Where Has Compassion Gone?
There are certain qualities, common to human beings, that largely go unnoticed in our society as they just do not get the kudos that other more attention-seeking qualities might. These include: resilience, kindness, empathy, wisdom and – compassion. Though these qualities might fly under the radar, they are the glue that holds humanity together. Or used to.
Compassion is a particular flavour of love, one that employs awareness and empathy, rather than being steeped in sympathy or pity. Sympathy, and certainly pity, can hold the subject of their gaze down, seeing them as lesser and beyond recovery; whereas compassion is focussed on finding solutions that engender relief and a return to wellbeing.
Compassion relies on being able to having a feeling sense of the other. We must first have a feeling sense and level of compassion for ourselves, as when we cut off from our own heart, we cannot tune into those of others.
Heart and mind are designed to work together, with the heart on lead. The heart knows and the mind is meant to implement that knowing. But when the mind is cut off from the heart it becomes a distorted, out-of-balance system. As we are seeing. When the ‘heart’ is out of balance it risks lapsing into ineffective sympathy.
A singularly hard-line, intellectual, mechanical, left brain approach risks being cut off from the heart; and when the mind is untethered from the heart it can be very clever in its justifications and often uses force and domination to push forward its own agendas.
During this pandemic, in our own communities we are currently seeing too many examples of rigid rules and regulations totally devoid of human warmth and compassion. Alarmingly, we are hearing many stories of callous acts decreed under the guise of adhering to the rules.
Examples include: people not being able to cross borders to attend the funerals of family members; mothers not being able to cross the border to be with their sick children and babies in hospital; children barely out of heart surgery having to endure quarantine in a hotel room; a father dying of brain cancer being only allowed to see one out of his four children; a man not being able to attend his dying mother because he had to stay in quarantine, even though he tested negative to the SARS-CoV-2 test; the elderly separated from their loves ones, and dying alone in nursing homes without the embrace of their families; and single people not being ‘allowed’ to have contact with family and friends – for what seems to be an indefinite period of time.
(Interestingly, in the face of these tightly held sanctions, politicians, officials, actors and so-called celebrities can apparently cross borders without being subject to the same disciplines and restrictions as the normal population. Think about that.)
With these regulations, there seems to be no accounting for the trauma experienced by the individuals involved, including the short and long terms effects on infants and children subject to the trauma of separation. In the misguided attempts to supposedly prevent spread of a virus (which for most people actually causes very little, in any, harm) the potential adverse effects of these imposed rules seem to be completely overlooked or discounted.
Of course, in many areas of life, some reasonable and appropriate rules and regulations might be very helpful guidelines, but we need a balanced, considered approach. A hard, left brain, rigid approach, not matched by a right brain perspective that considers the nuances of human experience, will likely result in a distorted, unhealthy outcome.
Some of you might remember ‘Nurse Ratched’ from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ (Ken Kesey's 1962 novel as well as the 1975 film of the same name.), a fictional character that represented a hard, cold, heartless tyrant who was totally devoid of warmth and compassion - strictly abiding by rigid rules and regulations to exert her will and power in her own little world. There are more than a few Nurse Ratched’s running around on our shores!
People and institutions lacking in empathy or compassion are indeed very threatening as they play by very different rules to those of most people and, thus, their conscience cannot be appealed to. This brings about a level of shock, disbelief and often terror in the average, conscientious person. This creates significant cognitive dissonance, which is a confused state under which people are more likely to obey and give away their power to these unscrupulous individuals, institutions and organisations.
I do not envy those who have had to shut down their hearts and natural compassion in the name of ‘doing their jobs’ and following orders. I am sure that many of us, including myself, have been there to some extent. Who amongst us will be courageous enough to say “I cannot follow that order!”? Not at all easy.
Some who have been trained away from opening their hearts, dare not allow themselves to feel compassion because the pain of years of suppressed love and compassion would be too difficult to bear. This is why, when in a situation where compassion might be appropriate, it is very quickly cast aside before it even reaches any conscious awareness. Added to this is the fear of losing their livelihoods, status and reputations and just not wanting to rock the boat. We humans are all subject to these dynamics and all have to, individually, decide whether to follow our own conscience or the dictates of unconscionable rules, regulations and orders.
Unfortunately, when we are overcome by our survival fears, which indeed can be a self-centred, narcissistic state, we risk focussing on our immediate survival at the expense of what really is best for our communities. This is not to blame anyone; it is just that our brains are designed that way to ensure our short-term survival. Unfortunately, the constant propagation of fear messages makes many vulnerable to maintaining what is designed to be a temporary state, as a long-term way of being.
How many more abuses of power and utter disregard for people’s wellbeing and feelings will be lauded by people believing it is protecting the population? Is it? In my opinion, the misuse of power enacted under the guise of ‘goodism’ and ‘for the greater good’ (whatever that means!) is a heinous form of mass manipulation. Pity many people have bought it.
We have sacrificed human compassion, empathy and understanding at the altar of hard, rigid, draconian, inappropriate and unproven dictates and sanctions. This has nothing to do with 'keeping us safe'! Quite the opposite. What has this country become?
Through challenging human experiences, as we are experiencing now, we have the capacity to forge a better way and bring to the forefront qualities such as resilience, stamina, courage, fortitude, wisdom, empathy and compassion - as our forbears have demonstrated. With this pandemic, however, we seem to have forgotten compassion in favour of fear, restriction, constriction, risk aversion, acquiescence and the unquestioning obedience of unreasonable and unproven rules and sanctions. What have we become?
Not everyone of course – we know there are many heart-aligned and courageous individuals out there and I am sure many who genuinely feel that they are doing the right thing by imposing or following the rules; however, the general populace has been trained to remain steeped in defensive survival fear, which is actually an exceedingly self-focussed state, at the expense of the warmer human emotions.
Dr Catherine Fyans is a holistic medical practitioner/conscious health facilitator and the author of The Wounding of Health Care: From Fragmentation to Integration