Overview
From the moment we enter this world to the moment we leave it we rely on the compassion from others to help us navigate life’s challenges and to help us flourish. We rely on compassion from our parents, friends, romantic partners, co-workers, strangers, and from groups like our work organizations and governments. Whole professions are devoted to try and reduce the suffering experienced by humans and other sentient creatures, such as doctors, nurses, veterinarians, conservationists, social workers, and psychologists. Yet, despite this need to give and receive compassion to a range of diverse targets, we can fall short of our noble ambitions, and at times choose not to show compassion to entities that might be considered beyond our moral boundaries, like out-groups, enemies, competitors, or people we dislike – even though we know they are suffering. How do we then overcome these serious and significant challenges? How do we choose compassion when we are confronted with global catastrophes such as wars, climate change, cost of living crisis, and pandemics? In this talk James Kirby will cover four major themes that have been at the core of my research over the last 10 years, which include: 1) what is compassion – unpacking what it entails and how it can be directed towards others, towards the self, and how we can receive compassion from others; 2) the importance of family and how parenting matters in the development of compassion; 3) James will then pivot to how compassion is good for our mental health and wellbeing; and 4) review intervention programs that have been developed to cultivate compassion to help with mental health, social relationships and moral expansiveness. Compassion is somewhat of a royal road to a range of benefits, it offers great hope to help heal not only our own suffering, but the suffering we encounter in our daily lives, we just need to choose it.
- SRI 218 sessions
- June 3, 2024Garrison, New York
