by Cyn Lee

Created on: March 21, 2009   Last Updated: April 05, 2009

My mother brought us up with compassion and probably didn't know it. Rather than scream while we kids were fighting, she focused on teaching us how we made each other feel with our name-calling and hitting. If my brother pushed me to the ground, mom would say " See what you did? Do you like it when your knees are bleeding and scraped?" Then my brother would be banished from her sight for about an hour to think about what he had done. Of course, he was probably playing video games and couldn't care less about my knee, but Mom tried. Her favorite expressions were heard on a daily basis: "If you don't like it done to you, don't do it to others." And the almighty, "If you have nothing good to say, say nothing," For a while I thought she was raising us to be Monks.

Compassion is the emotion felt when you hear or see another suffering. You feel their pain and you sense their suffering. Maybe you feel for them because you have suffered in a similar way. Insight is a form of compassion. People understand better when they have felt what someone is going through. They say when you express compassion for an other's misery, the sadness they feel is now shared, so healing begins.

I was born with compassion. At times in my life I would say I have too much compassion as it troubles me knowing so many suffer in this world. When I see or hear of children being mistreated, or animals abused, I obsess over their pain. I hate what goes on in foreign countries and despise what happens in our own. My personal battle with compassion fuels my writing.

Raising children with compassion teaches them insight. To look inside their own pains when trying to understand what someone else might be feeling. To understand that all humans have the same needs and fears. It is better to see what people have in common, than to only notice how different we all look.

Developing compassion as a way of life has health benefits as well as being a foundation for love and other emotions. Scientific studies state people who are highly compassionate produce 100% more DHEA, a hormone known to counteract aging. Compassion is also said to lower cortisol levels 23%. Cortisol is the hormone our bodies release when we are under stress. Cortisol increases your risk of obesity and hypertension - both killers.

In a world so full of misery, odds are compassion is already in use in your home. Buddha knows I try. In my home when the news comes on TV, kids are sent to play in another room. They don't need to learn compassion all in one nightly newscast. News today is horrifying. I'd rather teach compassion one step at a time, the way my mother did. When my son super glued his baby sister's fingers together, I had no inner understanding as to why he did it. Nothing internal came to light other than to have his father punish him so I wouldn't feel for my son's hurt pride and sore bottom. Baby steps.

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