Break Away from Idiot Compassion: Let Your Fierce Flag Fly

The word compassion means to "suffer with" another, but that is often not what we're doing when we think we're offering compassion to someone who is behaving badly. In this culture of enabling and codependency,  in our attempts to be loving, we instead indulge people in that suffering (and create our own), instead of offering them motivation for change that could ease it.

Women and folx have been taught to "be nice", to not "rock the boat", to avoid conflict at all costs. We've come by that honestly in this patriarchal society, where cishet white men get to stir all the pots they want without the risk of being labeled as aggressive or b*tchy. 

Yes, compassion is "suffering with" when there is no solution for the suffering.  We can sit together and lovingly hold a container for what cannot be solved. For what needs time, patience, and an opportunity to be healed without intervention. But when harm is being done, and solutions abound, it is idiot compassion that keeps us in a pattern of enabling someone to misbehave, rather than letting them know that they can't keep doing what they're doing on our watch.

True compassion is fierce. True compassion is Kali the Hindu Goddess, with her many arms. One holds her warrior sword, another the head of a man. She destroys what is harmful and cuts away the nonsense.

In order to make the jump from idiot compassion to that which is true, we must first prepare our own sacred ground with tender and fierce self-compassion. Only then will we have the strength to cut through the BS with the sword of courage and wisdom.

In this episode, Jessica shares a personal story about an attempt to bring true compassion to a community that was allowing a sexual predator to target young women, and a story of a client who offered her man true compassion when he wouldn't cease his harmful behavior.
 
Also, Jessica experiences a moment of semantic satiation and forgets whether the word regality exists or if she was being "grammagical."  Yes, indeed, regality is a real word.

As promised, here are the books on self-compassion by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. mentioned in this episode:

Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive (2021)

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself  (2012)

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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.  She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

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