Develop your compassion

Compassion is a sympathetic feeling. It involves the willingness to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to take the focus off yourself and to imagine what it’s like to be in someone else’s predicament, and simultaneously, to feel love for that person. Compassion is the recognition that other people’s problems, their pain and frustrations, are every bit as real as our own---often far worse. In recognizing this fact and trying to offer some assistance, we open our own hearts and greatly enhance our sense of gratitude. Compassion is something you can develop with practice. It involves two things: intention and action. Intention simply means you remember to open your heart to others; you expand what and who matters, from yourself to other people. Action is simply the “what you do about it.” Compassion develops your sense of gratitude by taking your attention off all the little things that most of us have learned to take too seriously.