Sparking Compassion

Not "in the moment," but in this moment.

My friend and Camp Fire collaborators, Grit Youngquist and Darleen Simmons of Ramsey County Public Health and the Wakanheza Project recently pointed out an important distinction about mindfulness. 

Living in "the moment" is a concept, sometimes fogged by an air of fleeting carelessness, as if we are not taking into account the future repercussions of our current actions. Living in the moment sometimes implies that you are acting on a whim. But living in this moment means that you are right here, present, not distracted by regrets about the past or anxieties about the future. This moment is now and it quickly becomes history. To live in this moment is to strive to be aware of right now. But why live in this moment?

How many of us see the sun rise and the sun set each day? What happens when you set your intention to witness a complete sunset?

I remember watching the sun set, as if for the first time, when our twins were babies. We were coming out of a very long winter, and I had loaded the critters into the car for a drive because they were fussy and sleepless and I was at the end of my mama rope.

We drove over the crest of a hill and there it was:  the sun! A blaze of orange fading, fading before my eyes. A blink and then a haze of peach and violet radiating up and deep indigo falling down from the heavens. Deeper and deeper went the color. The car behind me honked, and I was off.

Driving down the road, I felt a new sense of calm. Today, I can recall that feeling of familiarity and connection, like seeing an old friend again. The kids were in their car seats--happy or unhappy--but there we were and it was ok.

The girls did finally fall asleep, and from that twilight on, I felt like I had emerged in the world again. I was still tired and worn out by baby raising, but I was back in the game somehow.

James Doty, Standord neurologist and brain surgeon, studies the connection between mindfulness practice and the brain and he is calling for an "age of compassion." I recently heard Doty chat about his memoir, Into the Magic Shop, on Krista Tippet's On Being. Their conversation was like that sunset, it put me back on my feet somehow. Here is the big takeaway:

Turns out that our brains are "plastic"-- the more we practice something, the more it physically changes our brain and its habits. Whether our response to stimulus is healthy or unhealthy, the brain is a creature of habit and it defaults to the stuff we usually do. This has a snowball effect, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are bullied, or usually get into fights, your brain, thanks to evolution, defaults to fear or defensiveness. As a consequence, your amygdala--seat of your "fight or flight" response grows. It actually enlarges, physically. Our brain reacts in such a situation, as James Doty's did.

Young James answered violence and discrimination with physical fighting and delinquency. Here is where we come to the heart of the matter:  it is how we choose to answer violence, discrimination and intolerance that makes the difference. Whether we react or respond makes a difference, changing our brains, our health and our communities.

Remember Charleston? The relatives of the victims offered Dylann Roof forgiveness. These people, who had lost everything, forgave Dylann directly and very publicly:

"...when several relatives of the nine people slain inside Charleston's historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church appeared in court and addressed Roof. The family members of the dead told Roof, a professed white supremacist, of their pain and anguish. But they also said they would forgive him. "I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you," a daughter of one victim said. "We have no room for hating, so we have to forgive," said the sister of another. "I pray God on your soul."

Matt Schiavenza, The Atlantic

Why did the grieving relatives choose forgiveness when Governor Nikki Haley said that the state would see the death penalty? How could they find and choose compassion when Dylann's own uncle said he would be the one to "push the button" and personally execute his nephew?

Neuroscience research reveals the power of compassion to increase the health of the human brain and body. And it is easier to forgive, if openness is your habit, if you have taught your brain to default to compassion. Meditation, prayer, yoga, outdoor recreation, smiling-- these acts all put you in this moment, increasing our awareness of ourselves and our relationship to others and the earth. Forgiveness, then, is an act of self-empowerment as it improves the physical health of the brain and the heart.

Doty asserts that when we respond with compassion and openness, instead of fear or "tribalism" (fear or hate of the other), our brains respond in very tangible ways. Harvard and Mass General Hospital research reveals a direct correlation between compassion and health. When, for instance, we consider a murderer, like Dylann, as a person and try to understand how a baby grew up to be a killer, we change our brains for the better, improving our own health. When we make the compassionate choice, we shrink the size of our amygdala, grow our pre-frontal cortex and activate our vagus nerve. In fact, the research of Doty and others demonstrates that simply intending to be inclusive and tolerant, activates your pre-frontal cortex. Dr. Dacher Keltner of the Greater Good Scinece Center researches the impact of compassion on our vagus nerve. This is compelling stuff:

"Vagus is Latin for "wandering," and the vagus nerve starts at the top of the spinal cord and wanders through your body, through muscles in your neck that help you nod your head and orient your gaze toward other people and vocalize. It then drops down and helps coordinate the interaction between your breathing and your heart rate, then goes into the spleen and liver, where it controls a lot of digestive processes.

Recent studies suggest the vagus nerve is related to a stronger immune system response and regulates your inflammation response to disease. Ths makes the vagus nerve one of the great mind-body nexuses in the human nervous system. Every time you take a deep breath, your heart rate slows down. You see baseball pitchers do this on the mound-- they breathe out to calm down...

In our lab, we show participants photos of suffering and distress and find that these images activate the vagus nerve. We've also found that if somebody tells you about a sad experience...your vagus nerve fires. If they tell you an inspiring story, their vagus nerve fires. The more you feel compassion, the stronger the vagus nerve response.

We also show our undergraduates images intended to inspire pride--like Berkeley's Sather Gate or the school mascot--and we find that the more pride they fee, the weaker the vagus nerve response. And that really astounds me. This result tells us that when you feel a strong vagus nerve response, you are feeling common humanity with many different groups. When we're encouraged to feel strong identification with just our own group and not others, the vagus nerve dims."

Dr. Dacher Keltner

So compassionate and communal thinking and feeling strengthens the physical connection between brain and heart, reduces inflammation, mitigates stress and improves the body's ability to cope with infection and disease. The brain communicates with the heart! Think of all the imagery and philosophy over the centuries that references the heart as the seat of knowledge, enlightenment and truth.

An open mind can physically=an open heart.

Practicing mindfulness and increasing your awareness of your place in the world, living in this moment, helps your brain default to compassion. At Camp Fire, we call this practice "life balance" and we call the compassionate choice the "healthy choice."

Life balance activities empower kids and teens to respond to the world and its challenges in appropriate and healthy ways. We acknowledge the mountain of research that demonstrates the positive power of healthy eating, meditation, prayer,yoga, outdoor recreation and even smiling. Life balance activities are our curriculum for developing life skills that keep kids on track.

As our friends Grit and Darleen point out, life skills directly address and seek to prevent violence, teen pregnancy, drug addiction and poverty. Life skills equal public health.

The Pope's Encyclical and Darwin's theory of "sympathy" are just two examples of deep thinking on the global impacts of compassion. If compassion is a prescription for individual health, it is also a prescription for stewardship and care of the earth. When we give to the earth, it gives back, right? Doctors now prescribe walks in the park as clinical treatment for obesity, depression, ADD, near-sightedness and more. We take that walk in the park, we feel better, and we feel more connected and sympathetic towards the earth, increasing our compassion for it, leading, I hope to greater care for it.

And, at Camp Fire Minnesota, we know that compassion, life skills and healthy choices go one big step further. Compassionate and communal thinking is not just a benefit for people. Here on earth, we don't live in a human silo, we share the earth. Our own healthy choices benefit the natural world. If the individual is part of humanity, and humanity is part of the greater eco-sytem, then acts of compassion are acts of greater stewardship. Food that is good for us, for instance, is raised ethically and with minimal pesticides. Clean air and water are essential to human health, and when we keep the air and water clean for us, we make a healthy choice for the rest of the planet too. Stewardship is a two-way street.

Vanishing polar bears. War. Terrorism and its many forms. Poverty.

One of our partners in healthy choices for kids, Allina Health, has drawn our attention to the fact that teens are too stressed out-- do we wonder why? The American Heart Association reports epidemic childhood obesity and diabetes. Our kids spend nearly 8 hours a day in front of an electronic screen. Staggering, scary stuff. Instead of fighting or fleeing, I suggest that we address war, disease, bias, tribalism, intolerance and stress every day by setting the intention to connect to compassion. Forgive. Listen. Smile at a stranger. Speak words of encouragement. Turn off the television and dance. Stop and pick up a piece of garbage. Try to answer anger with an act of kindness. Bear witness to injustice and speak your mind and heart. Mentor a kid. Take a deep breath. Take a walk. Stop and watch the sun set.