Life is busy and only getting busier. Everywhere you go, you hear about being more, doing more, having more, or buying more. Everyone in the family is going to work, going to school, going to social events. Going. Going. Going! “Busy” is the new normal. And unless you’re careful, your marriage and family will suffer. Caring for your family, along with self-care, becomes a thing of the past. Compassion for one another becomes more of an option and less of a necessity because busyness and compassion don’t play nice. 

The Benefits of Compassion

Compassion is essential to happiness and well-being. These are some benefits of being compassionate to yourself and others:

Self-Compassion

• Boosts self-esteem and positive feelings about yourself.
• Increases confidence.
• It makes you more forgiving, gracious, and kinder – more likable overall.
• You attract positive people, situations, success, and experiences into your life.
• You have more energy, joy and sleep better.

Compassion For Others

• You improve their quality of life. 
• You let them know they are not alone.
• They have more hope, feel more acknowledged, connected and understood. 
• Strengthens and deepens relationships. 
• Sets an example of how people should treat themselves and others.
• You become a role model for others on how to improve their relationships.
• You create a ripple of compassion that touches many more people.

How Being More Compassionate Changes Your Life

Being compassionate improves every area of your life. Although you don’t show compassion to get something from people, you gain certain benefits and rewards. 

Regarding self-compassion, you’re kinder to yourself when you make mistakes and fall short. Being less harsh towards yourself tends to make you less harsh towards others (or at least it should). We mess up, fail, forget things, feel irritated and angry sometimes, and overreact; we’re human. Self-compassion keeps us from beating ourselves up mindlessly and, instead, prompts us to ask ourselves how we can learn and grow from the experience.

Self-compassion helps protect us from negative energy and falling into harmful, destructive, or self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors. Instead, we use the time constructively to self-soothe, which clears the “emotional” path so we can move forward more quickly instead of stewing our mistakes. Practicing self-compassion empowers us to learn, grow, and keep making progress, the real definition of happiness.

But there’s something else to consider. We train others how to treat us by how we treat ourselves.

By showing ourselves compassion, we teach others to do the same. When we beat ourselves up, we train them to beat us up. By being harsh to ourselves, we send a message that it’s okay for them to treat us harshly. We show others how we expect to be treated by how we treat ourselves. 

The Impact of Compassion on Your Relationships

Practicing the habit (yes, it’s a habit) of self-compassion will improve all of your relationships, especially your marriage.

When you improve your life for the better, you improve everyone’s life around you for the better. Compassion helps us navigate our relationships with our families, work, and society with class, dignity, and grace. Courtesy replaces rudeness; patience replaces frustration; kindness replaces harshness; dignity and respect replace dishonor and disrespect.

Showing compassion creates the opportunity to make a difference in someone else’s life. People will know and feel that we understand. They will see that we’re there for them and not motivated by self-interest or some other selfish agenda.  

We make a difference in this world by making a difference in people’s lives. Compassion not only makes someone’s life better, but it can also change their direction and destiny! Loving and supporting others is the catalyst for helping them rise above life’s difficult moments.

Compassion is important because it shapes a person and their influence in this world for generations to come. And where does it all start? With us and the compassion we show ourselves. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” When we treat ourselves better, we’ll treat others better. Imagine the kind of world that can be ours just by choosing to be a little bit more compassionate to ourselves and others.