I’ve noticed seven ingredients are present in healthy, happy, highly productive relationships:
- Deep Trust
- Productive Conflict
- Solid Commitment
- Strong Accountability
- Stellar Results or Outcomes
- Meaning and Purpose
(I wrote about these six in my prior post here.)
I’d guess many people would agree these are great things to have present in a relationship. Yet so often these six things are not present, not in balance and not in high doses, or not consistent. They are intuitively obvious to a degree, yet since they are so often not abundantly and consistently present something must be amiss. What might that be?
These six things require personal capacities. We must have the ability to do those six things… even (and most especially) when it feels impossible to summon them. So what are these personal capacities?
Sara mapped out six capacities back in 2014, and she will be writing and/or podcasting more about them in the near future. Here, I want to single out two of the six that she’s framed up — and that are downright indispensable.
Two Key Capacities
Based on my own life experience — what has been most impactful to me in my life — two pivotal and empowering capacities are:
(1) Compassion
(2) Skill with Emotions
Both are absolutely essential for bringing the six ingredients — (1) Trust, (2) Conflict, (3) Commitment, (4) Accountability, (5) Results, and (6) Meaningful Purpose — fully and completely to work and to life. In this post, I hope to impart the “why” as well as provide some resources for getting better at both. This article is by no means intended to be exhaustive. It is intended, however, to be sufficient enough to helpful.
1. Compassion
Compassion is often not what we think it is. Further, we tend to muddle sympathy, empathy, and compassion.
- Sympathy is the ability to understand what someone is feeling.
- Empathy is feeling what the other person is feeling.
- Compassion includes sympathy and empathy yet goes beyond both, in two ways.
First, compassion requires that we bring “online” a capacity to be detached while still connected and engaged. Empathy isn’t detached — in empathy, we are feeling the feelings of another as if those feelings were our own.
When we are practicing compassion, we are able to remain present to suffering. In compassion, we have the capacity to tolerate suffering, to be with the distress of another person and to be with our own distress when we are triggered by another’s.
Secondly, compassion requires the capacity to see straightforwardly that which can alleviate the suffering — and then have the desire and willingness to act on that. This is where it gets super-tricky, because — if we aren’t seeing straightforwardly — even with the best of intentions we can do something that may mitigate the other person’s short-term suffering but cause even more long-term suffering.
Compassion is about connection: Connection is about safety. The more compassion we have for others, the more connected we are to them. When people feel a strong connection with us, they feel safe. When we have compassion for ourselves, we are able to comfort ourselves. When we can be a friend unto ourselves and therefore comfort ourselves, we feel safe. And we are much less dependent on others making it safe for us.
Connecting Compassion to the Six Ingredients
I won’t attempt to connect the empowerment of compassion to all six ingredients of healthy, happy, highly effective relationships. Even just a few connections are sufficient to see the point and recognize the empowering nature of compassion.
The gateway to the six ingredients is the first one: Trust. The essence of trust is that people feel safe with us. They feel safe when they “feel felt.” When they feel cared for. Also, trust is engendered when we are vulnerable. To be connected with others–and hold that connection even when we don’t want to–is vulnerability in action.
It shouldn’t take much of a leap to make that connection that when we feel compassion for the people around us, they will feel it. And they will feel safe, and therefore, a deeper sense of trust. Please note this, however.
Safety is not the same as comfort. Making people feel safe doesn’t mean they will always feel comfortable. When the two of the other six aspects are also activated–Productive Conflict and Accountability–the other person’s ego may react negatively to what we are bringing. However, at a deeper level, with Trust present, with the connection solid, with compassion activated… they will know we were not attacking them, and that we were in fact pulling for them.
Key point: The depth of the trust depends on the degree to which our compassion is unconditional. If I show you compassion when I like you, and I withhold it when I’m irritated, frustrated, or angry with you, you are not going to feel deep trust. What you will feel is uncertain, tentative, or something along those lines, depending on how often and the degree to which I withhold my compassion for and connection with you.
So, the yoga here is to broaden and deepen our compassion and to sustain it no matter what. In practical terms, to me this means extending compassion to all people, all the time, whether I like (or hate) what they are doing or not. (If that is too big a stretch for you to imagine, I get it. Most people feel there are certain people who should never be extended compassion. So you wouldn’t be alone in calling B.S. on that. I’m just on a different tack than you are on this one.)
When we broaden and deepen our compassion, more and more people feel safer around us, more and more of the time. And, as I’ve already said, safety begets trust.
Trust is what sets up the possibility for the second ingredient: Productive Conflict. If the person or people we are in conflict with don’t feel safe, the probability of the conflict being productive plummets. Now, it is ego against ego, agenda against agenda. Productive conflict is a fight for the truth. Non-productive conflict is a fight against another person and their position.
Imagine the power of holding compassion for the other whilst in conflict with them. You are being both incredibly direct and also connected and open. Kind. Directness and kindness and connection–all in equal and high doses. This radically changes the tenor of the conflict, and it swings open a gateway through which something unforeseen, something better, can emerge.
Lastly, let’s touch on the sixth ingredient: Meaningful Purpose. Many people think meaning and purpose arise from what they do. It is more accurate to say that meaning and purpose arise from how we do what we do. Leah Weiss, PhD, in her book How We Work, outlines a premise that the practices of compassion, self-compassion, and mindfulness enable us to find out what meaning and purpose actually are. And, knowing that, and feeling that, we infuse what we do with that meaning and purpose. That certainly is becoming my experience of it.
I hope this imparts at least some feeling that broadening and deepening your compassion brings those six ingredients to life. It empowers them. It kicks them up notch or two. It rearranges how you see yourself, how you see others, how you see life. It changes how you behave, naturally. It brings psychological safety, it builds trust. And these are the foundation on which the other five aspects of healthy, happy, highly effective relations stand.
Compassion and Self-Compassion Enable Behavior Change
Compassion and self-compassion make it easier to change our behavior. This one point is worthy of an article in itself. I’ll give it to you briefly, here, and we can explore it more deeply later.
In a nutshell, the deepest, most problematic, most intractable behaviors you want to change (such that you can do those six ingredients better and more consistently) arise from a fear you have. Try to stop the counterproductive behavior, and you trigger the fear. You already know better to do that behavior, yet when it matters most, you can’t stop yourself. The reason? Fear. Anxiety. So, deep, sustainable behavioral change touches this deep, sustained fear.
The practice of self-compassion decreases the debilitating effect of fear, increases our sense of security, and increases our belief in ourselves. This is more important than I can possibly express here.
Self-compassion means we will be there for ourselves when it matters the most, and when no one else is. This self-capacity engenders a sense of safety, security, connection, and trust — and then we can act in spite of the fear that is triggered when we attempt to “not do” the old, problematic behavior. That’s some powerful mojo. This enables and empowers you to change better, faster, and more sustainably. With the practice of self-compassion, we become a secure base for ourselves.
So, can you see why I’m crazy about compassion? Compassion was the last piece to click into place for me, and it has profoundly impacted my life. Turn the key of compassion, and the world–your world–turns.
2. Skill with Emotions
To an extent that you cannot possibly imagine, emotions are driving your behavior. So many of our behaviors — and most notably our most unproductive ones — are driven by our emotions. Our fears, worries, and anxieties. I said that above, and this is the overlap between compassion and skill with emotions. But you and I need to talk about emotions now…
And a lot of these fears, worries, and anxieties got etched into our little brains and nervous systems at such an early age we can’t remember them. We don’t even know they are there. Dr. Lou Cozolino in his book Why Therapy Works calls these “the things we cannot remember but can’t ever forget.” What gets embedded in the amygdala can’t be erased. But that doesn’t mean we are screwed.
As we learn to work with emotions, we can develop the capacity for the prefrontal cortex to gain dominion over the amygdala. In essence, the alarm may still fire but we don’t have to answer the alarm or scramble the jets. We stop unconsciously reacting and start responding intelligently. We do more good and less harm.
Our inability to work with our own emotions also handicaps us when confronted with the strong emotions of others. And, let’s face it, human beings are emotional beings. If you want to be good with people, get good at working with emotions. Yours and theirs. Just put your own oxygen mask on first. Then help the others around you.
Connecting Emotions to the Six Ingredients
This shouldn’t require as much explanation as compassion, should it? Look again at the six ingredients of healthy, happy, highly effective relationships. The degree to which we are skillful with our emotions has a profound impact on the frequency and the strength with which all six ingredients are present.
If your emotions are out of control, your ability to engender trust, engage in productive conflict, be committed, hold yourself and others accountable, produce results, and experience meaning and purpose are all diminished. We know this, right? But most of us don’t know how to work with our emotions, nor do we have a strategy for doing so. Honestly, most of us don’t even have a working understanding of what emotions actually are, and how they operate. Yet they are such a huge part of being human.
Compassion x Skill with Emotions
Why did I bring these to you as a pair? Because they are very tightly connected. You got a glimpse of that above as we transitioned from talking about compassion to talking about emotions.
We cannot fully express compassion if we have not fully mapped out our emotions. Uncontrolled emotions — emotions we are lost in — make us drunk. And drunk compassion isn’t helpful compassion. It’s sloppy compassion. This is why so may well-intentioned people do so much harm in expressing what they think is compassion. Their conscious intentions are pure, yet their mind isn’t seeing straightforwardly because their mind is drunk on emotion. And we don’t know we are above the legal limit.
When seeing is distorted, action is.
Sara and I were at the Mind and Life Institute’s international symposium in Boston in October of 2014. This is a gathering of scientists and practitioners to advance the practical application of mindfulness and compassion in work and life. The Dalai Lama was the keynote speaker on the opening night. And what a keynote he gave. But it was what he said as he started walking off the stage that struck me. He literally was walking off the stage, and almost as an afterthought, he turned to the crowd and said…
To focus on compassion alone is meaningless. You must understand the whole map of emotion, all emotion. Then you can truly exercise compassion.“
Boom. I will never forget these words. At that point, I’d not even studied compassion, much less practiced it. Yet I knew in that very moment those words would rearrange and reorient my life. As we all stood up, applauding, I tore a page out of my notebook, and scribbled what he said down. It is one of a few scraps of paper that I hold dear, and hold onto, as it really guides my work and my life. Bury me with that scrap of paper, because that statement gave me a new life.
And it works the other way, too. When Sara teaches the course she developed on becoming skillful in working with emotions, two of the six practices she teaches are compassion-related.
The practices of compassion and self-compassion help us become skillful in working with emotions–ours and others. For example, when Sara and I used to be in conflict, in the worst of it I would either become incredibly angry or simply shut down. Neither was highly effective. That changed when I slowly, overly time, gained the ability to practice self-compassion in the midst of the conflict. This enabled me to calm down, and then my behavior and internal state were much more productive. Slowly, over more time, I was able to start extending compassion to Sara in the midst of the conflict. She feels that, and that makes it easier for her to navigate the conflict differently. I cannot tell you the degree to which this has impacted our relationship. And, in so many ways, I’ve just started. I have so far yet to go.
This is just one example, mind you.
Resources
I recommend two books on compassion. A Fearless Heart by Thupten Jinpa, PhD, and Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff, PhD.
For training on compassion, I recommend Compassion Cultivation Training. That is the program Sara is in the process of becoming certified to teach, and the program is just rock solid. I’m going through it a second time as a student as Sara teaches it here in the local shire to 23 very amazing people.
You may be able to find a certified teacher near you here, and Compassion Institute also sometimes offers an online version of the course. Also, I’m hoping Sara will put together a compassion course she can deliver via a video learning course. But that will come after a revamp to the emotions course. So stay tuned.
I recommend two books on working with emotions. The Emotional Life of Your Brain by Dr. Richard Davidson, and Why Therapy Works by Dr. Louis Cozolino.
For training on emotions, I recommend Sara’s online video course, How to Work with Emotions. Even though I am biased, I haven’t seen it done better.
So there you have it. That should get you started on broadening and deepening your compassion, and also becoming more adept at working with your emotions. These two things go hand-in-glove. And they work for and with one another. That’s why I put the “x” between them, and combined them as one empowerment you want on your side, inside.
These two things are the first and most important empowerment when it comes to bringing the six ingredients to life and making your relationships healthier, happier, and more highly effective.
That’s what I want for all of us.
Next up, we will get to the second empowerment for bringing the six ingredients to life: Workable Strategy x Peer Support. I can’t wait to explore this with you… two more powerful, connected ways to activate the six ingredients and transform yourself, your relationships, and the world around you. Compassion and Skill with Emotions are inside jobs. Workable Strategy and Peer Support… these are the practical structures you need to move yourself forward, sustainably, over time.
See you next week. Join me. Let’s keep going.