Ordinary Human Compassion

The first level of compassion that Gabor Maté looks at is ordinary human compassion. He describes this as the ability to be with suffering, or to be moved by suffering, whether it is our own suffering or someone else’s. Empathy, the ability to relate to someone else’s feelings, is part of the compassion toward others. It is worth pointing out that sociopaths and psychopaths don’t experience empathy, but the rest of us do experience it at some level.

Your level of compassion and empathy will vary from person to person, i.e. you will feel more empathy toward one person than you do toward someone else. When we notice a lack of empathy in ourselves toward someone else, it is, according to Maté, because we are suppressing hurt. He recommends we explore which pain we ourselves haven’t fully understood or healed from. This allows us to practice self-compassion, which means acknowledging that we are hurting.

Do you feel compassion for everyone who is hurting, except for one particular person or group of people? Has that person or group of people hurt you in some way that you haven’t recovered from?