Compassion can be thought of as the combination of three things: first is seeing the people you encounter as whole human beings, not as problems or as assets to be used. Second is communicating from the heart, speaking and hearing without defensiveness, aggression, or manipulation. Third is a simple desire to help them. Openheartedness, genuineness, and helpfulness.

We all experience compassion with our best friends, our children, and maybe with our favorite patients. Nothing feels better; nothing makes life more meaningful. And, since we know from experience that recieving the compassion of others is profoundly comforting and empowering, we know that compassion is an essential ingredient of healing.

Compassion practices help us reconnect with our innate compassion in the moment. In doing so, the practices allow us to enjoy our relationships with colleagues and patients much more, and to build or repair the human connections that make us effective clinicians. The practices also help us to discern the difference between compassion and pseudo-compassion—helping others in order to get approval from them, our colleagues, or ourselves. More compassion leads to a more meaningful work life (and personal life.) More pseudo-compassion leads to burnout.

And speaking of burnout, most of us started out in health care aspiring to a career that expresses compassion. For many of us, that aspiration has been injured or killed by the pressure and emotional intensity of real-life day-to-day clinical work. We may believe that if we are more kind and open our work will crush us. If the idea of developing more compassion seems threatening to you, Please read this discussion of compassion and burnout.