108
The Jewish Home | MAY 19, 2022
Dr. Deb
Kindness vs. Compassion by Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.
8
OctOber 29, 2015 | the Jewish Home
I
t’s not so hard to be kind. Sustaining it is another matter. Especially under adverse circumstances such as when you’re mistreated. Nevertheless, kindness is still easier than compassion. Yet, according to Richard C. Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems, compassion is one of the “8 C’s,” a characteristic of Self energy. What he’s talking about when he mentions “Self energy” is the way you are when you are “you.” Or another way of putting it, our Torah-dik way of putting it, is who you are when the “covering on your heart” is removed: your true, shining Self. So let’s back up a bit to understanding kindness and compassion and how they’re different. And why all this is important. Kindness is what you do, and compassion is an expression that you feel. You can behave with kindness but not really feel it. You can be grudging about it; you can be a bean-counter about it. You know what I mean by that, right? “I did this, so you owe me that” – tit for tat. Kindness can be conditional, too. Like when you give your child a gift “because.” There’s a because, a condition on it. And of course, that’s often justified. You need your child to perform in school, do chores, or behave nicely out of the house. And when they do, it’s useful to give a reward, kind of to cement that good behavior into their brain cells. But then again, conditional kindness to children hints of the unspoken message, “You’re only good as long as you perform.” That’s not love. That’s not unconditional love. Bean-counter kindness and grudging kindness have the same drawbacks: They end up defeating the whole purpose of why you were kind. As soon as there are strings to it, or the feeling is false, the person on the receiving end can smell it. And it doesn’t smell good. I certainly admit that kindness is particularly difficult when you have a history of not having been given the very kind-
ness you’re supposed to give; someone expects it of you, but your cup is empty. Yet, the unfortunate dilemma you find yourself in is that if you aren’t kind, it absolutely makes things worse – and you know it. Or if you didn’t know it, it got pointed out to you by someone who recognizes that when two people are angry, resentful, and both feel mistreated, then
ness only go so far without the feelings of connection – attachment – that have to go with them. When you feel connected, then the compassion and the kindness are easy. What if the goal is that connection but you haven’t gotten there yet? Where does compassion come in? When there’s genuine compassion,
Everything goes more smoothly when compassion sits in your heart.
things only spiral downward. So the one that is willing – grudgingly, resentfully, even angrily – to do the work has to be the patient, kind one in the face of not feeling it is at all fair and in the face of the other one still being unkind. Well, all that doesn’t work, because, as I said, the receiver of all this knows it’s fake. But just to make matters even more difficult, the end goal in a torn relationship is not fake kindness. It’s compassion. Because even acts of sincere kind-
kindness is easy. But how do you feel compassion for someone who isn’t kind to you? Why did Dr. Schwartz make it so difficult? Including compassion in the list of what constitutes Self energy is demanding a lot of people! Yet, the reality is that everything goes more smoothly when compassion sits in your heart. The most difficult conversations, the most challenging relationships, the most draining energies all are somehow more bearable when there’s a spoonful of compassion.
Here’s the secret: We are all capable of feeling compassion under adverse circumstances because that is how Hashem feels towards us: He is compassionate, slow to anger, and waits for us to “get it.” He is our role model, and he has built into us the ability to follow His lead. But how do we do that? The answer is we all have free choice, bechira. We can allow our anger to rule, or we can take leadership of all the dissident voices within us pulling us in the wrong direction. We can focus on our wounds and the resentment we feel because of them, or we can focus on the good – but covered up – heart of the person who has harmed us. When you laser-beam your attention toward their good heart, when you see it without the covering, that’s when your compassion automatically will kick in. That last, glorious step is, indeed, automatic, but it begins with what you spotlight. Does that make you a doormat to be stepped on, taken advantage of? Or does that make you the person who turns around something bad and makes it something good? I do believe that the answer to that is simply this: Does the receiver of the compassion understand the 8 C’s? Has that person made any effort on their own to make things better and take a step toward you? Is that person learning? Learning about feelings, triggers, the role of history, the process of healing, the beauty and calm of Self energy, ways to uncover the things that cover the heart? Because if they are, I promise you – I promise! – things will get better. Please reach out if you want help with that.
Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb.com/myw-masterclass.
