My assignment this week after my BEST therapy is to journal all my experiences with compassion.
I think compassion is a sense of empathy that I feel toward others and that empathy occurs when I am aware of their discomfort or distress.
Compassion toward myself is much more difficult. I've always refused to feel sorry for myself, even when I have been miserable, lonely, scared or depressed.
That's probably why I am literally making myself ill.
I am supposed to get an official definition of compassion:
1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/compassion)
I guessed most of the definition. Apparently, I have some trouble with the second portion...accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering... to the point that I cannot feel compassion for myself b/c I'm too busy trying to alleviate the suffering of others.
That's not so far-fetched. I spend the better part of my day watching the social and anti-social behavior of people.
Since my "diagnosis", I have experienced the feeling of compassion /or/ watched acts of compassion /or/ stopped anti-social behaviors at least 100 times. Do others see these acts of compassion all the time??? Am I ultra-sensitive to compassionate acts or instances where I feel I must step in with compassion???
IDK. Compassion day one... sigh...
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