What Does Compassion Really Look Like?

Let's take a trip down memory lane.

Try going back into your memories. Go back to a time before you made a decision to change something. It's easy to remember the day you made the choice to change something, right?

But let's take a quick jog back a few days, maybe a week before that decision was made. Do you remember how you felt and what you thought in those days before you made the decision?

Remember who you were at that time. Before you made the decision. Now I ask you. That version of you, before the decision, if I had come up to you and urged you to make the decision earlier would you have? Probably not.

In fact you would have gotten defensive possibly. Maybe angry. Maybe you would have felt pressured, rushed, or just that you weren't being listened to.

Why is that? Because you weren't ready to make the decision! Right or wrong, healthy or toxic, it doesn't matter in that moment because you were not ready to make the decision yet!

Now let's get back to today. Think about someone you know that is not making a decision you think they should be making.

You might see where I am going at this point...

If you were not ready in those moments in your own story to make the decision any earlier than you did... Why are we expecting other people to be able to do it?

Compassion would be loving that person well, until they reach their own time of being ready.

It's tough though. You probably care about that person and want to see them grow, flourish, prosper and they are choosing not to for whatever their reasons. But if you stop for a moment, you might realize they just aren't ready yet.

Compassion would be remembering our own journeys so we don't rush others through theirs.