Compassion

"In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience -- our suffering --, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror.  It has to be this way.  Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.  It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.  Compassion become real when we recognize our shared humanity." Pema Chodron

Compassion comes from two Latin words which mean "to suffer with".  It is very different from sympathy -- where we remain above the person who is hurting and feel sorry for them.  Compassion is like empathy:  it involves walking in the other's shoes.  Compassion takes great courage because we have to know ourselves so well and to recognize our capacity for doing both good and bad in order to stand with another person and understand their pain.  Most of all it is important to have compassion toward ourselves.  We are human after all.  Fallible.  Imperfect, but also beautiful; and we are made all the more beautiful when we own all parts of ourselves and all the ways we are capable of acting.