Rick Hanson

So let's see, what is compassion?

Compassion is a combination of three things.

Empathy for suffering, benevolence.

So there's a caring response to the suffering.

Empathy alone is morally neutral.

And third, there's motivation to help if you can.

In evolutionary terms, that motivational aspect was very primary in the mother-baby unit.

in ancestors with brains, you know, half our size.

Today, that motivational aspect is still very relevant, but there very often are situations in which there is recognition of suffering.

There's an empathic recognition that's not merely conceptual, combined with caring while being unable to do anything at all.

Maybe about a loss that someone has suffered.

And also, of course, compassion can be applied to oneself.

So that's the nature of compassion in general.

As to whether it's soft, well, it is soft.

It softens your heart a little bit.

And interestingly, first of all, compassion contains the bitter and the sweet.

And the aspect that's sweet, the caringness, is protective and strengthening.

There is such a thing as empathy fatigue, particularly under conditions in which boundaries are quite porous between self and other.

There is really not a thing, compassion fatigue per se, because the sweetness, even neurologically,

is actually buffering and protective so the caringness is protective already it is strengthening and compassion also has been shown by much research to as you said john to increase resilience