Let’s talk about compassion.
It’s one of those words that sounds simple until you actually try to live it. People often confuse compassion with kindness, but they’re not the same. Kindness is part of it, sure, but compassion also includes courage. The kind of courage it takes to face suffering, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, and then do something about it.
That’s the definition used in Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), developed by Dr. Paul Gilbert, a two-part idea: being sensitive to suffering, and being committed to relieving or preventing it. Compassion isn’t about fixing everything or always being “nice.” It’s about showing up with awareness, care, and courage, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Why Compassion Can Feel Uncomfortable
For many of us, especially in South Asian cultures, compassion can feel confusing. We grow up in families where self-sacrifice is praised and self-compassion is often mistaken for laziness or self-indulgence.
Think about how often you’ve heard something like:
“Don’t cry, others have it worse.”
“Be strong.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Messages like these may have come from a place of love or survival, but they also teach us to silence our pain instead of tending to it. Over time, this can make it hard to even recognize when we’re suffering, let alone respond to it with care.
Many South Asian clients I see find it easier to care for others than for themselves. You’ll check in on a friend who’s struggling, but you’ll push yourself through exhaustion and call it discipline. You’ll listen to your parents’ worries patiently, but dismiss your own anxiety as “being dramatic.” It’s not that you lack empathy, it’s that somewhere along the way, compassion got tangled up with guilt and duty.
The Three Directions of Compassion
CFT describes compassion as flowing in three directions:
- Compassion for others: extending care and empathy outwards
- Receiving compassion from others: letting others care for you
- Self-compassion: turning that same care inward
When we struggle with any one of these directions, we call it a fear, block, or resistance to compassion. And these blocks often make a lot of sense once you understand where they come from.
For instance, if you find it hard to let others care for you, it may be because you’ve learned that relying on others leads to disappointment or rejection. If you avoid being compassionate toward yourself, maybe you’ve been taught that gentleness equals weakness. If you hesitate to be compassionate toward others, maybe you’ve been hurt or taken advantage of before and are protecting yourself from more pain.
None of these are flaws. They’re learned survival strategies.
Why Self-Compassion Is Especially Hard
For many of us, the toughest direction is toward ourselves.
We fear that if we go easy on ourselves, we’ll stop trying. Or that if we allow our sadness, it will swallow us whole. Or maybe, deep down, we just don’t believe we deserve that kind of care.
In South Asian families, these fears often start early. When success, strength, or self-control are highly valued, being gentle with yourself can feel like breaking the rules. You might even hear that being self-compassionate is selfish or “too Western.” But compassion doesn’t mean giving up responsibility, it means giving yourself the same humanity you offer everyone else.
How to Begin
If self-compassion feels too foreign, start small.
Sometimes, it’s easier to begin by letting others be kind to you. Notice when someone offers help or understanding instead of brushing it off. Think of it as opening a small window, just enough for a little warmth to come through. Over time, that warmth gets easier to accept, and eventually, easier to generate on your own.
Practicing compassion isn’t about becoming endlessly patient or forgiving. It’s about balancing wisdom and care, recognizing suffering and responding to it with intention. It’s about knowing when to rest, when to comfort yourself, and when to take action.
And perhaps most importantly, it’s about remembering that compassion isn’t a weakness. It’s one of the strongest things we can cultivate. It allows us to face pain without collapsing under it, to care without losing ourselves, and to hold both courage and kindness at the same time.
That’s what real compassion looks like.
