Compassion for others isn't an abstract feeling you cultivate in your heart out of nowhere.
When I see people speak about compassion in that way it's usually denial, spiritual bypassing and a deep discomfort with being angry. Compassion isn't a cause. It's an effect. It's not a phenomenon. It's an epiphenomenon. It's not the seed. It's the the fruit.
Real compassion never begins with the decision to 'be compassionate'. Real compassion usually starts with some level of anger or judgment about the actions of another. We see them as a perpetrator. We demonize them. We lable them. We write them off.
We ask ourselves, "How could they have done that?"
And then comes the learning - almost always unasked for, almost always unwelcome. And what is the learning about? It's about what they had to go through to get to where they are today. It's about learning all the ways in which they were victimized by life and defeated by forces and institutions so much bigger than them.
Compassion sounds less like, "I forgive you," and more like, "Fuck... you never had a chance. My God." We ask ourselves, "How could they not have done that?"
Self-compassion comes from the same place. It begins with a fierce and burning self-hatred and shame for all the things you've done and not done and then, if you're lucky, you come to realize that, given what was going on in your life, given what happened in the life of your parents and community, given what happened in the lives of your ancestors... you never had a chance either.
And that is nothing but heartbreaking to see.
You got let down by your culture. But it's also a relief. You give yourself a fucking break for not being able to, all by yourself, stand up to the evils, poverties and oppressions of your day. This kind of learning is the breaking of the spell of competence (that you should always know what to do and do it well) and self-sufficiency (all by yourself).
Compassion doesn't come from a decision to be compassionate. That's where repression comes from. It comes from learning.
In seeing this all, you see what was missing and, in seeing this, the world has a chance to be different. You wake up one day and you see that you might have some role to play in changing those things. You might have a role to play in making sure the next generation has a better shot than you did.
Yes❤️
Yay! This is some real wisdom and I love the way you wrote it.