• Pity is the near enemy of compassion. Kristin Neff

• There's nothing worse than feeling pitied, and we have the research to show us why it feels so isolating. Pity involves four elements: a belief that the suffering person is inferior; a passive, self focused reaction that does not include providing help; a desire to maintian emtional distance; and avoidance of sharing in the others person's suffering.

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• Pity sees others as different from ourselves. It sets up a separation between ourselves and others, a sense of distance and remoteness form the suffereing of others that is affirming and gratifying to the self.

• Brene Brown Atlas of the Heart p. 119-120

When we practice generating ompassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It invollves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. In clutivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience our suffering, oru empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror.

Brene Brown Atlas of the Heart p. 118

With others