Commusings: All Compassion & No Pity by Danielle LaPorte

Dear Commune Community,

In today’s essay, Danielle LaPorte wrestles with the feelings that emerge when we are confronted by someone we perceive as suffering. Her story inspired me to dissect the diverse valences of this genre of sentiments as well.

Pity is a feeling of discomfort for another’s distress. Generally, it is a negative judgment of another and their situation and can carry paternalistic or condescending overtones. For example, you might pass a homeless person and feel pity but simply just keep walking. In the wake of this pity, you might reflect on your own good fortune but without any compulsion to address another’s misfortunate. In this way, pity is demeaning for the one who is pitied. Hence the phrase, “Don’t pity me.” 

The word sympathy is derived from the Greek “sum” meaning “with” and “pathos” meaning “feeling.” So … with feeling. Sympathy may be understood as a lesser form of empathy, a cognitive and emotional acknowledgment of someone’s pain and a desire to see them happier. But there is no inherent requirement of agency.

The etymology of empathy is slightly different. “Em” means “in.” So, empathy translates as “in feeling.” Empathy is donning the emotional clothing of another — a sort of emotional contagiousness. Someone’s sadness may trigger your sadness, but equally another’s joy may elicit your own joyfulness. Unlike pity and sympathy, empathy is not confined to misfortune.

Compassion is among the highest vibrational states of being. It means “to suffer with” or to identify someone else’s suffering as your own. It is lovingkindness in the presence of another’s suffering in a manner that actively seeks to alleviate that suffering. It’s always positive, expansive and effusive, and it often carries a call to action to assuage someone’s pain.

The next time a feeling for someone wells up inside, examine the signature of that feeling. Is it pity, sympathy, empathy or compassion?

More ramblings on IG @jeffkrasno.

In love, include me,
Jeff

• • •

All Compassion & No Pity

By Danielle LaPorte, excerpted from her upcoming Communiversity program, Spiritual Essentials, starting September 25.
 

Let’s talk about compassion and pity…for other people’s suffering.

Does believing that the Soul sanctions the most painful experiences of someone’s life—from being an innocent child to a mature adult—mean that we need to think that they “deserved” to have those bad things happen to them?

Not at all, not whatsoever.

We all deserve protection and care and respect. When anyone is victimized or burdened in any way, the highest response is unbridled Compassion.

And even… RESPECT. Respect that someone has been courageous enough to take on some heavy stuff.

A Story:

For two years, at nearly the same time every weekday, I would hear unintelligible yelling directly in front of my house, right outside the window I faced while writing. It was a groaning, a holler of utterances and yelps—it was impossible to ignore.

The noises came from a guy in his twenties who always wore white sneakers and a red rain jacket, with shorn brown hair and big brown eyes. I presumed he had a severe form of cerebral palsy or brain damage. His hands were balled up in fists, held up close to his handsome but always contorted face. His head was cocked sideways and upward. And when he would holler, which was almost constantly, it looked as if he was communicating with spirits at the tops of the trees.

I called him Jerry. He always walked down my side of the street, with his very laid-back caregiver a few feet ahead of him. She strolled. Jerry just…hollered. I had guests over one afternoon when he limped-dragged-walked by, hollering, LOUDLY. They looked alarmed and rushed to the front window, “What the…?”

It’s Jerry. He hollers.

My heart shattered every time he came by. I thought mostly of all the things he’d never do. Never going to read a book in the bathtub. Or ride a motorcycle. Not in this lifetime.

For the first few weeks when Jerry walked by, I’d go into the kitchen to make tea because I just couldn’t bear to watch. And then I remembered something my mom said to me when I was a little girl. We saw a very gnarled man in a wheelchair, painstakingly making his way across the street. My mom noticed the angsty concern on my face.

“Strong Soul,” she said, as we waited on the corner. “People like him have Souls that can take it.”

Believing her words didn’t take away the pain I felt, and I’m not sure if it would have comforted the man in the wheelchair either.

But it dissolved my pity—and made room for the most immense kind of respect. Now when I witness suffering, one of my internal responses to that person is reverence. You’re an incredible being for taking this on.

I came to look forward to Jerry’s afternoon strolls. The louder, the better. And I’m sure that Jerry, the strong Soul that he is, looked up at the trees, and through Life, and saw all sorts of things that I did not.

We don't know why another Soul chooses what it does. We have to leave room for mystery.

You don’t know if someone is suffering … or why. We have to leave room for mystery.

A Final Note on Suffering, and Healing:

Can we avoid suffering? Sort of. Maybe… possibly… If we lean into the cleansing and healing process—if we more willingly make an effort to embody the higher energies of virtue.

This is why so many spiritual practices are a kind of cleansing. This takes courage and commitment, but those are virutes we all have the capacity for.

The Bengali saint Anandamayi Ma said, “It is by suffering that suffering is overcome, because without suffering very few would see the need for self-purification, which leads to the unfoldment of our Immortal Self.”

I find amazing relief in this paradox: “It is by suffering that suffering is overcome.” When we go through it, we learn to lean into it.

We let the suffering expand us, remake us. We become more Loving. Closer to our CORE.

It folds into the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, which I shall boldly paraphrase: “There’s pain. But you can get over it.” Phew.

Alan Watts also nailed it: “There will always be suffering. The trick is to not suffer over the suffering.”

When the suffering is almost intolerable. When you’ve had all you think you can take. When you can’t comprehend what the gift in the pain might be. When “making progress” is painful to consider…

There’s this:
May my suffering be of service.
At the very least.
May some good come of this.
If not for me, for someone else.
Some good.
At the very least.
May my suffering be of service.

It’s a sublime Buddhist approach to pain. When you’re in hell, the notion that your agony might have some divine utility can help you endure. It’s a light ray of reason, a thread of meaning that you can grab onto in deep confusion.

Your pain and suffering are of service. When you’re on the other side of it, your
I’ve-been-through-it wisdom is going to comfort someone else, perhaps many people, profoundly. And when you’re in the real-time agony, it’s a contribution even then. You are burning energetic pathways. You’re clearing space, and rectifying, and learning—you’re coming to know your Soul.

It’s a prayer, really:
May my suffering be of service.

 

---

Danielle LaPorte is a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.” She is a well-known author, speaker, and entrepreneur in the field of personal development and spirituality. Danielle has written several books, including The Desire Map, White Hot Truth, and The Fire Starter Sessions, and, most recently How to Be Loving, a nuanced perspective on the life changing power of self-compassion, shadow work, and being more receptive to higher guidance.