The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion

by Christopher K Germer

  Looking after others, one looks after oneself.

  What we think, feel, and do toward others shapes how we feel inside.

  A heads-up: Please don’t try to get through this chapter in one sitting. The first section explains why loving-kindness toward others is important and how to do it; the second section goes into concerns that might show up as you do the practice; and the third section describes how to bring the practice into your daily life. I recommend that you be a “student-practitioner”: Read a section, try the practice, and then alternate your practice with some more reading for the rest of the week. Go slowly—mindful self-compassion builds gradually. A full course of loving-kindness meditation, such as described in this chapter and the preceding one, is best taught in a relaxed retreat setting over a 4- to 6-week period.

  THE WAY OF CONNECTION

  Loving-kindness meditation has four healing elements: intention, attention, emotion, and connection. Boosting our core intention (“May all beings be happy”) brings energy and meaning into our lives, focused attention calms the mind (“Return to the phrases again and again”), positive emotions (compassion, love, tenderness) make us happy, and connection makes us feel more peaceful and secure (less alone, less afraid, with a sense of common humanity). You were introduced to self-to-self connection in the previous chapters; now you’ll learn how to practice self-to-other connection. The connection element of loving-kindness practice becomes particularly apparent when we direct our attention toward others. It soothes the pain of disconnection.

  Most people don’t appreciate the role of connection in their lives. It’s invisible. As my friend and colleague Jan Surrey explains, connection has an ebb and flow—we continually connect and disconnect—but we’re usually too preoccupied by our families, jobs, and other responsibilities to notice. That doesn’t mean we don’t feel it. Disconnection hurts. A disconnection can be subtle, such as when your partner falls asleep before you do, or it can have the devastating impact of marital infidelity or abuse.

  Usually disconnection occurs under the radar. It may show up as irritability, self-doubt, worry, or sadness. When you feel lonely and disconnected, a colleague at work can become irresistibly sexy, especially while you are both working late at the office, or you may consume too much food, spend a lot of time shopping, surf the Web looking for love, or drink too much. That’s when you should follow Jimmy Carter’s advice and look for “the things you cannot see.” Is disconnection what’s really making you anxious? Angry? Sad? Sexually aroused? Do you feel like your old self when your spouse returns from a business trip? Or does your mood get worse because you feel more disconnected in the company of your partner?

  Disconnections are inevitable, even in the best relationships. We’re all incompatible to some extent. That’s easy to imagine because we have different DNA, our childhood experiences are different, and we live (or lived) in diverse economic, racial, ethnic, and gender groups. Our dreams continually collide with those of others. Therefore, every relationship includes the pain of disconnection.

  Yet at the deepest level, way beyond ordinary awareness, we’re all woven into the same cloth. Thich Nhat Hanh, a prominent meditation teacher, illustrates this point in a lovely way:

  If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close. Let us think of other things, like sunshine. Sunshine is very important because the forest cannot grow without sunshine, and we as humans cannot grow without sunshine. So the logger needs sunshine in order to cut the tree, and the tree needs sunshine in this sheet of paper. And if you look more deeply … you see not only the cloud and the sunshine in it, but that everything is here, the wheat that became the bread for the logger to eat, the logger’s father—everything is in this sheet of paper. …The presence of this tiny sheet of paper proves the presence of the whole cosmos.

  Disconnection and Culture

  About 60 million Americans—20% of the population—suffer from loneliness. Culture plays a role in how connected we feel. Ami Rokach of York University in Canada did a survey and found that both men and women in North America were lonelier than their counterparts in Spain on the dimensions of emotional distress, social inadequacy and alienation, growth and discovery, interpersonal isolation, and self-alienation.

  Americans may also be losing confidence in the trustworthiness of others, another sign of loneliness. Wendy Rahn and John Transue found that social trust among high school seniors declined between 1976–1995. For example, 32% of students in 1976 felt that people in general could be trusted, whereas that percentage dropped to 17% in 1995. People were also viewed by these young adults as less helpful and less fair over the intervening years. Isolation and lack of trust reflect erosion of social connections.

  Alan Hedge at Cornell University speculates that job insecurity and the relative lack of social programs like health care, pensions, and education in the United States may contribute to making Americans a “nomadic society on this treadmill”—needing to emphasize work and material security over personal connections.

  The astronomer Carl Sagan echoes this vision: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

  Feeling separate from others is at odds with our deepest sense of self. That’s why it hurts. It would be blissful indeed to have an unbroken sense of connection with one’s children, one’s partner, all of one’s friends, and with all people of different races, cultures, ages, and sex, and with all living creatures, no matter how much their survival needs compete with ours.

  Hard-Wired for Empathy

  The building blocks for empathizing with other people are the “mirror neurons,” located primarily in the insula (empathy and internal perception) and the premotor strip (planning movement) of the brain. Mirror neurons mimic motor neurons—the ones that control our muscles. The way empathy seems to occur is that when you see another person’s face, the mirror neurons will mimic what you see so you can feel what the other person is feeling. For example, if you see a person smile, the mirror neurons will make your face muscles smile and then you will feel yourself smiling and recognize what the other person is feeling. People with less active mirror neurons, such as those with autism, have difficulty understanding what’s happening between characters in a movie or “reading between the lines” when engaged with other people. The implications of this research has been nicely described in Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, which builds on his earlier work on emotional intelligence.

  Our mirror neurons start firing as soon as we focus on another person. Happy or unhappy? Friend or foe? We can often detect tiny changes in facial expression or verbal tone that reveal how another person is feeling, even though we’re not fully aware of it. If I’m mad at my wife but plan to speak rationally and reasonably with her, my true feelings may still leak out. I might glance for a split-second too long or frown when I should have smiled. Then she says, slightly annoyed, “Why are you so testy?” and I think, “Me? Why are you so testy?” Our mirror neurons would have been communicating with each other all along despite my best efforts to hide how I feel. That’s probably why it’s so hard to discuss problems in a relationship; if you raise a topic when you feel unhappy, or start feeling bad after the topic is raised, your partner instantly feels as bad as you do.

  The insula is full of mirror neurons that help us know what other people are feeling and intending to do. Research (mentioned earlier) has shown that both mindfulness and metta meditation activate the insula. Daniel Siegel puts these findings together in his thought-provoking book The Mindful Brain, suggesting that when we meditate in private, we’re actually improving our capacity for connected relationships in the real world.

  In the words of Albert Eins
tein:

  A human being is a part of the whole called by us “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

  Is that possible? Well, sort of. We can feel connected even in the midst of disconnection by not abandoning ourselves in moments of pain. For example, it takes a lot of self-awareness and self-confidence to admit to oneself, after being snubbed by a boyfriend, “He’s just not that into you!” By not dodging what we’re feeling inside, we can continue to look others straight in the eye. The story of Michael and Suzanne in Chapter 1 also illustrates how bearing witness to one’s own relational suffering keeps us engaged.

  METTA FOR OTHERS

  Once you decide it’s worth developing loving-kindness toward others, basic training is necessary to deal with difficult people: income tax auditors, ex-spouses, telephone solicitors, and so on. Formal loving-kindness meditation is training for the real world. It transforms us by simultaneously exposing our emotional baggage as we reinforce the habits of loving-kindness and compassion. For example, a close friend may make you secretly green with envy if he gets a huge raise at work, or you might be angry at your sister for becoming pregnant before you did. When you start to meditate— cultivate the wish that your friend or sister be happy and free from suffering—you’ll immediately come face-to-face with these contrary emotions. It helps to make peace with them before you actually meet face-to-face, so no one feels hurt or rejected.

  There are traditionally six categories of people with whom we train ourselves in the art of loving-kindness. The trick is to start with an easy target, reinforce the loving-kindness habit, and work up from there.

  Self—Your personal identity, usually located within the skin.

  Benefactor—Someone who makes you consistently smile, such as a mentor, a child, a spiritual guide, a pet, or a piece of nature.

  “I’ve got a little job for you, Kretchmer. I want you to infiltrate the I.R.S. and sow the seeds of compassion?

  Friend—A supportive person toward whom you feel trust and gratitude and have mostly positive feelings.

  Neutral—Any living being whom you don’t know and therefore neither like nor dislike.

  Difficult—Someone who has caused you pain, or toward whom you have negative feelings.

  Groups—Any group of living beings, for example, everybody listed above, everyone in your home, workplace, or city.

  In the preceding chapter, you were introduced to loving-kindness meditation toward the self. Some of you have also been practicing with the “benefactor” as a route to yourself. For those of you who have not yet tried the “benefactor,” we’ll begin there and move forward in sequence to the other categories. Once you’ve mastered the “difficult person,” you’re ready to expand loving-kindness to everyone.

  To get a sense of the practice as a whole and to keep it interesting, I suggest that you try one category each day in a 20-minute meditation. Then go back and work with each category for an entire week. Please consider this chapter an introduction to loving-kindness meditation. If you wish to practice more intensively—longer than 20 minutes a day—please consider finding a qualified teacher. A teacher is someone who has gone down the road before you, knows the obstacles, and can guide you through them. Retreat centers and other opportunities for additional training are listed in Appendix C.

  Benefactor

  This category starts the process of paying careful attention to another person. The benefactor is someone who puts a smile on your face and warmth in your heart. It could be a beloved teacher, a spiritual guide, a child, a pet, or something you love in nature. Pick a relationship that’s least likely to disappoint you later on—someone or something that makes you consistently happy.

  TRY THIS: The Benefactor

  This meditation will take 20 minutes. Begin metta meditation as described in Chapter 6: bring your attention to your heart region, take a few breaths, form an image of yourself in the sitting position, and recall that all beings wish to be happy and free from suffering. Then start repeating the phrases for yourself for 5 minutes or begin straightaway with your benefactor.

  Bring the benefactor’s image clearly to mind and let yourself feel what it’s like to be in that person’s presence. Allow yourself to enjoy the good company. Also, recognize how vulnerable your benefactor is—just like you, subject to sickness, old age, and death.

  Say to yourself, “Just as I wish to be happy and free from suffering, may you be happy and free from suffering.”

  Repeat softly and gently, feeling the importance of your words:

  May you be safe.

  May you be happy.

  May you be healthy.

  May you live with ease.

  When you notice that your mind has wandered, return to the words and the image of your benefactor. Linger with any warm feelings that may arise. Go slow. If you want to return to yourself, feel free to do that at any time and then switch back to your benefactor when you’re ready.

  After 20 minutes, and before you end the meditation, say:

  May I and all beings be safe.

  May I and all beings be happy.

  May I and all beings be healthy.

  May I and all beings live with ease.

  Gently open your eyes.

  Compared to practicing metta meditation toward yourself, focusing on the benefactor is generally pleasant and easy. But if it’s the first time you’ve focused on the benefactor, you could have mixed feelings about the exercise. For example, you may not feel entitled to that level of intimacy with this special person, or it may feel like you’re peeking in someone’s window. Your reticence will probably subside over the coming week, but feel free to switch back to yourself when you need to, or return to the practice of mindfulness meditation—noticing what you’re feeling while you’re feeling it, with acceptance.

  Friend

  After working with your benefactor for a week or so, you’re probably ready to move on to the “friend” category. Friends have built trust for one another over the years and feel gratitude for the relationship. The relationship is close and predominantly positive. Select a few friends and briefly audition each one with the practice instructions given above for the benefactor, using the image of your friend. You don’t need to find the perfect friend—that doesn’t exist. Most will do just fine, wrinkles and all. When you’ve settled on someone, work with the person for the whole week. Start each meditation with yourself as the object of meditation, go to the benefactor for a minute (or switch around the benefactor and yourself), and then move on to your friend.

  Difficult feelings will invariably emerge. If you dearly love your friend, the phrase “May you be safe” could trigger anxiety that he or she may not be safe. Anger may arise, perhaps a memory that your friend didn’t visit you in the hospital after your operation. Or you might feel envious that your friend has more money than you or has a happier marriage. When negative emotions hijack your attention, gently return to the metta phrases. If they dominate your attention, drop back to metta for yourself or your benefactor. Any unpleasant emotion—fear, anger, jealousy, shame, or remorse—is a valid reason for loving yourself.

  A confusing feeling that everyone experiences from time to time with friends is schadenfreude. That’s the German word for feeling happy when others are going through difficulties. Ironically, a burst of joy when you hear of a close friend’s good fortune may be less common than the schadenfreude reaction. Instead of feeling ashamed when you feel this way, just continue to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion.

  Feeling disconnected is the root of schadenfreude, but our metta practice helps us feel connected. Whe
n you know you’re sharing in your friend’s life journey—not feeling left out—schadenfreude will yield to happiness. Say “May she and I be …” You’ll be even happier if you can support your friend’s achievements: “May your good fortune grow and grow.” Keep saying the phrases and see what happens.

  Metta Changes the Brain, Making Us More Compassionate

  In a pilot study, Richard Davidson and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin trained a group of people via the Internet to practice metta meditation for 30 minutes a day for 2 weeks. A comparison group of people learned to “cognitively reappraise” situations in their lives. After 2 weeks, only the metta group showed significant improvement on the Self-Compassion Scale (see Chapter 4). Then Davidson exposed the participants to images of human suffering, such as a child with an eye tumor, as he scanned their brains with fMRI. The metta group had increased activity in the insula (which shows empathy). The more active the insula was while the participants looked at the distressing photographs, the higher their scores on self-report scales of well-being and self-compassion. Davidson then gave the subjects the chance to donate their $165 honorarium to a cause of their choosing. Activation in the insula predicted how much money the subjects donated! This study demonstrates that only 2 weeks of loving-kindness meditation can change brain activity, make people feel more compassionate toward themselves and others, and even elicit generosity.

  Loving-Kindness toward Strangers

  Researchers at Stanford University found that only 7 minutes of loving-kindness meditation increased positive feelings and a sense of connection with neutral individuals. Ninety-three participants were randomly assigned to an experimental loving-kindness meditation condition or a comparable imagery condition. The loving-kindness instruction was to imagine two loved ones standing to either side of oneself sending their love. Then the participant opened his or her eyes and repeated phrases to a neutral photograph, wishing health, happiness, and well-being. The comparison condition imagined acquaintances standing in the same positions while focusing on their appearance, and later they focused on the appearance of the neutral person in the photograph. The loving-kindness group showed a significant shift toward positive responding—feeling more connected, similar, and positive toward the neutral person in the photograph.