One Thing to Know if You Want to be Compassionate
Being Compassionate Begins with Hospitality to Difficult Strangers
“Fine, thank you, never better,” answered Kyle a bit defensively when asked how he was feeling after his visit to his dying mother. He cringed at these words. He really wanted to be more compassionate.
Why did I say that?” he wondered. “I’m not fine at all!”
Understandably, Kyle was suffering when he watched his mother near death. To protect himself from his own pain, he used a lie to shield himself from the truth.
Kyle was unable to be vulnerable, to reveal his deep grief. When he was with his mother he kept ‘ “a stiff upper lip” and talked to his mother about the weather.
He hid his love behind the wall of the “I don’t want her to suffer” lie and refused to talk about his sorrow. As she lay dying, what she probably needed to hear was that her son cared enough to grieve at her departure.
But what Kyle did, what most of us do at one time or another is hardwired into us.
Our primary drive is to feel safe and protect those we love. Kyle used a defense mechanism called denial because he needed to protect himself from the pain he wasn’t able to feel or express.
There are some pretty fantastic defense mechanisms in nature. All of creation seeks safety. Sea slugs squirt out their own intestines to make a veiled escape. Birds like peacocks and turkeys spread their feathers.
Small animals like bugs and frogs carry poisons and colors on their backs to scare away or punish predators.
Fancy Names for Common Defenses
But when it comes to us, we may be using a few defense mechanisms we barely recognize. Scientists give these defenses fancy names, but we experience them in ordinary ways.
#1: Denial: “No, he is not dying yet. He will wake up again soon.”
#2: Repression: “No, I am not angry at all. It’s OK, really.
#3: Projection: “Look at how much weight that woman has gained. She has no willpower at all.”
#4: Rationalization: “It’s OK to eliminate social service programs for the elderly because their life is almost over anyway. Children can use them more.”
#5: Regression: “OK, see if I care. I’ll go play (work) somewhere else.”
#6: Reaction: “Don’t cut me off, you S.O.B.! That was my parking spot! (honk honk)”
To define common defense mechanisms may not be all that helpful. I will leave that to social scientists who look at our behavior under a magnifying glass and assign labels.
They only make these definitions so therapists will have a code to charge an insurance company anyway.
Can you feel my defensiveness in that statement? It is hard to be compassionate sometimes.
Why We Use a Defense Mechanism
When someone is being defensive or regressing to their inner child’s behavior or reacting with rage, it isn’t essential that we know which form of defense they are using.
But it helps to recognize they are feeling unsafe. They are afraid of something and are seeking shelter behind a wall of words.
My defense mechanisms get activated when something in me gets triggered.
When you tell me through clenched teeth that you are OK with my cooking, I feel insecure instead of affirmed— and the conversation may quickly devolve into an argument because I react defensively.
“I can tell you don’t like it. Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m NOT lying.”
“Grrrrr”
In his book Writing to Awaken, Mark Matousek said,
“If I don’t look at myself, how can I expect to see anyone else.”
Herein lies the key to being compassionate with another person. Until I learn to be embrace my fear and pain, I will not hear the fear and pain behind another’s defensive statements or responses, let alone respond skillfully. This is basic to the commandment of Jesus to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31).
Difficult feelings are often not welcome and so we learn to ignore them. There is another way, though.
Practicing Hospitality
In his Poem, The Guest House, Rumi invites us to show hospitality to those uncomfortable feelings that come unbidden to our lives.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
—by Rumi
Part of spiritual practice is to sit with difficult feelings until we realize that we are still breathing. We are yet alive.
Pain and suffering have not destroyed us. They live here. Inside. Hiding in fear.
We respond as if they were enemies to be locked out. Our defense mechanism kick in! And compassion becomes distant if not impossible.
No one ever taught me to show kindness to my negative feelings even though Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism all teach hospitality as one of the highest virtues. “Love your enemies…” (Matthew 5:44″).
It is a tough one when our enemies, in this case – depression, grief, desires, and behaviors – come knocking on our door. When Fear and Pain want entrance, we don’t want them.
We slam the door in their faces. We grudgingly refuse to acknowledge their existence.
But we do have a large vocabulary of defensive lies:
“I am fine, thank you.”
“You look so good.” (despite a devastating diagnosis.)
“I didn’t say that.”
Is Hospitality the Key to World Peace?
I wonder how much peace there might be in the world if we could acknowledge our pain instead of denying it?
What if we could sit with our suffering enough to be able to sit with another person who suffers and not feel that we have to ‘fix’ it, to stop it. Sometimes pain just IS – and the most compassionate thing to do is sit in silent support.
If we could be present to all of what is within us in a spirit of gratitude, we wouldn’t discount the feelings of the person hiding behind their denial.
There is an alchemy that works in our hearts when we are hospitable to our emotions. Alchemy is a mystical process that changes the essence of something.
Alchemy turns our fears and doubts into empathy for others.
World Peace is strangling from a lack of compassion, withheld when we live in denial of our pain. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me!
If you enjoyed this reflection on dealing with feelings you may enjoy A piece of short fiction entitled “A Conversation With Anger”.
[PHOTO CREDITS from Unsplash – Sad Man by Miguel-Gonzalez; Monkey gritting teeth by Vincent-van-Zalinge; Pug wearing glasses by Charles-Deluvio; man with folded hands by Kelly-Sikkema; pug pondering world peace by Karin-Hiseliu]
