22/07/2025
Compassion can be confused with kindness.. Kind acts, such as remembering someone's birthday are often associated with happiness. They tend not to require courage or engagement with suffering, whilst compassion always does (Gilbert et al., 2019).
We say ‘kindness costs nothing', the engagement aspect means that compassion might… this could explain the 'Good Samaritan' study (Darley & Batson, 1973), in which the researchers got 90 per cent of students on their way to prepare a talk on the ‘Good Samaritan’ to ignore a man slumped in an alleyway, simply by manipulating their sense of 'hurriness'. A competing motive (desire for achievement or threat of task failure) reduced compassionate responding.
We need enough Self Awareness skill to understand which of our internal processes take priority, where they come from (childhood programming and learning) and how to not let a ‘competing motive’ enable us to move to a non compassionate mindset, behaviour or response..
In research around ‘Self Compassion’ it shows that people who are more compassionate towards themselves tend to experience better psychological health, reduced anxiety, rumination and perfectionism, lower levels fear of failure and depression, less struggle with unwanted thoughts and a greater willingness to accept negative emotions. These humans may also be better able to cope with adversity and be more likely to look after themselves by making positive life changes..
The AMPS study shows human Mental Health unfitness is increasing and the most effected are our young people, we need to focus on strategies, mindset building and behaviours that promote good Mental Health Fitness and protective human factors for prevention … it seems to me that adopting ‘Compassion’ and ‘Self Compassion’ and living within ‘Mindfulness practices’ may be an important ingredient to supporting these stark findings… 🙏🏼
Eight suggestions in the visuals below to start a compassionate mindset journey..
Thank you to the inspiring Professor Paul Gilbert OBE FBPsS, PhD, a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby for his dedication, research and work.. and the visual ‘Elements of Compassion’..
🙏🏼🦋
🙏🏼🦋
