8 reasons you should jump off your moral high horse and show some Goddamn Compassion!

Why giving your ego a day off might be the best decision you make.

Are you sick of everybody out living their best life while you try to be a good samaritan and quarantine at home? Not because you’re fearful of the disease, but because it’s the compassionate thing to do.

Perhaps you feel that every asshole in the world doesn’t give a flip how unmoral our president is as long as he agrees that women shouldn’t have access to reproductive rights and black people should shut up and accept their place at the bottom.

Maybe you even proclaimed war against every jerk online who is calling same sex marraige a moral issue.

You are fired up.

Sitting at home you feel really brave and justified behind the comfort of your computer screen. Sipping your fresh gourmet coffee while lounging in your designer PJ’s. Yes the minorities, the immigrants, the right, the left, the boomers, the millennials, and the government are all coming for you!

They’re the reason you are laid off. It’s because of them that you can’t get ahead in life. If they would only listen to reason things wouldn’t be so bad.

Okay, okay, let’s take a moment and breathe.

2020 has been a rollercoaster. Starting in January when Australia was on fire. February Boeing jets were falling out of the sky. Then March hit. COVID cases had risen to the point of real concern and life as we knew it shut down.

We’ve been living very isolated lives for the past 8 months now. Some days it feels like the only outlet to the world is social media, and it is a shitshow.

People are letting their true colors show and a lot of it is based on false information and bias.

The media is doing a fine job selling fear and separation. We all know that a divided nation is a nation that is easily controlled.

Or do we?

Perhaps our lives have gotten so comfy that we forget what it means to show compassion towards our neighbor. Maybe we’ve been living for so long without discomfort that we forgot about who fought to make sure our lives were safe.

It’s no fun to have things disrupted, even when you know they’re off balance.

We are still in the midst of a world pandemic and tensions are super duper high.

You need to give yourself a pass here. A pass to just breathe. But as you give yourself permission to slow down and process you must also do this for your fellow humans.

They are all processing too. They too are isolated, scared, and don’t want to see their comfy lives change either.

We cannot let the example of our elected officials determine how we act. We can do better and we must. We must because this is America and Americans are the rebels. We came here like all immigrants seeking a better life. A life of Liberty and Justice for all.

We cannot meet these goals if we continue to tear each other down.

But through compassion, understanding, love, we can find a way.

Below are 8 benefits to choosing compassion over anger despite our differences.

Because I’m pretty sure when God said, “Love your Neighbor”, he knew your neighbor was not going to share in all your beliefs.

1. Improved Mental and Physical Health

I recently read that we spend more time looking at a computer screen that we do in people’s eyes. This is absolutely true in 2020 since most of us have like 5 people in our COVID circle of contact. I’m not even sure I look in the eyes of those people I most love and cherish.

This is leaving us less connected. And the less connected we are to each other the easier it is to categorize people.

We are seeing this today most prominently in politics: the far right and far left and the terror they threaten to this country. When in reality most of us are in the middle wishing for a third option to follow. Dissatisfied with extremes.

But we talk about it, we share our feelings about it, we close off the idiots who have opposing viewpoints when we should be getting in front of them and discussing.

I always fall back to the example of my cousin. She and I don’t see eye to eye on most things and it’s easy to fall into talking mad trash to my partner about her. Then at family events we clearly feel crunch around each other, like we both know the other has been talking mess. But by the end of Christmas dinner I remember that she’s not pure evil, and oh yeah, she had that awful example of a father that is surely playing a role in her psyche and we did used to have so much fun together.

I need to remember this because it’s hard to see her Facebook posts. It’s way too easy for me to place her in a bubble when I know she is so much more than that.

When we let that go we make room for healthy thoughts to fill the space. More healthy thoughts lead to better health. And better health leads to healthier thoughts.

2. Less Stress

You can feel your heart rate go up when you engage in negative behavior. How often do you read dividing posts on Facebook that immediately trigger you?

This causes huge amounts of stress.

When you are practicing compassion for another your stress levels will go down and your overall health will improve.

Not only does a compassionate mind set lower your overall stress levels, it actually helps your body be more resilient to stress when it does pop in your life.

3. More Gratitude

When you open your heart to be more understanding you automatically feel more grateful. Even if it starts by being grateful you don’t have a closed off mind set. Start there!

Practice feeling grateful for your own understanding of the world. Then open up and express gratitude for your challenging relationships because they are there to help you grow. Then be grateful for growth.

I know it’s not easy, but the more you focus on what you are grateful for the more grateful you become.

As Steven Colbert says, “What you appreciate, appreciates.”

4. Creativity

It’s hard to be creative when you’re all closed up with fear and anger. When you come at life with a sense of I’m right you’re wrong there is no room for creativity.

We all have aspirations and egos we deal with. It can be hard to align with others in a creative way when we come from a space of fear or anger. You completely close off any information that might be valuable for growth and creativity when you do that.

Being creative means being vulnerable. This is tricky enough with critics everywhere. However once you move away from a right and wrong attitude, creativity begins to flow in your life because you have removed a wall. Breaking down this barrier provides space for yourself and others to be vulnerable

5. Community Building

It’s been said that the best way to help yourself feel better is to help someone else. Understanding and acting from a place of community helps you to see that you are one is a sea of many, rather than one above a sea of many.

Volunteering your time or effort into a community that speaks to you will bring more honest connections into your world. Helping you to remember that there are many perspectives and ways of life out there. Yet we are all connected through the thread of human emotion. Working for a cause greater than yourself opens you up to new opportunities and ways to develop richer relationships with your fellow human.

6. Empathy

Compassion and empathy are both beneficial for growth and understanding. Compassion makes you more attractive because it shows leadership through a desire to help. Empathy on the other hand is being aware of other’s emotions and attempting to understand how they feel.

When you feel empathy for another you dig into the root cause of why they function and think. This is a powerful way to enhance your own personal growth, build relationships, and invite more understanding into your life.

7. Increase your Emotional IQ

When you are able to check your ego you are showing yourself and others that it’s okay to see another point of view before automatically condemning it. We have lost the virtue of a good conversation. Don’t put everyone in either right or wrong categories without taking a moment to try and understand the why behind their reasoning.

When you come at someone with an attitude of compassion and genuinely care about the other person’s perspective, both of you will increase your emotional intelligence. It helps you both to take a moment and work through the thoughts behind your broad statements and find common ground, or at least leaving you both with a broader sense of the gray in many of our dividing statements.

8. Stronger Together

Taking the time to invest in compassion towards yourself and others improves the mental health of all those around you.

Compassion is infectious!

When you are more optimistic and understanding towards those in your life, they will begin to unconsciously do the same.

When you show a little kindness towards another they in turn will show more kindness as well.

Albert Einstein said it best, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”

Because the world is a mirror, how you see the world is nothing more than a reflection.

Taking the time to say hello to a stranger or being empathetic when your daughter had a bad day at school means that you are consciously taking action to help others.

History continues to show us that we have strength in numbers. Why else would the media try so hard to divide us? They lose power when we don’t need them anymore.

Health positioning

Inviting more compassion into your life will serve you in so many ways. These 8 benefits are just a touch of the peace it will generate in your life and environment.

I am not suggesting you put up with your racist uncle, or your homophobic acquaintance from high school. I am suggesting you take the high road. Don’t add fuel to the fire.

No one’s mind has ever been changed by hostile words.

Being an adult can be challenging. Deciding to take an active role in your own mental wellness where you can is another level of adulting.

I can assure you that when you begin to make steps towards compassion instead of giving in to stress, depression, and feeling controlled by the opinions of others that you will automatically start to feel better.

Yes it is work at first, but in the long run you will win.

You will find yourself living your best life despite all the turmoil that will continue to come up time after time.