Healing Days
I've experienced something interesting. It was essentially a 2-hour lecture by Dr. Gabor Mate on healing. The first thing I want to note down was his understanding of compassion and the 5 levels of it: Ordinary Human Compassion: When you feel pain, so do I. This first level is something almost all of us are capable of some of the time. It's important but very basic. It feels uncomfortable when seeing the homeless and painful when hearing an animal cry out. It's what drives people to console someone who is crying, in hopes of making them stop. Compassion of Understanding: Going deeper to ask, "Why the pain?" This is essentially a deeper level of empathy that takes a closer look, seeking to understand someone with curiosity. It's about wanting to know who a person is, beyond their present behavior. It's what might drive someone to have a real, heart-to-heart conversation with someone to understand why they were crying. Compassion of Recognition: Gabor des...