On Compassion vs Pity
and how to tell the difference when you're showing up in service...
I did not consent to being a side character in your weird little performance art piece about what a good person you are.
Real service comes from COMPASSION, not pity.
Here’s how to tell the difference…
Compassion says “I see you in your humanity.”
Compassion dissolves the illusion of our separation from each other.
It’s looking across at someone, meeting them precisely where they’re at, with an open heart.
Pity says “you need me.”
Pity reinforces the illusion of our separation from each other.
Pity is looking down at someone, which automatically puts you in a hierarchical relationship - “I am above you, and you are below me.”
You cannot “show up in service” or “build community” from a place of pity.
It’ll start doing all sorts of weird shit to the way you offer and accept help.
You’ll start thinking that you’re not able to help anyone unless you’ve got aaallllllll of your shit together (which will never happen, ergo, you stop showing up in service entirely)…
…and that you can’t accept help from anyone without first feeling like you’re “worse” than them (which triggers a shame spiral that you don’t want to feel, ergo, you begin refusing all help offered to you).
And, super fun bonus, it’ll turn every single act of service you perform into a “look at me, I’m such a good person” show.
It rips the humanity out of the equation entirely.
The connection, the relationships involved when we show up in true service and build community… gone.
You’ll get a little ego boost in the moment, but after a while, it’ll start feeling really fucking terrible.
Moving from pity and into compassion means reckoning with the hierarchical worldview you’ve been indoctrinated into by the colonial capitalist world we’re living in.
It means facing the part of yourself that’s been conditioned to think that you have to be “better” than someone else in order to help them.
It means audaciously turning towards the suffering of another human being, and not making that suffering mean anything about *YOU*.
Showing up from a place of compassion feels infinitely better.
It’s freeing, and regenerative, and soothing as fuck, and lasting… but at first it can feel a bit tricky.
Because it means ditching the sneaky unconscious beliefs that you’re better than people (which can make us feel very safe)…
…or that people are better than you (which, paradoxically, equally make us feel safe - because they provide us with a “place in the world” when everything is confusing and scary)
Cultivating true compassion is the beginning of being able to build community and show up in service, regeneratively.
No unconscious hierarchies or agendas or weird little ego-based narratives happening in the background.
Just human-to-human, hearts open.
Compassion can’t happen from inside a colonised mind.
Gotta reconnect with your wild humanity first.
To learn how to show up in compassionate, liberation-centric service, and dissolve the unconscious hierarchy that keeps us all stuck in hyper-individualist isolation, come do the pilgrimage through the Five Gates with us, inside REWILDING.
We’re mapping out our liberation from colonial capitalist patriarchy, and embodying our role in the revolution.
We start march 20. Click HERE to hop in with us ❤️
