1. WELCOME

2. Compassion Compassion is the response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help.

4. Dictionary Definition Compassion – pity inclining one to be helpful or merciful Pity – Feeling of sorrow aroused by a person’s distress or suffering Mercy – Compassion, forbearance shown by one to another who is in his/her power and has no claim to kindness

6. FEEL FOR WEEP FOR FEEL WITH LAMENT CONSOLE COMFORT COMMISERATE PARDON AMNESTY FORGIVE CARE EMPATHY GENTLE GENTLENESS TENDERNESS FORBEARANCE KINDNESS COMPASSION PATIENCE MERCY LOVE GIVING NON-JUDGEMENTALTAKE ACTION

7. Why is it important? Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to help physical, spiritual, or emotional hurts or pains of another. Golden Rule often embodies by implication the principle of compassion: Do to others what you would have them do to you. Compassion seems to be characteristic of democratic societies Learning to receive love is essential for our physical, mental and emotional health.

10. Mother Teresa “I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.”

11. Mahatma Gandhi “The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”

13. Henri J.M. Nouwen “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

14. Henri J.M. Nouwen “Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.”

15. Gautama Buddha “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

16. Compassion for ourselves As we learn to accept ourselves then we are free to venture along any pathway and to enjoy adventures along the way Self-compassion asks what is good for you?

17. Myths…. Self-compassion is self-pitying or egocentric. Self-compassion is self-indulgent. Self-criticism is an effective motivator.

19. Self-compassion This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment? May I give myself the compassion I need?