4 Ways to Practice Compassion—Even When It's a Tough Ask

In Yoga Journal’s Archives series, we share a curated collection of articles originally published in past issues beginning in 1975. These stories offer a glimpse into how yoga was interpreted, written about, and practiced throughout the years. This article first appeared in Yoga Journal in 2018. Find more of our Archives here.

When someone cuts you off in traffic, is your initial reaction to quietly let them speed away or to scream and show them as much of your middle finger as possible? Navigating any confrontation—whether road rage or dealing with loved ones during the holidays—with a cool head comes down to learning how to be compassionate. And, as with most things in life, it takes some practice.

Katie Brauer, a former professional snowboarder and yoga teacher with more than 10,000 hours in yoga certifications, has experienced her share of tricky situations, both in competitions and in everyday life. Over the years, she’s practiced merging mindfulness with practicality and come away with four basic things that are required as you transition from self-awareness to compassion for others. Here, Brauer outlines her approach.

How to Be Compassionate in Any Situation

Try to practice the following steps in order, without skipping any.

1. Pause

Pausing and reminding yourself to take a breath, even for a second, places enough space between you and your reaction to delay your reaction.

“Take a breath. Notice the breath sensation that’s present in your own body,” says Brauer. “Allow that sensation to rise and to fall.” Then you can continue to bring your attention inward.

2. Give Them the Benefit of the Doubt

In that pause, acknowledge that everyone is doing their best.

Allowing for this awareness opens up more space for understanding—which inevitably drives compassion. “Give people the benefit of the doubt,” says Brauer. “On this day, under the circumstances of what they’re experiencing, they’re doing their best with what they’ve got in that moment.”

For example, in the traffic situation, instead of instantly reacting with anger or hurt (How could they do that to me? I have a baby in the car!), you can consider the other driver’s experience (Maybe they didn’t see me).

Some people like to practice sending out love and kindness, although if that feels like it’s asking a lot in that moment, Brauer suggests breathing in acknowledgement and breathing out whatever it is you feel that person needs in the moment, be it love, patience, or strength. “On the inhalation, you expand your capacity to hold space,” she says. “On the exhalation, you breathe out support.”

If that’s a struggle, a precept of tantric philosophy might resonate. Hold that all three of these statements are true: I’m nothing like you; I’m something like you; I’m nothing but you. Essentially, even though we’re composed of the same matter, we’re still somehow our own person. And yet, we’re in this human experience together. No matter how different we are, there’s always going to be some way to relate to one another.

And don’t forget yourself when it comes to feeling compassion. “Not only are most people doing the best they can, but you are too,” explains Braeur.

3. Check Yourself

Recognizing when you are triggered is powerful, says Brauer, because it brings objective, not just emotional, awareness to the situation.

“Checking yourself is recognizing the impact a person’s action has on you,” says Brauer. That helps you get clarity on what happened and the story you’ve created around it. Draw a clear line between those two things, Brauer says.

Circling back to the road rage example, she explains, “What happened is he cut you off. The story is he deliberately came at you.” Noticing what’s true in your experience and differentiating the action from its impact creates a distinction between objective fact and emotional response.

Your nervous system has been activated, says Brauer. “Checking yourself is like putting your oxygen mask on. You have to regulate yourself to then be able to calm your sympathetic nervous system.”

When we’re triggered by external factors, one of two things tends to happen: We merge with that person (their pain triggers our pain and, as a result, we lose autonomy) or we’re activated by them (their action irritates us and we dissociate them from their humanness). Neither is useful because they cause us to lose the ability to hold space for the other person.

4. Remember the Iceberg

Most situations in life are like icebergs. You can only see so much at a time. At any given moment, only a portion of the moment, situation, or confrontation is revealed—the rest remains concealed.

“In that concealed space is where we have the opportunity to cultivate empathy—not just empathy for other people but self-compassion as well,” says Brauer. “The idea that you don’t know what you don’t know—that drops you into the heart and creates connection with this understanding that there’s so much under the surface, that we’re all just in this crazy human experience doing the best that we can.”

Part of the human experience is understanding that what we’re experiencing is constantly changing. Tomorrow we’ll know more than we know now. Next year, we’ll know even more. It’s a simple but powerful realization along the way to understanding how to be compassionate.

“There would be no point to life if we knew everything,” says Brauer. “The practice is savoring the guarantee that there’s always more that will be revealed to us—more sweetness, more learning, more joy, more experiences.”

This article has been updated. Originally published October 3, 2018.