Patrick, Texas, US
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Kristie Fowler, Arkansas
What is Compassion?
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Melinda, Dominica
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A Letter for 2021
The Losses We Share
Gloria Steinem, New York, New YorkWe asked you to share what compassion means to you. We have been moved, motivated and inspired by these stories from our Archewell Community.
Compassion is the willingness to endure suffering with another. Not to suffer the same losses as the other, but the decision to join them in the emotions of their loss.
In a culture that prizes comfort and convenience, it is the discomfort and inconvenience of feeling emotions that propel us into the avoidance of grief, not just our own, but that of others. With good intentions we rush to obliterate sorrow and restore comfort, but it is this very act that robs us of compassion.
Our resistance to the raw vulnerability of feeling leaves all of us emotionally isolated and abandoned. The shallow comfort and convenience of bypassing pain deprives us of the healing powers of grief and shared emotional connection.
Compassion is to welcome the suffering, to endure the pain of healing wounds together, to courageously join in the vulnerability of being human. Compassion is to hold space for the transformative power of sorrow to run its course. Compassion is choosing to resist the temptation of abbreviating emotions; yours and mine. Together.
