Not every person has the ability to empathize and sympathize with other people. Some individuals believe that these feelings are useless. Others are convinced that only thanks to such qualities humanity has reached the highest stage of development.
The feeling of compassion has different forms of manifestation
If you turn to psychological books, you can see the following definition of empathy: this is the ability of an individual to share the negative emotions of another. With compassion, a person not only shares feelings, but also strives to help.
Concept in Buddhism
In Buddhism, compassion refers to the desire to lose ourselves in the feelings of another person. This applies not only to negative, but also to positive aspects. Compassion in this case means full perception of someone else's pain and the desire to stop it. It is not associated with a specific person.
A simple example of compassion in Buddhism is that the pain of war victims becomes the pain of a Buddhist. He does charity work and helps victims. In this way he shows compassion.
Literary arguments
Arguments about compassion are best examined through examples of literary works; serious stories are studied by schoolchildren in high school. Writers give their own definition of this term, but they are all united by common reasoning. The most striking examples:
- “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy;
- “The Fate of Man” by M. Sholokhov;
- “Crime and Punishment” by F. Dostoevsky;
- “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov;
- “French Lessons” by V. Rasputin.
In the first work, Natasha Rostova showed mercy. During the departure from captured Moscow, the girl gave her carts to the wounded. She did not worry about her own chests in which the dowry was kept. First of all, Natasha thought about helping strangers.
Another example of compassion in literature is Andrei Sokolov from “The Fate of Man.” The guy survived the war, lost his family and home, but his human qualities remained the same. He took care of little Vanyushka, who was left an orphan. Andrei introduced himself as his father and took the boy to his place. Even after seeing the horrors of the war, Sokolov’s heart remained soft; he did not forget how to sympathize and show compassion.
Dostoevsky's work of fiction describes the difficult story of Raskolnikov. The poor student lives in a cramped dark room, often goes hungry, but remains proud. For the sake of money, he kills an old moneylender, but after this he suffers even more. Instead of taking the loot for himself, Rodion leaves the bills under a stone and later gives them to Marmeladov’s widow. Although he himself had nothing to buy food with, he could not ignore the misfortune of others. Raskolnikov remained merciful despite the terrible crime he committed.
The main character of Bulgakov's novel, Margarita, is ready to do anything to meet the Master. She contacted the devil, spent the night at his ball, and met thousands of hanged men and murderers. But when Woland asked her about the reward, she asked to spare Frida from suffering. They stopped giving a woman the handkerchief she used to strangle her son before burying him. And Satan fully appreciated Margarita’s action - he allowed her to ask for one more thing, rewarded her with a meeting with her loved one.
You can draw conclusions about compassion after reading French Lessons. Teacher Lidia Mikhailovna sacrificed her reputation to help her student. She was playing for money with a boy who needed money for food. After their idea was discovered by the director, the woman had to leave for her homeland. Her action cannot be called bad, because she simply showed mercy.
Are these feelings necessary?
Victimization - what is it in psychology
Philosophers do not have a single answer to this question. Each person has their own understanding of the boundaries of empathy. It is believed that with the help of such feelings an individual becomes kind and gentle. In schools, children in literature and Russian language classes write essays, read classics and learn to analyze everyday topics. With the help of empathy and compassion, a person determines how permissible his actions are, and whether he has done something bad towards another person.
Qualities of people who are able to show compassion
Compassionate people have the following personality characteristics:
- the ability to express sympathy for a person;
- empathy;
- mercy;
- friendliness;
- friendly attitude towards people;
- responsiveness;
- kindness;
- care:
- patience;
- respect;
- the ability to sincerely empathize;
- the ability to ask for forgiveness and forgive other people;
- pity for children and animals.
The problem of the ambiguity of the term “compassion” is due to the fact that each of the listed characteristics of a compassionate person can be an independent personality trait. This means that the components that make up compassion differ from the quality in question.
Can compassion be harmful?
Yes
100%
No
0%
Voted: 1
Differences
Authority - what is it, definition
The difference between the two terms is not always clear. Sympathy is the ability to empathize with a person in difficult times. This can apply to both a familiar and an unfamiliar individual.
Compassion is a more global feeling that extends to a specific group, such as the poor
Emotional perception or empathy is also called empathy. It is important for some specialists: psychologists, teachers, doctors and others. This feeling helps to find a common language with different people.
Important! The ability to empathize is not always shown appropriately; sometimes it looks too intrusive.
With pity, the individual does not seek to experience the emotions of another, but such a feeling can be expressed in encouraging words. Compassion is sometimes called mercy, and it manifests itself in caring and helping those in need.
It’s not for nothing that one of the largest charitable organizations calls its employees sisters of mercy. They provide free care to seriously ill and needy people.
Compassion should not be confused with condolences. The latter is just a statement of fact, i.e. the individual means that he understands the grief of others. This type of feeling does not have a special emotional coloring.
Developing Empathy
Developing your empathy abilities is not that difficult. All you need is desire and time for special training. It is advisable to carry out these exercises in a group of people. This group could be your family, colleagues or friends.
- Exercise “Guess.” Each participant is given a piece of paper on which any feeling or emotion is written. The participants' task is to depict the written word, and the rest must guess it.
- "The Mirror and the Monkey." All participants are divided into pairs. Everyone has a role: one is a mirror, the other is a monkey. The Monkey's task is to show various gestures and facial expressions. The task of “Mirrors” is to repeat all this. After five minutes, the participants change roles, and everything happens again.
- "Telephone". The participant is given the task of talking on the phone with an imaginary wife, girlfriend or company director. When speaking, not a single sound is uttered; it is replaced by pantomime. The other participants' task is to guess who the participant is talking to.
A small number of exercises are presented here. In fact, there are many more of them. It is best to work through them in a training group.
Good or bad
There are different opinions about what empathy and compassion are. Some consider these manifestations negative and unnecessary. Particularly radically minded individuals are confident that such feelings allow others to parasitize strong people.
Self-flagellation - what is it?
A simple example: a woman I know constantly complains to an influential and successful friend about her life. As a result, her troubles are sympathized with and she receives financial assistance.
Therefore, each individual must decide for himself why he needs to show empathy, and whether it is worth it. Help is not always a good thing; sometimes it can lead to even more serious problems.
This is not to say that anyone should act compassionately or be involved in any way. Everyone decides such philosophical questions for themselves. Some prefer to organize charities for a certain category, others do not participate in any way in helping other people.
For your information. Many influential individuals are confident that empathy and compassion are what prevent society from becoming evil and callous.
Building empathy skills
There is a very practical side to the formation of empathy, based on the use of various verbal messages and non-verbal actions. Our brain reads information and can be closed or open to new experiences, not only depending on their theme, but also in what setting the action itself takes place.
Each time it is necessary to prepare not only your psychological space, but also your physical one. Better perception of another occurs if there are no visible barriers that create a barrier (this includes tables standing between people talking, the backs of chairs, screens). This technique can also be used for the opposite - if you need to be extremely independent from the emotional influence of another person, then put at least some kind of barrier between you, and the more impressive it is, the more protection you get. How barriers are removed at the material level, they must be removed at the non-verbal level of your body - there should be no crossed limbs, closed or turned away poses. This is all because the interlocutor tells you more willingly and in detail, but you automatically become more open to receiving information.
In order for attention to capture all the nuances of changes in intonation or facial expressions, it is necessary to minimize in advance the surrounding noise, distractions, and the possibility of abruptly ending the conversation (an open door, a ringing phone, etc.). What will help maintain attention is trying to repeat the pose and gestures of the speaker
Our physical manifestations reflect our mental state; there are confirmed studies where, by repeating a person’s posture, another could name his emotions. If you also listen to the text, the information and detail of the interlocutor’s experiences becomes even clearer. Such processes occur due to the involvement of mirror neurons and the biological reformatting of the emotional sphere to its physical expression.
To learn more about people than they provide in text alone, you need to develop a constant desire to learn more information. This is a kind of drug, which can only be replenished with informational or emotional food. The more you strive to learn about people every day, the higher your empathy will be, and you need to be interested in both the biographies of famous personalities and the yesterday of your neighbor of retirement age. Ask people about their experiences when watching a sunset or when drinking lavender tea - strive to find out answers from completely different people, traveling, if not around the world, then at least around the surrounding cities.
To understand the correctness of diagnosing and feeling other people’s emotions, it’s good to ask someone close to you to practice. The person just needs to tell you honestly whether you are voicing his feelings correctly. You can talk about your experiences regarding the emotional sphere of another when you feel something and when you can logically assume the emotion you are experiencing.
What's better
Not everyone has a positive attitude towards emotional experiences. Someone considers it necessary to provide real help, and not create a pitiful state. In order for a person to start doing something, he must have such a desire.
It is the ability to compassion that determines how often and actively an individual takes part in charity and volunteering. Each person himself determines why he needs this or that activity. Compassion for other people is what motivates you to help, support, and do things that don’t bring you money.
Volunteers do not receive a salary for feeding the homeless, but they experience moral satisfaction
It is the ability to put oneself in the place of another that makes a person kind. The individual understands that he would not like a certain attitude towards himself, and this stops him from doing bad things to other people.
Therefore, we can draw a conclusion on the topic “is compassion necessary?” simple: yes, it is necessary, because it allows you to move on to real actions.
What kind of empathic person is he?
People with high levels of empathy are kind, compassionate, and sociable. They do not have the habit of blaming others for any unpleasant events in their lives. They do not require cruel punishments.
Individuals with a low level of empathy are unfriendly, aggressive and quite withdrawn.
There are also people with a hypertrophied level of empathy. They fail to control their state of boundless love or hatred, and it often takes a painful form.
It often happens that such people worry very much about those who have some problems. This causes enormous damage to their health, especially the cardiovascular system. Therefore, such people should learn to control their experiences so that there are no complications in the future.
Being an empathetic person is a huge gift. Some people really need to learn compassion and empathy. Perhaps if each person could accept and understand the pain of another, there would be fewer troubles and wars on our land.
How to learn
It is difficult to develop the best moral qualities in yourself; for this you will have to work every day. You can begin to behave properly only with a high level of self-control.
Important! The ability to reflect is especially valuable, i.e. analyze your actions and actions.
The necessary level of empathy can be developed through training. To do this, when communicating, you need to put yourself in the place of another, try to understand his emotions and feelings.
When reasoning, it is important to try not to judge a person or speak negatively about him. Such actions will not bring any benefit. It's better to think about how to solve the problem.
You can try to take part in charity projects. Today they can be found in most Russian cities. While helping different people, empathy will be formed.
Observing Self
Human consciousness is an amazing thing, capable of turning on itself, like a snake biting its own tail. Unlike animals, humans are capable of reacting just as emotionally to a thought or fantasy as if it were actually happening.
Imagine holding a lemon in your hand, cutting it, smelling the juice, and putting a slice of lemon in your mouth. Most likely, the salivary glands will not keep you waiting long and will behave in the same way as if the lemon were real and not a figment of the imagination.
Unfortunately, the same thing happens with suffering. Worrying about upcoming troubles or painful memories evokes just as vivid emotions as if these events were unfolding right now before our eyes. When we get stuck in anxious thoughts, in anger at those at fault, in fear of consequences, we can succumb to the illusion that it is real - when in fact it is just a mind game.
To be able to pull yourself out of this vicious circle, you can turn to a skill that each of us has, even if you have not tried to use it yet: a metacognitive position - that is, thinking about the process of thinking itself. You can do this experiment:
- 1. Say to yourself or even out loud a phrase that bothers you quite often. For example, “Nobody likes me.”
- 2. Now add another introduction to this phrase: “I have the idea that no one likes me” - and try to listen to how this phrase now affects your state, what feelings and sensations it evokes.
- 3. Finally, for the third time, say the same phrase like this: “I notice that I have the thought that no one likes me.” How do you like this option? How much does this thought dominate you now?
This formulation helps us to distance ourselves within ourselves, as if to step back a step in order to look at this snake biting its own tail from the outside, without getting entangled in its writhing coils.
If you have ever practiced mindfulness, you know that it is third-party observation and non-judgment to everything that we manage to notice that trains our endurance to any intricacies of the mind. Because actually it is only the mind. Just thoughts. And thoughts are not facts.
Facets of manifestation
Compassion is a special internal state that allows you to feel the pain of all living beings. But this feeling is not always sincere and correct. For example, someone through him asserts himself at the expense of the weak, develops a painful attachment.
When manipulated, the rescuer becomes an aggressor, displays anger and physical violence
In this state, the victim is unable to leave on his own. This kind of situation is not real compassion. Some people cannot empathize properly due to their soft nature. They are easy to manipulate, and they are willing to talk about misfortunes.
As a result, a sympathetic person does not see the difference between reasonable help and parasitism. He constantly helps morally and financially, then the victim lives well at someone else’s expense.
To develop the spiritual part of the personality, you need to engage in charity. This brings moral satisfaction, but it is worth remembering: help should be limited, while the person in need is taught to cope with problems on their own.
Each individual determines what different terms may mean to him, especially if they do not have strict definitions. Empathy and compassion are not much different. Both qualities are necessary for the existence of civilization. Without them, it would be difficult for people to coexist and do good deeds.
The ability to empathize and sympathize with others is called empathy, this feeling is very important for communication. With its help, one individual determines the boundaries of what is acceptable in communication with another person. This is especially important for psychologists and doctors who deal with the grief of others every day.
This quality helps make family life wonderful.
Through charity, people support each other in difficult times. This is how difficult situations are experienced: disasters, accidents, destructive natural phenomena. People from different countries provide assistance at such moments. Not even in a global sense, each individual decides for himself whether empathy is needed in life and how it should be manifested.
Is compassion always useful?
Psychologists and sociologists believe that you need to know moderation in everything. Excessive compassion will not benefit a person. Boundless compassion is like playing lifeguard. However, only those who have the necessary emotional resources for this can help someone.
People often use selfless benefactors for selfish purposes. Having realized this, a person becomes disillusioned with friendship, love and mutual assistance.
Some people consider compassionate people to be characterless. In production, such people are often burdened with additional unpaid responsibilities. Friends borrow money from them and forget to pay back the debts.
Compassionate people tend to be very impressionable. Because of their gullibility, they often become victims of fraudulent schemes. Hypertrophied compassion makes a person give away the last thing he has. As a result, he is forced to limit himself in everything, live in uncomfortable conditions, borrow large sums of money, and sell his property in order to pay off creditors.
People whose desire to help others is too strong run the risk of not finding happiness in love and family relationships. They are predisposed to forming codependent relationships. They suffer from their own need to help everyone. While engaged in rescue, they do not notice that they themselves need qualified help from a clinical psychologist, and sometimes even a psychiatrist.
By developing compassion, a person, along with this character trait, receives a “bonus” in the form of constant anxiety for the well-being of loved ones. Excessive anxiety and worries can damage the nervous system and undermine a person’s mental health.
Being always compassionate, understanding and helpful is a sure way to burnout. To maintain emotional balance, compassionate people need to:
- look at things realistically, do not create illusions in relationships with others;
- help unselfishly, without expecting gratitude, concession or a reciprocal good-natured act in return;
- learn to understand people;
- learn to refuse requests that require serious financial or emotional costs;
- work on eliminating your own feelings of guilt;
- defend your personal boundaries;
- avoid intrusiveness, help only when asked (the desire to help when not asked deprives a person of the opportunity to train his own skills in overcoming obstacles and life difficulties);
- learn to recognize manipulation and not react to the provocations of emotional blackmailers;
- remember your needs and goals.
Asya Rakhovich
Psychologist with more than 8 years of experience. Consultant on interpersonal and marital relationships, self-discovery.
Ask a Question
Your own friend
Incorporating the observing self allows us to look at ourselves as if we were another person. For the same purposes, you can use very simple techniques. For example, in a difficult situation, when you are overwhelmed with feelings or streams of self-criticism, stop yourself with the question: “What would I feel, say or do right now if my close friend (child, partner) told me this? , relative)?"
As a rule, this very question immediately allows you to change your point of view and turn on the social cognition system, which opens the way to a more sensible and wiser view of the situation and experiences.
To effectively direct compassion toward yourself, try to formulate at least three to four specific phrases that you could say to a loved one who is grieving or going through a difficult time. After this, if you find yourself in a difficult situation or remembering it, try saying the same phrases to yourself while looking in the mirror.
Research shows that this is one of the most effective ways to activate the social cognition system in the process of self-compassion. Less effective, but still useful, is to say these phrases out loud without a mirror, or at least to yourself.
