4 The Liberating Power of Compassion
Ed Adams asked his wife, “Is this room tilted?” “No,” she said. “Why do you ask?” That question turned out to be the opening salvo of a health saga that put him in the hospital for two weeks as his body slowly become paralyzed from the top down. As the symptoms progressed, the specter of death became a more and more likely outcome to the nightmare— made worse by the fact that no one knew what was happening to him.
Eventually, the diagnosis was found to be a rare immune disorder called Miller Fisher syndrome, which has an incidence of just one in a million. It’s thought to be triggered by a virus that tricks the immune system into attacking its own neural system as if it were a foreign agent. Slowly the nervous system shorts out and body functions go haywire. That’s the bad news. The good news is . . . it eventually stops. After it runs its destructive path, neurons begin to repair themselves. Eventually, normalcy returns; it’s a trip to hell and back.
Ed’s medical drama, a very frightening time that forced a reckoning with death, is now a decade-old memory. But despite the fear and anxiety he went through, Ed’s recollection today doesn’t center on the confusion, helplessness, and distress. Instead Ed remembers the compassion.
Suffering arouses compassion. Compassion is sensitivity to the suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it. In his round-trip flight on the Miller Fisher syndrome journey, Ed’s suffering evoked compassion from countless numbers of people. Physicians, nurses (especially the nurses), technicians, other patients, his wife, family, and friends. He was on the receiving end of a river of compassion. One friend joked with Ed about his inability to articulate words clearly, quipping: “You don’t need to talk much to do therapy with men, Ed. They don’t listen to you anyway.” He laughed when Ed could only grunt.
Throughout the two weeks in the hospital, one dose of Tylenol was the only medication Ed took. He states with full confidence that it was the compassion he received that “healed my spirit.” Ed hears echoes of the power of compassion in the myriad stories told by people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compassion is a natural expression of our human nature that all men need in order to live healthy, satisfying, soulful lives. But, in addition to being willing to give and receive compassion, men need to be compassionate with themselves as well. Compassion and its cousin behaviors—empathy, kindness, self-awareness, appreciation, and generosity— have always been central to deeply rewarding relationships for men. Yet today acting with a compassionate mindset has become imperative. Changes in technology, demographics, and organizational life are putting a premium on emotional awareness when it comes to men’s personal happiness, their effectiveness at work, and their place in our wider society. Compassion and self-compassion are liberating men from a “me”-only self-centeredness that generates unnecessary suffering and isolation. The compassion at the heart of liberating masculinity is enabling men to manage a more complex, relationship-centered world in meaningful, powerful ways.
A Human Hallmark, a Man’s Birthright
Humans have evolved with the ability to intimately connect with our children, an ability that ensured newborns received the care needed to survive. Fortunately, the capacity to form bonds with others extends beyond our immediate family. If our early ancestors hadn’t take care of each other, our clans would have perished. We learned that mutual attention and care makes us better able to not just survive but also to thrive. It becomes a two-way emotional payoff: we can experience the comfort of receiving compassion and feel satisfaction providing it.
Consider how compassion scholar Paul Gilbert sums up our early history as a species.
“ With the advent of agriculture, peaceful and caring hunter-gatherer bands that had existed for hundreds of thousands of years fragmented. It was in these groups, however, that we evolved the extraordinary capacity for empathy, caring, and sharing,” Gilbert says. “In fact, it’s likely that human intelligence and language evolved partly because we focused on developing prosocial relationships.”1
Compassion itself has no gender boundaries. Emma Seppälä, science director of the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, argues it is misguided to view women as being more innately compassionate than men. “While women’s expression involved nurturing and bonding,” Seppälä writes, “men’s compassion was expressed through protecting and ensuring survival. Compassion just took on a different ‘look and feel’ depending on our evolutionary needs for survival.”2 And so, if men claim that compassion is exclusively a feminine trait, they deny themselves their full humanity.
Compassion originates in our nature and is positively or negatively shaped by experience. Since compassion is integrated into our humanity, it’s like an acorn waiting to be de- veloped—or not. Everyone is born with the need and capacity to be connected to others. Environmental experiences that begin in utero and extend throughout life continuously shape our access to and expression of our compassionate selves. All of us are capable of great heights or lows, of developing the compassion of Buddha or the callous indifference of a psychopath.
Men are by both nature and nurture compassionate beings. Confined masculinity, though, can hold men back from identifying compassion as a trait to be valued and nurtured. Men have often disavowed kindness, tenderness, and caring as being “masculine” because these traits have been perceived as soft and feminine—and we know that confined masculinity marginalizes that which is perceived as feminine. But we need to understand that compassion must be fully claimed into the humanity of men. The time has come for men to reclaim compassion as masculine, to bring it back into male identity. Reclaiming compassion and self-compassion energizes the soul of men. It is also required for positive and sustainable change in the world.
Ed Adams has treated a great number of men, who come to him to address any number of problems. And none of them has had the problem of “too much tenderness, care, and compassion” in his life.
A Father’s Regret
Jackson, a member of Men Mentoring Men, illustrates how compassion or the lack thereof can have a significant impact on relationships.
After participating in a dozen men’s group meetings and listening to the other men open up, Jackson decided to reveal what was locked in his heart. During one M3 meeting, he discussed the shame he felt about the way he fathered his young adult daughter, Sara.
“At the start I was disappointed that we had a girl,” he admitted. “I tried to interest her in the things I enjoy like sports, camping, and fishing and anything that was competitive. But she wasn’t interested in these things. Actually, she’s more like a girlie girl. I made little effort to show interest in her activities. Sara experienced me as a distant and disconnected father. As I look back, I can see how much I hurt her. Naturally, we grew apart. Now I want to become closer to Sara and show her my love. But I’m scared it’s too late. I don’t know what to do.”
Jackson began to understand that he had accepted and abided by many confined masculinity rules. One of these rules tells us that it’s unmanly to act in ways that are stereotypically labeled as feminine. The problems Jackson faced were a consequence of following such antiquated and limiting ideas. As a result, Jackson was living in regret and disappointment. But Jackson is a loving man who was seeking the liberating power of compassion and connection.
The men at this meeting bore witness to Jackson’s emotional pain. The room remained silent until Jackson continued. “I came to this group too late,” he concluded. “If I had seen the world through the lens of compassion, life for my daughter and me would have worked out differently. I would have seen Sara’s hurt and I would have helped her. I love her. Now, we’re both wounded.”
But the men didn’t think it was too late. They urged Jackson to figure out a strategy to reconnect with Sara. And what Jackson did next was quite an inspiration. But before we tell you what he did, let’s discuss other key aspects related to men and compassion—starting with self-compassion.
Men and Self-Compassion
In the M3 meeting room there is a sign that states, I NEVER BEAT MYSELF UP GENTLY. That comment speaks to the way many men lack self-compassion.
When a man offers himself compassion, he is willing to recognize his own pain, discomfort, disappointment, and suffering—and then attempt to comfort himself to relieve that pain. We are being self-compassionate when we treat ourselves with kindness, caring, and respect. Self-compassion originates in our thoughts and then is put into action by our behavior.
Ed Adams facilitates workshops for men. Whenever he introduces the notion of self-compassion, he is usually met with blank stares. Self-compassion is a concept few men have ever heard about. But when Ed asks men if they are self-critical or think negatively about themselves, everyone raises their hand. One man said it well: “No one ever sat me down and said that it’s time to learn how to be your own best friend.”
Self-compassion is one of the essential skills men need to move from confined masculinity toward liberating masculinity. And since self-compassion is a learned skill, men of all ages can develop or increase their practice of self-compassion. This is a good thing, since the ability to be self-compassionate dramatically increases our quality of life. Kristin Neff, a leading researcher and proponent of self-compassion, found that self-compassion is more constructive to our psychological well-being than self-esteem. Self-esteem is judgment-based in that we compare ourselves to others; self-compassion, on the other hand, involves confronting realities of life but without unjustified or harsh judgment. Self-compassion refers to how we relate to ourselves about past, present, and anticipated experiences. “Self-compassion,” Neff says, “is associated with greater emotional resilience, more accurate self-concepts, more caring relationship behavior, as well as less narcissism and reactive anger.”3
Note that self-compassion is not a sugarcoated, trite way of thinking, such as “everything works out for the best” or “don’t worry about it.” Self-compassion is pragmatic and kind. It is based in the full-spectrum realities of life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. For example, one of Ed’s patients was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. If Ed told him that self-compassion was believing “it will work out in the end,” Ed would both harm him and diminish the trust built between them within the therapeutic relationship. Instead, Ed suggested that he tell himself, “Parkinson’s is surely going to make life difficult. But the good news is I am loved, supported, resilient, and aware. I am surrounded by people who care about me and a team of doctors committed to help me physically and emotionally cope with this disease.”
Criticizing Self-Criticism
Harsh self-criticism cultivates feelings of being inadequate, “different,” and “left out.”These beliefs increase isolation, anxiety, and depression. The benefits of developing self-compassion include reducing fear and anxiety, as well as developing greater connection with others and stronger resilience to life stressors. Being compassionate toward yourself is practicing self-kindness. It helps regulate negative emotions by being a soothing source of self-comfort. It also allows a man stuck in a “me” orientation to open his interior life and all of his relationships to a more effective “me and we” worldview. One of the most destructive elements within confined masculinity is the notion that men should not express feelings, needs, emotions, or personal matters to anyone, even to oneself. As a consequence, self-compassion is impeded by the lack of language to identify and validate what is experienced. Ronald F. Levant, a leading researcher in men’s studies, saw the inability to describe feelings with words so pervasive among men that he coined an academic term to capture the phenomenon: “normative male alexithymia.”4
Although most men take pride in attending to the needs of their external life, ignoring one’s inner landscape is one of the numerous drawbacks of a confined masculinity. Because without self-awareness—and the language to describe what one feels—men are susceptible to being misunderstood, dismissed, and relationally handicapped, all of which renders emotional growth stagnant or impossible. In addition, reluctance to identify and express emotion perpetuates the stereotype that talking about feelings isn’t masculine. Often, the ability to recognize inner emotions is never learned because there was no one to teach it. This runs the risk of transmitting self-ignorance generation after generation—until some brave soul decides to venture inward. If a man is to enjoy the benefits of self-compassion, he must be aware of, accept, and describe what he really feels. He must understand the “feeling inside the feeling,” the deeper emotion underneath the initial reaction to any unpleasant scenario.
In short, this is about developing emotional maturity and sophistication.
It may seem that men are becoming more expressive through the use of communication technologies—we’ve seen guys zapping smiley faces, hearts, and tearful emojis in their tweets and texts. But this effusiveness may not carry over to expressed emotion with someone facing you eye to eye. In other words, be aware that confined masculinity is an insidious, durable, and powerful force.
There is one emotion many men frequently access and express: anger. Anger is an emotional energy that can be directed to build relationships and create positive change. One can argue that Mother Teresa used anger to ensure that the poor, destitute, and sick under her care were not ignored. Anger is also an emotion that’s perceived by many as “manly.” But it’s a dangerous emotion, and we caution against identifying it as a welcomed manly trait. Anger often is used as justification for violence and aggression. It is frequently “me” oriented and judgmental. Often, anger sickens the mind, alienates others and destroys relationships. There is no virtue in that outcome.
Anger often derives from self-absorption, from holding on to righteous positions. At M3 meetings, when participants don’t agree with another man’s point of view, Ed Adams has asked them to respond not with anger but with: “you might be right.” This opens the conversation to discuss substance instead of defending positions. Those four words help to curb or even prevent anger responses.
Marty, one of Ed’s patients, told him, “I was given a surprise party to celebrate my forthieth birthday. Instead of feeling honored, I was angry. Then, a guy at work teased me. Instead of laughing at myself, I became angry. Why so much anger? You’re the doctor,” he said to Ed. “Am I just an angry man?”
Men and Compassion
The answer to Marty’s question is both yes and no. Yes, men living according to confined masculinity have been angry. But no, that isn’t our natural state.
As we said, compassion and self-compassion are genderless. But when men associate compassionate thought and action as being soft, weak, or feminine, they’re not likely to adopt compassion in their lives. In the liberating masculinity model, men proudly and eagerly associate compassion and self-compassion as manly. This deep connection between masculinity and compassion releases men to express their full humanity, and honors the selfless deeds many men perform every day. Compassion and self-compassion liberate men from self-centered anger; they also enable mindfulness. Mindfulness, in turn, allows the brain to self-regulate, and respond to incidents with a range of options.
Compassion is like a big container filled with the best of the human spirit. Once compassion is present within our mind and heart, it brings along empathy, connection, care, involvement, and “me and we” thinking—plus the positive action to fulfill those positive intentions. It is a highly virtuous characteristic of our humanity because it benefits both the self and others.
If the mythical magician Merlin waved his magic wand and ignited a twofold greater presence of compassion within all human beings, problems from the individual to the global level would be positively affected enormously. The awareness of each other’s needs and suffering would sharpen. Decisions would be informed by caring about the impact on self and others. Our connection to and responsibility for the welfare of the environment would not be in question. Wars and nuclear weapons would appear ludicrous. Famine and disease would be tackled in coordinated ways, no longer dominated by self-serving economic concerns. Each of us would feel that we are part of community and that our lives matter. We would experience greater purpose and live longer, healthier, and more satisfying lives. Given all these benefits of pursuing compassion-driven lives, it’s folly for men not to accept compassion as a deeply manly quality.
The Ingredients of Compassion
Along with self-awareness and the ability to express our inner feelings, compassion extends out and requires caring about our relationships as well. For most people, the key relationships include immediate family, extended family, and perhaps some friends, colleagues, and even family pets. This is a circumscribed circle of relationship, which in turn generates a limited circle of compassion. This isn’t to say that compassion at this level isn’t vital and honorable. Most men who identify themselves as compassionate are responsive to those within their contained circle of relationships.
In the past, the expression of compassion toward those within this circle was adequate to survive and thrive. That is no longer the case. Technology, communication, and transportation have made the world small. Our technological advancements have altered and expanded all relationships—to the extent that in today’s world it’s a challenge to effectively maintain our close contained relationships. In addition, many of our familial relationships are dispersing because of increased mobility, divorce, changing modes of communication, and economic and social changes.
Herein lies a paradox. Technology broadens our ability to witness the suffering of others but can diminish our ability to see it in those closest to us. For example, if my relationship with my nephew is based on short, shallow text messages, I may know nothing of his pain. I may not know if he has a broken heart, or wasn’t promoted as he’d hoped. And yet, I can go online and witness the pain of people who lost everything in a fire. I might feel bad for that family without realizing my own nephew needs my attention and care. Instant communication can connect us with the suffering of others. Yet our current tools can nudge us toward superficial exchanges rather than real intimacy with those nearest to us.
Many of us around the globe are struggling with this paradox. This makes it urgent for men to embrace compassion as a birthright of manhood. Only then can we deal with the confusion that hovers around compassion—and the difficulty of enacting it in our close relationships and then amplifying it to reach others.
Compassion also is emerging as a critical behavior for successful careers and thriving organizations. We’ll explore this idea in greater detail in chapter six, “Reinventing Masculinity at Work.” The gist, though, is that a quicker, more complex, more diverse business world is calling for both men and women to demonstrate emotional intelligence, empathy, and caring. These soft skills are proving to also be “success skills,” since persuasion is becoming more powerful than top-down commands, organizations rely increasingly on teams rather than individual efforts, and “psychological safety” among colleagues is critical.
Men living within a liberating masculinity model are comfortable with kindness, and they often thrive in the new business climate. But the men who remain stoic and uninterested in understanding the experience of historically marginalized people, such as women, people of color, and LGBTQ colleagues, are finding themselves less and less effective. They also face greater risk of violating the higher standards of sensitivity that organizations are adopting.
An Always-Available Option
But there’s hope for these men to move in the right direction. Compassion is always available. We have the omnipresent choice to respond to life in this way. Ed Adams’s cross-country flight (see the “Peace, Compassion, Death, and Life” sidebar) demonstrated how compassion and kindness can be chosen over indifference. Compassion is a highly effective antidote to contained masculinity. Expanding and compassionate men express feelings, ask questions, reveal needs and desires, and enter difficult conversations with the intent to resolve conflict, not increase it.
In liberating masculinity, character matters. A man is measured by his intention and willingness to create harmony and cooperate with others. Empathy, kindness, appreciation, and respect are prized characteristics. A liberating man highly values compassion, and integrates it into every action and decision at every level in his personal and organizational lives. A compassionate man knows that “what goes around, comes around.” This acknowledges that all life interconnects—and if you act with compassion and kindness, you will soon be the beneficiary of those traits. Likewise, if each of us acts with detachment and in a “me” orientation, eventually our own needs will be ignored by others.
Compassion is a virtuous behavior. Ed Adams invariably advises men in the throes of divorce to respond to the hurt and anger by “taking the high ground.” One of his patients, Wade, was going through a nightmare divorce filled with accusation, legal maneuvers, and threats to his business. Despite his many fears, Wade tried hard to control his impulses to respond with anger. “I hate what my wife is doing,” he told Ed, “but I refuse to hate her.”
Throughout Wade’s ordeal, Ed and Wade discussed the pros and cons of responding to his ex-wife with strength and compassion. Wade discovered that it takes a great deal of courage to maintain a more peaceful course. He also learned that he could set firm boundaries, and learned the value of self-compassion.
After the dust settled and both parties moved on with their lives, Wade reflected on the difficult divorce. “As I look back, I am so happy that I generally kept true to my moral compass. I lost money but not my kids, and I lost some battles but I kept my integrity. Now, I’m scarred, but open to loving and being loved.”
He emerged from his trouble with his fatherhood intact, and he became a wiser and more connected man. Compassion and self-compassion guided his journey toward an expansion of his masculinity rather than a retreat toward a constrained, “me”-centered, crouching stance.
Courageous Compassion
Compassion is not for the faint of heart. It calls for a gritty, face-to-face acceptance of pain and suffering combined with genuine, realistic, kind, and bold responses. Compassionate men are not pincushions. They maintain healthy boundaries, even as they act to relieve and prevent suffering. They respond to compassion’s call to act with curiosity, courage, connection, and a firm commitment to prevent, ease, and end suffering in ourselves and others.
These themes we’ve discussed above played a major role in how Jackson—mentioned earlier in the chapter—resolved his conflict with his daughter. You may recall Jackson’s long-standing alienation from his daughter, Sara. Jackson expressed his desire to “improve” the relationship and said that he wanted to “become more connected and loving,” but he also didn’t know what to do. During the M3 meeting mentioned earlier, Jackson’s helplessness was carefully challenged by the other men. Then total silence. Suddenly, Jackson stood up and asked if he could use Ed’s private office to make a call.
Twenty minutes later, Jackson returned. “I called Sara,” he announced to the men. “I told her I love her and I was so sorry for how unloving I acted toward her. I told her that things were going to be different and if she let me back into her life, I promised that I will do all I can to make our relationship work. Then we both cried. Sara said, ‘I love you, dad.’ And I told her that she was the love of my life.”
All the men in the room applauded. Many were in tears.
When Ed Adams was in the hospital with Miller Fisher syndrome, his bodily functions shutting down, he was physically helpless. His mind, however, was working fine, so he could cognitively process all that was going on. He knew the medical staff was perplexed. The majority of his doctors had never seen or even heard of the syndrome. Throughout that helpless state of growing paralysis, the only thing Ed could rely on was the continuous compassion of everyone helping him.
It was compassion that saved his soul. Now, let it work its power on you.
THINGS TO PONDER AND DO
CURIOSITY: What evokes compassion in you? Can you identify male gender rules that suppress compassionate living?
COURAGE: Perform a compassionate act that takes you out of your comfort zone. How does this feel to you, and what impact does it have on the recipient of your compassion?
COMPASSION: Practice an act of self-compassion. Can you recognize a hurt you feel and consciously soothe yourself? It may help to share your pain with a friend.
CONNECTION: Reach out to someone who seems to be struggling. Be honest about the pain you see in them. Ask what you can do to ease their suffering.
COMMITMENT: At night when you’re in bed, reflect on compassion before you fall asleep. Think back on the compassion you showed someone else recently, and be grateful for the compassion you’ve received.
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