Since much of the website promotes taking our emotions seriously (and reflecting on them) it is proper to mention here that compassion in its purest sense often involves extending ourselves emotionally, and so can use up a bit of energy. (In the previous post I described how we can default to logic when under pressure).
One of the reasons for this is that we use a lot less emotional energy if we get all logical.
And I know that this is a bit of a cliché, but in the area in which we are choosing to work, it can be hard to be compassionate all the time.
Many people who end up in prison for violent crimes are very hurt, and the outward manifestation of their hurt is what is visited upon their victims. Because of the nature of our work, it will be necessary from time to time to draw some kind of a boundary in respect of behaviour.
This could arise if we have to report people who commit to attending a programme due to some sort of court order and then they don’t. Or it could be reporting parents who are neglecting their children. Or we may have to ask someone to leave because they are under the influence of drugs.
In my experience, however, showing compassion to a very hurt person usually results in them being less likely to either attack us, or – worse – go away and never come back again, if they are angry because we draw a boundary.
Showing compassion always implies a willingness to be in relationship. It is very much a prefrontal cortex [1] response and, (once again referencing the neural mirroring that is always ongoing in human encounters) its use will optimise generation of a prefrontal response in the other, hurt, anxious person whose anger (and fear – remember the drowning man gasping for air) may be rising.
(And this analogy is not a bad one. Because if I am rescuing someone and I don’t take care of myself the drowning man might pull me under).
While the website is located generally in a community work context, I believe that the above holds true for all of us practitioners who are regularly faced with such challenges in our work.
Recognition that relationship can be built on compassion means that our rational mind (the mind that thinks in the context of relationship and/or empathy) as well as our logical mind (the mind that thinks totally logically, almost robotically) will be accessed. Note the difference between the two.
In this, can a person (whether a very distressed person seeking help, or a very distressed employee) trust our organisation to be compassionate when it is under pressure?
This, I believe, is the big test.
Because, if we have compassion written into our vision or mission statement and we are not compassionate when under pressure it involves a breach of trust.
Within the Focus Group this has particular resonance.
If we end up in prison we may have suffered as children, and almost always our suffering involved substantial breaches of trust. (In fact, I think that it’s safe to say that all significant harm done to children by adults involves a breach of trust). We then grow to adulthood with significant trust issues. That is why it is so important for us to trust an organisation to do what it says it will do.
And an atmosphere of trust encourages people who have never known trust to take a risk.
[1] This is the part of the brain that causes us to behave like mature adults