Cultivating Our Capacity for Compassion

The benefits of connection increase with compassion. And compassion is biologically innate; we have evolved to care about each other. Dacher Keltner, founding director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and author of "Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society," says Darwinism could be better expressed as “survival of the kindest." 

Additionally, researchers have found that: 

Humans show greater positive biological response when they give than when they receive.  

• Compassion is contagious: Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, describes a "state of elevation" — when we see others helping, we are more likely to help others. 

• Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Harvard Medical School and author of "Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks," found that when one person acts fairly, it gets paid forward three times. If we’re truly only six degrees of separation from all humans on the planet, there’s incredible impact in this idea.

• Self-compassion increases resilience in the face of adversity, as beautifully captured in this Mary Oliver poem:

FOR REFLECTION: What has the pandemic taken away from you? How can you get it back in other ways?

The Journey 

One day you finally knew 

what you had to do, and began, 

though the voices around you 

kept shouting 

their bad advice – 

though the whole house 

began to tremble 

and you felt the old tug 

at your ankles. 

"Mend my life!" 

each voice cried. 

But you didn't stop. 

You knew what you had to do, 

though the wind pried 

with its stiff fingers 

at the very foundations, 

though their melancholy 

was terrible. 

It was already late 

enough, and a wild night, 

and the road full of fallen 

branches and stones. 

But little by little, 

as you left their voice behind, 

the stars began to burn 

through the sheets of clouds, 

and there was a new voice 

which you slowly 

recognized as your own, 

that kept you company 

as you strode deeper and deeper 

into the world, 

determined to do 

the only thing you could do – 

determined to save 

the only life that you could save.