Compassion is a beautiful trait and the driving force behind the need to help others. Compassion inspires us to donate money, volunteer, build shelters, provide food, and listen to our friends and family when they are hurting. Compassion is our “do good attitude” and the agonizing pang in our stomach when we see someone suffering. Compassion creates people we can all rely on. Compassion connects humans together as one.
How Would You Describe Compassion?
Compassion is the ability to suffer with others. Compassion allows us to feel their pain through empathy. Compassion builds stronger relationships with our families, coworkers and helps us connect with people in our society and clear across the globe. The urge to want to help others can be interpreted in many ways. One person’s inspiration may not be the same for someone else. We all experience different circumstances throughout or lives that mold our compassionate minds.
How would you describe your level of compassion? How would the people around you describe your compassion? Do you even know the answer?
- Do you listen intently when friends and family members speak about their problems, and truly feel the pain they are experiencing?
- Are you supportive of coworkers who are faced with hardships?
- Do you volunteer?
- Do you feel the suffering of victims when you see natural disasters?
- Are you inspired to reach out to hungry families?
Test Your Compassion
You may think you are as compassionate as you can be, but nobody is perfect. Test yourself. Create visualizations in your mind of circumstances, or pay special attention to news headlines and stories. How do you respond?
- Do you find yourself wondering what people have done wrong to end up unemployed, poor, and on welfare?
- Do you feel the hunger pains deep in your belly when you see the faces of the homeless, or starving citizens in other countries?
- When people cry, do you expect them to be tough instead of complaining?
- Do emotions make you uneasy and frustrated?
- When you see injustice, do you shrug it off?
How did you respond to the questions? Are you as compassionate as you originally thought?
We Are All Born With Compassion
We are all born with the unique ability to be compassionate towards others and empathize with their pain and suffering, but as we get older, our minds start to drift away from the simplicity of childhood, and we replace compassion with judgments, prejudices and opinions. Although we still sympathize with some situations, our empathy may cease to exist in areas we used to care about. Sometimes our compassion is reserved only for instances we have never experienced.
Inspiring Your Compassion
The good news is, you are still as compassionate as the youthful soul you once were. With the help of 360 degree feedback, you can inspire compassion in your life again. 360 degree feedback is a program designed to help you build stronger competencies, such as compassion in your life. Incorporating 360 degree feedback into your development will motivate you to say “I feel your pain” and “How can I help?”
Interested in carrying out your own free 360 degree feedback?
SelfStir.com offers you a powerful set of tools that can help jumpstart (and sustain you on) your leadership developmental journey. Simply put, SelfStir offers you a comprehensive 360-degree feedback, a self-assessment and personal developmental tool that you can use over and over again, free of charge!
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