Compassion: Not as Easy as It Looks

Compassion is what you'll frequently hear from a baby loss mama when she describes the gift or lesson she received from her child or as an outgrowth of her grief. The practice of compassion is more likely to increase after tragedy or traumatic life events.

It's not as easy as it looks, though. And a recent unfortunate blog post by a mother who by all accounts is a compassionate loving mother to her children, her family, her friends and her blog readers, seemed to illustrate this thought. She chose to use some words that unfortunately hurt a community of women, she didn't intend to hurt. She apologized, but for me it seemed to illuminate something bigger.

Compassion: Not as Easy as it Looks

Because, from her comments it seems that she intended to hurt someone. She intended to hurt those who she perceived had judged and hurt her by their comments. There's plenty of evidence that others have been quite hateful toward her role as a mother, though perhaps not to her personally.

Being compassionate is more readily possible when the compassion is given to those who readily receive it and with whom we have a relationship or perceived connection. It's no great surprise to anyone that we are typically less compassionate to those we don't connect with, or lay outside of our social, religious, ethnic, or economic class.

Plenty of comments were left for the blogger, some genuinely trying to help her see that she had hurt the IF and loss community and some who aimed to explain why her words were hurtful. And yes, there was plenty of plain meanness posted, and several so ugly it was unfathomable to me. The blogger fended them off as best she could and seemed to respond in kind; if poster was reasonable so was she, if sarcasm was reeking, she added a stench of her own.

An e-conversation erupted on another site to discuss the post and the comments. Those posts were full of injured and angry words (mine included) and the site provided a safer place to express the hurt--a place where no matter what we said, we knew it would be received.

Compassion: Not as Easy as It Looks

As I read the posts (after posting mine) from beginning to end, I could see the struggle of many to be compassionate to the blogger who had injured the community. Some tried on the perspective of the blogger, and a few angry injured posters removed their words. The blogger apologized twice, and a brief discussion ensued as to the veracity of her apologies. One commenter stated, that the blogger did not want to understand, but wanted to be right.

The desire to be right, I'm convinced, is an obstacle to being compassionate. If your goal is to be gain agreement, sway others to a point of view, then you aren't in a position to listen, learn, and love. And when we're in this mode of teaching others what's right, we aren't particularly receptive to be admonished for words or behaviors that aren't caring. Sometimes, I think we know our behavior isn't compassionate and it's easier to shrug off any criticism, but when we aren't aware (as I believe said blogger was unaware) and taken by surprise that we have acted poorly we find that compassion is not as easy as it looks.

We try defensiveness, trading barbs for barbs, and eventually we may apologize. But will we choose compassion next time or will we merely pull our circle closer around ourselves to prevent another lecture or gentle chide? Could we agree to disagree? Could we learn to use, "for me" or struggle with disclaimers, rather than make proclamations? Will we be willing to accept admonishment and aim as Maya Angelo states, "When we know better, we do better."

Our unfortunate blogger's last statement was that she felt "beat to hell." I read each of her comments and responses and it's clear to me, she's working hard to be compassionate. I thought she didn't know how, but truth is we don't know how until we know better. I'm convinced that to practice compassion we need to hear from those we may have injured (and that frankly sucks); and to be part of that practice, we also need to make our injuries known. I learned a great deal tonight with this e-life event. I wish we had all been kinder (acknowledging that so many were kind) and hope we are able on this arduous journey to practice compassion, 'cause it's hard work.

Compassion: Not as Easy as It Looks

Peace, Kim.
Peace, baby loss and IF community.