people — who may have left only their bones — treated illness, injury and incapacitation. Call it the archaeology of health care.
By JAMES GORMAN
One of the most telling moments was when a young man named Sam announced that school life was not set up to help him and his fellow teenagers to be kind and compassionate. The name of the game, he said, is to get good exam results - end of story..
Following the recent news that the UK has the world's sixth best education system, I thought now would be a good time to share some of my own research.
This research involved zero analysis of exam results, no evaluation of teacher performance, and has yielded not a single league table. My findings are based entirely on the three days that I spent at a conference in London called Empathy and Compassion in Society.
Andy FraserJournalist focusing on sport, meditation, well-being and compassion
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A Guide to Practical CompassionBy Leo Babauta If I’ve found two guiding principles in my life, they are contentment and compassion. With these two ideas, life becomes better. Contentment makes every moment better. And compassion makes your connection with others better. What Compassion Is, & Some Difficulties Let’s talk about compassion for a few minutes, because as important as it is, very few people talk about how to actually do it. First a definition: the simple definition of compassion is feeling and understanding the pain of others, and then wanting to reduce that suffering.
About Us The CompassionLab is a group of organizational researchers who strive to create a new vision of organizations as sites for the development and expression of compassion. Our focus is on the expression of compassion in work and in the workplace, including emphasis on roles, routines, practices, relationships, teams, and structures that impact the experience of compassion in organizations. We are part of a broader community of scholars who are dedicated to developing a perspective on organizations as sites for human growth and the development of human strengths. We do high quality work on compassion in a generative setting, where we can’t wait to see what comes next. Our Principles We attempt to live in alignment with what we study, and our research has an inner life as well as an outer life.We transform ourselves and our professional practice through the stories that we tell.We represent organizations as vibrant and alive, and paint them in their full palette of colors.We create a context in which all of our research participants can benefit from their engagement in our work
Compassion seems like a character trait that should come relatively easy for a Christ follower. I mean, we are the church. Our purpose is to spread the Good News and take care of others, specifically those who are in need. But over the last week many of us, some who call themselves Christ followers, have lacked compassion. Some have used their public voice in social media or personal blogs to tell the world (or their world) that bad things happen to those who deserve it
Have you been exercising your compassionate nature? Check out my latest article on the importance of fostering compassion in our lives in the new issue of www.az-lifestyle.com, Pages 61-63: The Beauty of Compassion Human beings are social creatures by nature. We were designed to live cooperatively and to assist one another in the survival of our species. But in that very design of species survival we were also given an alarm system to warn us of potential danger. So we get anxious, we get scared, or we get angry in response to any type of perceived threat. Back in cave people days, when threats happened only on occasion, that worked pretty well; fast forward to the modern digital age, when we see “threats” to our routine on not only a daily basis, but sometimes on multiple occasions throughout our day. A simple faceless text or email can send us into an orbit of upset. Relationships are impacted. Our ability to live cooperatively and compassionately has been compromised.
An experience at a conference on compassion leads this writer to consider the extent to which our thoughts can benefit those around us. Even more than a desire to relieve the suffering of others, compassion is born of an innate recognition that we are all embraced in a universal and unconditional love. Although all too often this recognition lies buried beneath the stress of circumstance, this doesn’t mean it’s beyond our capacity to discover, uncover, and benefit from. All it takes is a willingness to listen and the humility to respond.
Eric Nelson
Matthews: Jesus Preaches Mostly Compassion For Poor--Never About Hell
I wanted to share with you some thoughts sparked in me this morning by an excerpt from a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. As I prepare to teach a course on self-compassion, this passage jumped out at me as profoundly wise: The nonviolent [compassionate] approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally, it reaches the opponent and so stirs his/[her] conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. by Helen McConnell
Many of us assume that we only have so much compassion to spare. But research says we can build our capacity to alleviate suffering. Compassion is a powerful moral emotion—it moves us to care for the suffering of others, and enables us to live cooperatively with one another. Yet we live in a society of constant connection, in which the successes and sorrows of others are brought to us instantly through phones, computers, TV, radio, and newspapers. With that increased connection comes the risk of becoming overwhelmed or overburdened by our emotions. Fearing exhaustion, we turn off ourcompassion. But my research suggests we can actually expand our compassion bandwidth without hurting ourselves. As the science of compassion develops, we can find empirically supported ways to cultivate and sustain compassion when it is needed the most. By C. Daryl Cameron Culture of Empathy Builder Page: Daryl Cameron http://j.mp/SEGSUx
Compassion, to me, is freely giving of myself to another with no expectation of return. True compassion is that which takes all those parts of us, such as love, humility, forgiveness, and binds us together through spiritual action. And therein lies the key; action. Without action, compassion is nothing more a momentary pause; a hanging of the head, a tear, an ache in the heart. The momentary emotional pause, however, is only a first step. It is the pause which allows us to feel the need to act. Whether or not we act, is the next step, and where we many times fall short. by JACK HAMLIN
That is the path of fear, and the absurd notion that more guns will result in less violence. The path of fear leads to anger, hatred, violence and depression. As a physician I can say it leads to mental and physical illness. It helps neither the parents nor any surviving children in the family. There is another path, one of human connection and compassion. We all watched the victims and the parents, and we felt emotionally attached to them. We saw retired psychologist Gene Rosen talk about how he saw a group of frightened children in his front yard, and how he took them inside and gave them the stuffed animals that his grandchildren play with. How do we continue that connectio
Founder of the Inner Kids program, Susan Kaiser Greenland adapted adult meditation practices for kids, seeing a marked improvement in their capacity to focus, calm themselves, and manage stress. She is also the author of The Mindful Child.
Susan shares her insights on how children can learn practical skills to live more balanced, joyful lives. Her approach for teaching mindfulness to kids involves research-based techniques and playful activities.
Aligning with Ashoka’s mission of “Every child should master empathy,” Ashoka Switzerland looked for ways to implement best practice initiatives from the global Ashoka network within the Swiss context. Ashoka Switzerland held an Empathy-Workshop on November 27th in Zurich in order to introduce these models to previously identified stakeholders, build common goals, and defined concrete steps.Mary Gordon (“Roots of Empathy”) and Heidrun Mayer (“Papilio”) discussed their models with a small group of selected experts from foundations, education institutions, and organizations related to empathy, for example, Christiane Daepp (Swiss Ashoka Fellow and founder of the “Office of Ideas”).
, Garrison Institute, Dec. 2008
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