Mindfulness and Compassion

BRITISH RED CROSS – BLOG JUNE 2022  - 557 words

Mindfulness and Compassion

How would you respond if I gave you one of these colourful badges with #Be Kind?

Here’s some background: I was working for a large organisation a few years ago and a couple of the Senior Leaders decided to launch a campaign #Be Kind. They got these snazzy badges printed and gave them out to staff and put colourful messaging promoting this campaign at the bottom of their emails.

Did their campaign work? Did people suddenly decide to be more kind or act more kindly and thoughtful towards their colleagues? Would you?

Well..not really.! And this is because people don’t generally go to work thinking they want to be unkind to their colleagues.

The problem is although neuroscientists all agree that we’re wired for compassion and kindness, 47% of the time we’re operating on autopilot and we’re simply not really paying attention to what we’re saying or how carefully we’re listening and sometimes this comes across as not being engaged or caring – in effect not being kind.

Embracing meditation and mindfulness practices, even in small ways, is shown to be consistently reliable in helping people to be more attentive and more present in their interactions with others.

In Chinese calligraphy the word mindfulness is expressed by two characters: The top character (a shelter) represents the word now; below that is the character for heart. The literal translation means bringing the heart into the present – so mindfulness means having a presence of heart.

Modern day teachers define mindfulness as paying attention on purpose in the present moment without judgement.   

It’s the without judgement part that’s critical here (and hard to do!) True compassion is characterised in a world that’s not defined by I, me, self, you and other, but where we see the story of ourselves in all stories and lives. We recognise how we all share in a longing to be free from harm, to be well and to be cared for.

Without this understanding compassion can waiver and end up being restricted to those we feel are deserving and excluded for others we feel are unworthy. One of the greatest gestures of compassion we can offer to another person is to free them from our fixed views of who he or she is.

Also, at the heart of compassion and at the centre of the work we do at BRC is the invitation to turn toward suffering. In the same way that there’s a universal longing for love, safety and respect, aspects of pain, uncertainty, loss, ageing and death is a universal and inescapable story and no one is exempt.

At any one time 65-70% of your friends or colleagues are likely to be going through some personal crisis or difficulty – maybe their Mum’s not well, or their landlord has given them notice to leave their home, or they may be having relationship difficulties with their partner or children.

Regularly practicing meditation provides strength training for the mind that help us to develop more attention and the ability to be more present in each moment so you can choose to be really be there for someone who needs your compassion..

Why not join us for one of our weekly drop in sessions where you can experience a short meditation and begin your own journey towards paying more purposeful attention and cultivating your own presence of heart?