Sample Exercise

Within the messiness of our lives, the Compassion Practice offers us a way to resuscitate and sustain our capacities for care and connection. It distills and synthesizes the principles and processes of cultivating compassion into four rhythmic movements. Of course, in the midst of our daily routines, if our hearts feel open, steady, and soft, the only practice we need is to act naturally—the suffering of others will move us; their joys will delight us; and connections will feel free, generous, and life-sustaining.

The need for a practice emerges when our hearts feel hard, cold, reactive, or depleted—a shopper dominates the express lane with a basket full of groceries and we burn with impatience and indignation; a loved one needs a shoulder to cry on, and we sigh with burden and fatigue; or a tragedy strikes our family, and we are mired in a pit of outrage and pain. It is when compassion is elusive or even repugnant that we need a practice that restores us to the pulse of our humanity.

So when you find yourself disconnected from your natural capacities for care and connection, the Compassion Practice invites you to:

1. Catch Your Breath (Get Grounded).
2. Take Your 'PULSE' (Cultivate Self-Compassion).
3. Take Their 'PULSE' (Cultivate Compassion for the Other).
4. Decide What To Do (Discern Compassionate Action).