compassion! it's about humanity!

how the world leading psychologist in compassion and mindfulness research would teach me about being human. a personal summary of the congress “attachement and trauma”

I love listening. And I am more than intrigued by the concepts behind compassion and mindfulness as interventional methods in psychotherapy. Therefore I ended up, lowering the age limit and seeking for responses in the middle of 1200 people, attending a conference exactly asking this question: how does attachment work and how can we use mindfulness and compassion in therapeutically contexts with humans who have been affected by life so hard, that feeling love and joy is one of the most challenging tasks they’d find for their lives.

Many people are asking me now, what I've learned. Conferences are confined spaces, collecting masses of potential but hiding it behind scientific borders. As we were talking about humans, we should also share these thoughts to humans. I’d love that each of the 1200 attendees would spread his/her ideas and thoughts somewhere. It might happen in many ways - and here is mine.

  
It's not possible to sum up this massive inspiration and motivation, the complexity of thoughts and dedication to research I would be able to observe, but here are some of my most recent thoughts and feelings. I want to adjust, very seldom in my life I felt so much connected and supported in my way of thinking like in these days.

me, myself and a mainstream called mindfulness

We live in a culture which prays the individualistic, yet, the egoistic. People associate 'mindfulness' to a status of acting superior. But, mindfulness has nothing to do with yoga retreats in India and hipster vegan food. It has nothing to do with fleeing from this world and hiding in rooms covered by the smell of incense sticks.

“It’s mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness everywhere. And then: compassion, compassion, compassion. People are talking so much about it, that they can’t live it” (Jon Kabat-Zinn)

Mindfulness is mainstream. It became popular due to neuroscience studies, which showed how the brain transforms once people start to meditate. And who – in our society of high-achievers – is not looking for a perfect method to rewire the brain towards a supercomputer. But mindfulness is more than that and life itself should become the actual meditation practice.

“Mindfulness is not an invitation to become more and more egocentric, it is actually the other way around: do not act self-centered, but feel the correlational towards this planet and all its beings.” (Jon Kabat-Zinn)

Daniel Siegel used an even better word for it: MWe, a combination of “me” and “we” to describe us individuals as a part of a large system we call: humanity. Yes, we might be separated by our skins, but we are interconnected by our breathing and sharing the same rhythm of heartbeat. Research is supporting his model of defining happiness as a result of feeling related to a group of people, and being a part of them.

we are all together in this

‘If everyone cares for himself then nobody is alone.’ I’ve heard this sentence in a group of dancers – means: a group in which people are associated with sharing moments of touch to each other. When this person said this sentence, everyone around would applause and appreciate the saying. I sat in the middle of this group and were about to cry. I don’t want to be the only one to care about myself – I want to be cared and protected by others. In addition to that: so many times we experience, that it is much easier to care about others than for you. Why not use this potential?

Yes, responsibility is risky. We can feel absolute responsible and meaning the best and we might achieve the worst we can imagine. Yes, responsibility is connected to failure, guilt, shame and all that ugly stuff modern society tries to prevent us from. But think about it: how poor would your life be, if you could never say or feel sorry? Shame is, according to Kathy Steele, a support for social structures in society which teaches us the borders and limitations we have to keep up in order to guarantee safety. Those who do not feel shame are sociopaths. Yes, responsibility sometimes forces us to cross the borders of what we consider to be accurate.

During her speech, Pat Ogden would show a therapy video in which she is holding the hand of a client who is traumatized from war and uses his right hand, seeking for touch. She asks him what he would like to do with the hand and he is responding that he would need her to hold it. So she did. Watching this, someone in the audience stands up and asks: "How could you touch the client? We are not supposed to do that in therapy." Ogden: "How could I not? Sometimes therapy comes to the point where it starts to be about humanity."

the most basic human instinct called compassion

No one ever has to learn compassion. We are all born with the intuition to care and feel for and with other humans. Using it in therapy is just a friendly reminder for our patients how care and listening can work, as these people are often so traumatized from the fact of not having experienced enough of it. Compassion is correlated to another aspect: courage! In order to be compassionate, we must dedicate ourselves to the fact that “our species is able to create good things and embrace love and care, but also works in a destructive way, starting wars, torturing people, coming crimes.” (Paul Gilbert) The acceptance of this suffering requires a high amount of courage and dedication. It expects us to decrease illusion, leave the hippie status of believing everything is covered in flowers. Yes, this world is good, and sometimes it is really bad. Both are part of our existence and need to be seen.

We are all wired to connect, shaped for love and build to take over the responsibility about ourselves, but also about everyone and everything surrounding us. Care and protection are infinity human instincts and the key towards happiness and love.

This is what I really have to share in these lines: Dedicate yourself, love, fail and fall, love even harder.

Mindfulness is everywhere, such as compassion. If there is something I really want to achieve now, it’s encouraging people to act responsible, feel interconnected and throw themselves into this adventure of falling and flying we call ‘life’. 

“People are aiming so much towards a higher and greater status of so called mindfulness. But this concept teaches us to live the present moment. Now. You could die after each breath. Focus on what is now and enjoy it.” (Jon Kabat-Zinn)