I'm alarmed when I see some NLP practitioners who seemingly act without compassion. I'm alarmed when I see any helping professional act without compassion, as any human being, as any person in an authority position.

So how does compassion get installed in people? Long term consistent pain? Spiritual belief? Belief about people? A code of conduct? An ability to go into 2nd position, perhaps conditioned unconsciously? Similarities to another? A belief about a certain similarities across human beings? An internal sense of security?

Sam,

I would say a deep connection with suffering in one's own life definitely does the trick. I don't think it necessarily matters how long or intense the suffering is (that's all subjective anyway). I think it is the person's ability to connect with the pain, and assimilate it into one's own experience, instead of attempting to eradicate it, that brings compassion.

I would like to quote a passage from Stephen Gilligan's The Courage to Love, which better explains what I'm trying to say than I can:

"Suffering seems to be a very difficult idea ot talk about. On the one hand, people may trivialize or disconnect from it, flasely believing that they can avoid it via some ideology or practice. On the other, it may be reified and regarded as part of one's life identity, used as a a basis for self-flagellation or self hatred. Neither extreme is helpful. Thomas Merton (1948) used to say that he did not become a monk to suffer more than other people, but rather to suffer more effectively. Effective suffering means that you recognize and accept it as an unavoidable and helpful part of living in the world and growing as a person. It needn't be psychologized or regarded with pity or sentimentality; however, to deny it's presence is extremely costly. So the challenge is how to touch it and name it and work with it effectively, without developing rigid ideological understndings or other compulsive control strategies.

The proof is in the pudding. In effective suffering, experience changes and self-love deepens as the heart cracks open to a deeper tenderness and centeredness. As the Buddhists say, the heart was meant to be broken, over and over again. Not shattered, but opened to a greater connection with self and world. In ineffective suffering, identity hardens and possibilities close."

I have experienced a difficult health crisis over the last year. How I chose to respond to my situation undoubtedly has played the primary role in transforming how I now respond to the rest of the world. I never thought that I would ever be saying it, but I am so grateful for the hell I lived through over the last twelve months--if it had never happened, I would not be where I am now. Of course, I did have to respond in order for change to take place.

I hope that answer is the direction you were looking, Sam, but if not...I hope you can find something in those words that is a new source of learning for you!

anony67 wrote:

I'm alarmed when I see some NLP practitioners who seemingly act without compassion. I'm alarmed when I see any helping professional act without compassion, as any human being, as any person in an authority position.

So how does compassion get installed in people? Long term consistent pain? Spiritual belief? Belief about people? A code of conduct? An ability to go into 2nd position, perhaps conditioned unconsciously? Similarities to another? A belief about a certain similarities across human beings? An internal sense of security?

Hi Sam,

For me it's a knowing that by hurting other's you are only really hurting yourself.

Everyone you see, every communication you recieve and interpret is a reflection of the qualities you yourself possess. When veiwing others with compassion you are giving yourself compassion.

When a person is made aware of this, they then have the option to choose the path that is best for them, or suffer the consequences of choosing other wise. It may be that they need to keep being shown the lesson until they realise that choosing compassion works in their favour in the end. Yogurt knows yogurt remember?

Love and hugs
Nina x

Sam,

I don’t really have the time to go into my thought on this entirely but it is something I have being thinking on for sometime now. So quickly hear is a couple pints I would like to make.

*please note these are just musings and nothing more

I have observed in my travels through life that certain people are more likely to be compassionate depending on their size of family and position in their family. (this is according to the model of world I have) My observations are as follows ……

The younger child grows up with more compassion and empathy, since the younger child, as he grows up has more opportunity to see the pain in his siblings. They learn different ways to experience and express their pain. Seeing their older brother and sister experiencing difficulties enables the compassionate/empathic part of there minds to develop at a young age.

Older or only children since they have no role model to learn pain and suffering from do not develop compassion to the same extent. So they grow up harder and less compassionate.

These are just my quick thoughts on this, obviously if an only child was to grow up in a close community then they would therefore learn from other children. I can make pretty accurate guesses on meeting new people the size of their family and position they are.

I do use the second position model to teach people how to be more compasionate, and it has come as a grate shcok to many, so i think this has a large part to do with it.

I might add more when I have more time.


Andrew

Interestingly some people go through long periods of intense pain and don't generalize compassion. Or is it more pain out of choice? Did those in the nazi concentration camps all get compassion or a high percentage (I'm not sure)?

Andrew there's a dude (that's a word I haven't used in a while) called Alfred Alder who did some interesting research on birth order in children which I've found to be surprisingly highly accurate and a useful guide.

Very interested to hear more of your thoughts Andrew.

For you Nina, it seems like you've devloped the belief that if you hurt others you hurt yourself. What is this belief formed on? I had something revolutionary recently:

"Every judgement you have with another person, is really a disowned part of yourself"

Sam,

Great topic.

I cannot find my 'root' for giving compassion. That doesnt mean I cannot give it but 'If I was going to do compassion now, where would I start'?

My initial reaction was to claim the victim/recipient of compassion has to earn it but then I quickly moved on to the fact I can have compassion for a total stranger. So, maybe there is an ability for someone to put themselves in a position where 'compassion' in an emotion they are unable to provoke in you. For example, someone who has wronged you, or are a nature lover who catches a slug chomping away on your strawberries (8a57ard5!).

Then I slapped myself for missing the point. A person doesnt 'earn' compassion, you DISPLAY it, you/me choose to behave in a compassionate way (or not, depending on your morals and belief systems).

So, I choose to give compassion or display another emotion when compassion would be an option. What are the alternatives, smug justice or a feeling that the pain is offering some kind of learning opportunity for the person? Maybe a 'tough love' situation?

For example,

I'm alarmed when I see any helping professional act without compassion,

Why are you choosing to be "alarmed" and not feeling compassion for these people?

Are forgiveness and compassion linked?

I look forward to some more ideas,

Thanks

Matt

anony67 wrote:

For you Nina, it seems like you've devloped the belief that if you hurt others you hurt yourself. What is this belief formed on? I had something revolutionary recently:

"Every judgement you have with another person, is really a disowned part of yourself"

My belief has developed over the years, as a teenager who was always angry and hurt and would lash out I end up feeling bad and hurting another person - then eat chocolate to numb the feelings.

Now I learned that by seeing the other person who is 'doing stuff to me' as 'hurting' too... I was able to understand their position better and thought.. 'If that was me, I would feel the same'.. from that position I could then decide how I would want people to respond - that gave me an insight as to how I could respond to that person and help change their response in the process...by changing my own like a pattern interrupt if you will Now I eat chocolate to celebrate my joy ehehehe... kidding !

But also a Course in Miracles helped and reading great spiritual books/writers and of course the good old yogurt knows yogurt principle.. all these messages say the same... I just took a lot of convincing that it would be in my best interest to practice compassion as often as I could - but I am not perfect and still have my moments When I practice it, I dont get the fall out I would have gotten if I had reacted differently.

Blessings and hugs
Nina

Sounds like a second position shift Nina.

Very, very interesting to use they're own strategy from second position, I'm going to start using it.

"from that position I could then decide how I would want people to respond" That's probably has more further reaching implications than one would know

Richard Dawkins has an intersting documentary called Nice guys finish FIRST He used computer simulations of two choices co operation versus decpetion over time and found the tit for tat, starting off being nice and then repaying people what they need last is the best policy. You have to watch it to understand my poor map communication.

He explains the examples of birds that need to groom each other usually one grooms the other then the other either reciprocates or doesn't. Those who reciprocate all the time lose to those who don't ever receiprocate, but once we're left with those who don't reciprocate they'd eithe r die out or have to change their strateg. Those who fair best who those who start out reciprocating and don't ever grrom those who don't reciprocat eagain.

Matt don't think forgivness and compassion are linked. My nominalization of these words are compassion is a present strategy and forgiveness is always a past strategy. ie. I act with compassion in the moment, but can only forgive in the past. I can choose to act with compassion and still get hurt, and then have to decide to forgive.

I personally find it tend fold easier to act with compassion than to forgive. Not saying I dont' forgive obviously, I'm just saying what has to happen for one to forgive? Now I have a few ideas I used with people in 'therapy' I find if I consistently help people see that the other person was coming from a position of diempowerment it makes it easier.

Also useful in therapy, not personal strategy for forgiving is exagerating punishment of transgressor henece giving them somethign to move asway from that and move towards compassion. I think people seek understanding before forgiveness? how do we best forgive? When we see the other person is coming from fear?

It may be useful ot think of how we'd help others forgive.

anony67 wrote:

Sounds like a second position shift Nina.

Very, very interesting to use they're own strategy from second position, I'm going to start using it.

"from that position I could then decide how I would want people to respond" That's probably has more further reaching implications than one would know

Oooh cool, if you found that interesting, I should do that a workshop in SL

Just so I don't get my wires crossed can you give me some examples of the compassion you are discussing here especially the sort of things you are suggesting a helping professional might do or things you believe they are not doing?

Thanks

John

I found a wallet today and I was going to return it but then I thought well, if I lost a hundred and fifty pounds, how would I feel? and I realised I would want to be taught a lesson

By compassion I mean acting with others best interests in mind. But it can be interpreted in the way you best do.

Sam
I disagree that compassion and forgiveness are unrelated. Whilst forgiveness is directed at past actions, it can only be done in the present. Compassion can likewise be directed to the past in our recollections. You could also create anticipatory forgiveness and/or compassion for future events as a meditative act perhaps...

In Buddhism (cue automatic thumbs down ) we talk about compassion a lot - we call it jihi - to open the way for happiness and to block the path to evil. I personally think having (and enacting) compassion is the only way for human beings to be genuinely happy. Forgiveness may well be a subset of this.

Personally, I do not see how a person can be fully compassionate when they are harbouring enmity towards others ie a refusal/inability to forgive past actions. It is placing a limitation on our unlimited aspect (enlightenment) which closes the path...

Just my thoughts as ever

:cool:

anony67 wrote:

By compassion I mean acting with others best interests in mind.

That's interesting, I would have thought it had more to do with empathy.

anony67 wrote:

But it can be interpreted in the way you best do.

Won't the discussion become confused if we interpret a word in differnt ways?

John

Alcoholism is the only disease that you can get yelled at for having

As I sit here with tears streaming down my face as I research the starvation forced on those in Belsen in the concentration camps... I am looking at the images that show the horrors and reading the words of those affected by it... my Nan was a Hungarian Jew and always cried when I aske her about her history - as a young girl I did not understand why she cried - but now I am deeply affected by her history and am not sure I could ever forgive what happened to cause such long-term sadness. I am sorry but I can never be happy about this no matter how much NLP I do... something are just inforgivable.

You talk about empathy, I DO empathise with the suffering and pain as it directly affected my immediate family..... I am lost for words as to how much pain and suffering that must have caused those people. It's unspeakable!!!!!

and to add insult to injury the insensitivity of **** google ad that put ads like this under wiki answers (see below) - not sure I will forgive that either

Answer


Bergen-Belsen was a transit camp located between Bergen and Belen, small towns near Hanover, Germany. It was originally built and used as a prisoner-of-war camp in 1940 and held both French and Belgians. In 1943 it was converted to a concentration camp designed to hold 10,000 prisoners with serious infectitious diseases, but it by late 1944 it contained 60,000 prisoners. It was liberated on 15 April 1945 by the British. It is the camp where Anne Frank died of typhus.
Began as Stalag XI-C, a German POW camp designed to hold French and Belgian troops taken in 1940. It was the place where about 18,000 died of disease and starvation. In 1942 its operation was transferred to the SS for use as a 'Medical Recovery Camp'. It was used as a temporary transfer point for slave laborers in the Polish Camps who were being moved to avoid the advancing Soviet forces.
It eventually held as many as 60,000 prisoners and while it wasn't an extermination camp, it was hopelessly overcrowded and insanitary. Early in 1945 typhus swept through the camp and thousands died there every month, with more then 50,000 total deaths. It was liberated on 15 April 1945 by British forces. They found 'walking skeletons', and the camp was littered with corpses. It was a scene of indescribable horror. The camp was filmed by the British and the film was shown in British cinemas and worldwide. For most people it came as a shock.

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I also feel, I have no words to express that feeling, but it can hurt. I have no one close to me that has been close to that situation, but as a person, I hurt.

Some musings on the holocaust and forgiveness generally...

Sometimes we are unable to forgive. Why should we?
There are many many cases of people who can never forgive, and I would never condemn anyone for that. Often a victimised person is too damaged, too aggrieved to ever move forwards - this is the terrible evil of things like the holocaust, rape, murder and the like: the seeming freezing of time.
And yet others can and do move on, can create value from terrible situations. Viktor Frankl was able to survive the camps and triumph, for example. Also witness the supreme dignity of Nelson Mandela, a man who has every reason not to forgive.
I found this book enormously useful; [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Forgive-Johann-C-Arnold/dp/1570756309/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216416507&sr=8-2]Amazon.co.uk: Why Forgive?: Johann C Arnold: Books[/ame]
Perhaps it is ourselves that we truly need to forgive?
Ultimately, holocaust writer Primo Levi was unable to reconcile having survived the death camps when so many others did not and killed himself. (fairly random link: Diego Gambetta: Primo Levi's Last Moments )
Forgiveness and forgetting are different things, I must add too.
Nobody should ever forget the holocaust, lest it be allowed to happen again... more heinous still, in my view, is using the holocaust to justify genocidal behaviour by its former victims... failing to learn the lessons of history, take responsibility in the now and change our behaviour based on those lessons, is most vital of all...

When I look at it, human behaviour never ceases to fascinate, intrigue, disgust and horrify me in equal measures...

...of course, holocausts already did happen again in the ethnic cleansings of the Balkans War and in Rwanda to name only two.
Also, of course in the gulags of Russia under Stalin, oh and the Cultural Revolution in China - whole groups of people systematically persecuted and in many cases killed on the basis of... 'ideology'??

The rationale and dynamics of genocide is a subject for a separate thread - but we have been presented with an example taken from history, so I use it briefly here.

Part of the problem in my view, is the perpetuation of karma through cycles of hatred, revenge, prejudice, resentment, denial, blame etc etc. What we deny, what we fail to challenge, we are condemned to repeat again and again, I fear.

Forgiveness, understanding, compassion, dialogue, self-reflection, co-operation, responsibility, proaction... these are the hard path. And they are also a few of the factors that can contribute towards changing the destiny of the suffering and conflict of humankind.

Ghandi famously said: "Be the change you wish to see"

The holocaust did not start with Hitler, it started with the destruction of Israel by the Romans, the centuries of persecution by many parties that led up to the "final solution" of Belsen etc. (You might even say holocaust karma started with the Jews wiping out whole cities of people in the Old Testament, being enslaved by the Egyptians, then wiping them out in turn through various plagues... but let's stick to verifiable history here) It is still far from over too, and in a sick game of musical chairs the Israeli's now persecute the palestinians in similarly dehumanising ways. (I AM NOT TAKING SIDES HERE - just illustrating human insanity and behaviour.)

Second example, the 'war on terror' did not begin on 9/11 - it is rooted deep in history and crosses over with the previous example via the crusades...

My point is that there are no good guys and bad guys from the perspective of history - no winners and losers.

Until we can learn and grow, break down these barriers, change stuff...

...we are all losers until then...

Just some thoughts to consider.

:cool:

I think we have to forgive. They don't get the stomach ulcers or the sleepless nights...

anony67 wrote:

I think we have to forgive. They don't get the stomach ulcers or the sleepless nights...

On that note, one of my all time favourite quotes...

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Malachy McCourt


...in some ways, I would consider forgiveness to be (paradoxically) the ultimate revenge - by forgiving, you deny your oppressor their power over you, you take back control by becoming unaffected by their behaviours and actions...

One of my greatest experiences that has come from my buddhist practice, was the day when I came downstairs to chant and I sensed something had changed in me. It took me a couple of minutes to realise what it was:

I wasn't feeling vulnerable and victimised any more.

Usually, on a 'normal' day, I felt like I could be 'triggered' into the past at any moment, I was constantly 'patching myself up' and controlling myself so I could function. On this day, I realised I no longer felt that way. I could still get in touch with those old feelings, my recollections of abuse if I chose to, but I no longer felt out of control and in fear of my abuser automatically!

To be as clear as I can, what the abuser(s) did was wrong, and always will be, but my sweetest liberation (revenge?) is that their actions - in fact their whole lives, as far as their involvement with me goes - mean absolutely nothing to me, they have become as irrelevant to my present life as strangers who brushed past me at some point.
The events were just experiences I had, they are not now, they happened in the past, which is gone, and my terror and horror existed only in my mind, which is mine to change in any way I want to...!

I appreciate that may well be difficult to accept, but I find it harder to accept the idea that someone can "never recover" from incest/abuse, which is what all my social care trainings and literature were telling me...

Reflecting on this post, I am not sure this would qualify as 'forgiveness' in everybody's models, but that is what it is in mine - I let go of the pain, I hold nothing for those people, I move on - they are free of my desire for justice, retribution etc etc... They become people again, who I can choose to interact with, or not, at any time free of pain and fear...

Just a few thoughts...

:cool:

Nigel Adams wrote:

in some ways, I would consider forgiveness to be (paradoxically) the ultimate revenge

I want to draw attentiont to that. I think it's one of the most profound things I've ever heard.

I also saw a sign in a shop once for the staff 'dont' worry about it, you're probably just in the way' What it meant was, it'd happen to whoever stepped into line.