Compassion as the best form of self-defence

It takes your breath away when you are at the receiving end of blame, judgement, criticism, cynicism, and sarcasm or when you are interrupted, talked over or given unwelcome advise.

You can feel it in your body – the retraction, the numbing or the rising emotions, the tightening or bracing.

You can hear thoughts coming ranging from “maybe they are right” leading to disconnection from your own inner knowing or “how dare they!” making the other person an enemy to be defended against.

How can you manage this? One tried and true method is feeling compassionate.

Strange as it may sound, when you feel under attack, compassion can be the best form of self-defence.

It not only disarms the attacker, it provides a safe space for you.

Compassion provides a powerful defence against psychological harm. Through perspective taking, it changes false meanings about self  we may infer from the behaviour of others because compassion keeps your attention on the person behaving inappropriately or causing the hurt. Thus the abuse/comments are not internalised but seen as the abuser’s or critic’s problem.

For example if my spouse tells me I am selfish or calls me a terrible name compassion for him protects me from internalising the hurt. Rather I can see that he is hurt or fearful and I can then be with him from that space.

This, then disarms the defences of the person attacking you. The attention is brought back to them and what they need and not on you and what you need to do.