A new? Bright idea?
Changing the world and ourselves through compassion
Based on an article by Jill Stark
Be kind and you will be well. What if recognising our shared humanity was more than just a sentimental ideal?
What if consciously practising kindness could change the wiring of your brain and make you live longer?
It can lower blood pressure, boost your immune response and increase your calmness.
A growing body of research that shows compassion could be the key to improved health, happiness and longevity.
Brain imaging reveals that exercising compassion stimulates the same pleasure centres associated with the drive for food, water and sex.
Other studies show it can be protective against disease and increase lifespan.
You can see a dynamic happen when a person walks into a room with a sense of openness, kindness, connection, vulnerability, how the room reacts. It is much more positive than when a person is demeaning, unkind, rude or aggressive.
The pace of modern life, has led to a stressed out, individualised society with a reduced capacity for empathy. As we remain locked into perceived threats to our own small piece of turf, compassion is the casualty.
Getting more income and buying more consumer goods brings us very short-lived satisfaction and we soon adapt to that level and then we need to have more and more, the end result is that we're not really happier than we were.
Helping others seems to be something that is more fulfilling, we can see that other people matter. It gives us a different kind of purpose to our lives.
The 24-hour news cycle may make us feel like the world is a scarier place yet a person born today has less chance of dying a violent death than at any other time in human existence.
Power and compassion can go together if the person is big enough to allow it to. And yes, the burden of power will become less if compassion is allowed to show thruogh.
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