Lately I have been contemplating the nature of being compassionate. With all the wars going on overseas and the hardship that some individuals, families, animals, and the wider natural world are experiencing, I’ve been wondering how I can be of service. How I can do my bit to contribute and make a difference in some small way. Maybe not to everything, but to something, someone, somewhere.

Research shows that being compassionate is great for our general wellbeing and, in particular, our mental health. Compassionate behaviours, including self-compassion, have been shown to alleviate anxiety, depression, and improve optimism, connectedness to others, and general resilience.4,5 When we are being compassionate, certain areas of the brain become activated leaving us with pleasant feelings. These feelings are generated from reward centres of the brain, producing feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin.4

I’m all for any way that we can tweak our mental health and, if being compassionate leaves me feeling joyful, give me more of that!!  In fact, writing this newsletter has left me feeling all warm and fuzzy. I guess because I feel I’m contributing something meaningful to the readers.

But, I think we take for granted that we know what it means. I always thought that compassion was similar to empathy. And, my search suggests that it is.  But after googling the internet on this topic, I discovered many definition variations, some of which overlapped confusingly. The following are a sample that seem to agree well enough. I also sought the answer for how these are different from altruism.