With the world in such a state of flux and division, how can we develop connection and compassion within ourselves and with others? Compassion is an action to relieve suffering through the most skillful means in the moment. Empathy is our ability to feel what another is feeling by means of the mirror neurons in our brains. Feeling is just the start and we need to develop the skills to reduce suffering using compassion.

What does compassion look like? Imagine a child scrapes their knee and begins to cry. We observe this and feel the child’s pain through our mirror neurons. We can act with empathy where we start crying with the child. But this does not reduce suffering, it actually exacerbates the suffering. Now we can compassionately respond to the child by patting the child on the back

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