How to help someone find their true self through compassion
foster the release of other’s Self rather than become the other’s healer
All of us have experienced getting frustrated at someone or judging them through our lens of life and mental models. We may not understand why they do what they do or why they can’t do something that may be easy for us. We judge them for making mistakes we wouldn’t. But we have not walked in their shoes and experienced what they have seen and felt. We don’t know what they are going through or the inner voices trying to protect them. Instead of distancing yourself or feeling pity, one of the kindest things you can do for someone is to lead with curiosity and compassion to help them bring out their best self.
I read the following passage from the book Introduction to Internal Family Systems by Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., that summarizes this fundamental idea.
To clarify what is meant by compassion, I want to contrast it to pity and empathy. With pity, you see someone suffering and you feel sorry for them, but at the same time a part of you is glad that person isn’t you. Your mind is busy thinking of reasons you wouldn’t make the mistakes they made that led to the suffering. Pity involves both a protective distancing and a measure of condescension. Your sorrow for the sufferer comes from a place of separateness.
When you feel empathy, you see a person suffering, and because you have a certain level of self-awareness, you know a part of you suffers in the same way, so you identify with the sufferer’s pain. At some level, that person is the same as you. Empathy opens your heart and produces a strong desire to help the person. The danger with empathy, however, is that if you identify too much, you will feel a pressure to relieve the other’s misery. You can’t tolerate your own pain, so you can’t stand for the other to spend any time suffering. The other common consequence of having too much empathy is to distance from the other person because their pain makes you hurt too much.
When you feel compassion, you see a person suffering, you feel empathy for them, and you know that they have a Self that, once released, can relieve their own misery. If people relieve their own suffering, they learn to trust their own Self, and they learn whatever lessons the suffering has to teach them. Compassion, then, leads to doing whatever possible to foster the release of other’s Self rather than become the other’s healer. With compassion, you can be openheartedly present with sufferers without feeling the urge to change them or distance from them. This kind of Self-presence will often release their own Self.
This passage also reminds me of a coaching mindset that clients are “creative, resourceful, and whole.”
Life is full of challenges, which can be a source of growth that fuels a journey and outcome we never imagined. At the same time, suffering is part of the human condition and sometimes can feel overwhelming. We may hide our suffering thinking nobody will understand or know how to help us.
Next time you are about to get frustrated or judge someone in that split-second, pause and think if this is an opportunity to demonstrate curiosity and compassion. While we should not become entangled with other people’s problems with a responsibility to solve them, the gift of helping someone be seen and heard in a safe space may be how they gain a new perspective to find another path through their suffering.
- James