Some people give and give and give of themselves until they don’t have any more to give. Is there a point where the giving turns counterproductive; when someone is “compassionate to a fault?” This can and does happen, and when it does, it shows the need for awareness of one’s own needs, the value of boundaries, and the importance of understanding what compassion truly is.
Compassion Flows in Multiple Directions
Offering compassion to another to help relieve their suffering is central to our flourishing as a species. But offering compassion is only one of the directions in which compassion flows. The flows of compassion also include receiving compassion from others and the offering of compassion to ourselves. When the constant outward flow of compassion to others supersedes our own needs, it may not actually be supporting the wellbeing of all concerned. Instead, it may be draining our energy in ways that make it hard to support anyone, including ourselves.
Are you caring enough for yourself? While we often put our own needs last, it’s critical to pay attention to your internal signals. You can’t give what you don’t have, and failing to care for yourself will reduce your ability to care for others. If the goal is to increase flourishing for our entire community, then that flourishing needs to include everyone, especially you. Generously offering compassion to others without opening yourself up to receive compassion from others and to cultivate self-compassion is unsustainable. It’s essential to keep yourself nourished, so you don’t run out of gas.
Boundaries Strengthen Compassion
Compassion is the awareness of the suffering of another combined with the desire to relieve the suffering and remove the causes of the suffering. To address the suffering itself as well as the causes, it is important to couple the offering of compassion with boundaries around that support. Offering compassionate relief repeatedly in circumstances that don’t have to arise again and again may actually reinforce the causes of suffering rather than removing them.
For example, when a co-worker gets into a bind and needs a hand to get one of their tasks completed on time, it can be quite compassionate to pitch in and help the co-worker out. But if they keep getting into the same situation, even though they could perform the needed tasks, it’s not helpful in the long run to regularly complete their duties for them. It is compassionate to say, “I’m happy to help this time and to help you figure out how to get it done on your own. I won’t, however, be able to do this task for you repeatedly.” And then stick to what you’ve said. By setting such a boundary, the co-worker is directly empowered to make their own choices leading to the completion of their tasks (or not). The recognition that they won’t be bailed out repeatedly supports them compassionately to address the root cause of the uncompleted tasks.
Of course, situations like this are rarely cut and dried, but it helps to recognize that allowing people to take agency for their own choices is a valuable, and compassionate, action to take.
Maybe What Is Being Offered Isn’t Compassion
One of the miraculous aspects of compassion is that our neurological response to offering compassion arises in the reward center of the brain. Offering compassion feels good, but may not be sustainable in challenging situations, when the costs of compassionate action greatly exceed the sense of reward we feel. But what about in ordinary circumstances? If compassionate action doesn’t feel good, maybe it is something close to compassion, but not actually compassion itself.
Pity and sympathy can be confused with compassion very easily. In cases of both pity and sympathy, however, there is a missing element of human connection that limits the power of the emotion. Pity can include a feeling of superiority which distances the giver and receiver from each other. Sympathy doesn’t create the same degree of superiority, but there is still a distance. There is a sorrow for the suffering of another, but not necessarily a full resonance with that suffering. Empathy arises when we feel the suffering of another as our own, and it is an important step to a compassionate response. However, when we stop or are stuck in someone else’s suffering, it is a recipe for burnout. The good news is that when we add action to the empathic resonance, compassion comes forth.
Compassionate action requires a deep understanding of the other’s feelings and experiences. Pity and sympathy will often lead to superficial understandings. It is important to observe the circumstances non-judgmentally, and to ask questions about what the other person needs. From that point, you will have the greatest chance for acting in ways that are fully aligned with the needs of the other person.
One other good litmus test is to ask, what if no one noticed my compassionate action, or no one said thank you? Compassion is best offered freely and with no expectation of something in return. The intrinsic reward of having done the right thing is quite powerful in and of itself.
In Closing…
It’s hard to imagine you can have too much of a good thing such as compassion. But you can when offering too much compassion crowds out the receipt of compassion from others or from yourself. Too much compassion may also relieve problems in the short run, but neglect to address the root causes and impede the development of long-term solutions. Finally, what we think of as being compassion may not be compassionate at all. Stay attuned to your own needs so that you can be the most impactful compassionate leader you can be.