Daily Dose - Head Up, Heart First.

Many formers carry guilt about their past, about the ideas they repeated, the spaces they helped normalize, and the ways that they contributed to hate-fueled spaces, directly and indirectly. This is where compassion comes in, not as an excuse, not as letting yourself off the hook. But as a way to sit with that responsibility, without shutting down. Compassion for others and compassion for yourself is what often makes accountability possible in the first place. In this Daily Dose, Jamie speaks with Burrell about leading with compassion.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Hey TDF folks, welcome to my first episode of The Daily Dose. With what's going on in the world right now, things feel heavy, the last four months especially. We've got everything from the Charlie Kirk death and the discourse circulating online to the Brown University shooting attack and the Sydney terrorist attack. Different places, different details, but all of it has added to a wider sense of tension and instability. Coming at this as a former, I want to say something clearly. I was not violent, and a lot of the people I talked to now were not violent either. That does not mean that there's nothing to sit with. Many foremers carry guilt about their past, both the ideas they repeated, the spaces they helped normalize, and the ways that they contributed to it, even directly. And this is something I struggle with personally. The key thing for me is that you don't have to physically hurt someone for there to be harmed. Once you recognize that, it changes how the past feels. That guilt often shows up as confusion, emotional heaviness, or feeling stuck between who you were and who you are now. Especially when you're trying to take accountability and responsibility for your past. This is where compassion comes in. Not as an excuse, not as letting yourself off the hook, but as a way to sit without responsibility without shutting down. Compassion for others and compassion for yourself is what often makes accountability possible in the first place. That's why I wanted to bring someone who works directly with these ideas at a deeper level, though. Joining me today is Burrell. Would you like to introduce yourself and talk a bit about your work and how you approach this type of stuff in your field?

SPEAKER_01: 1:44

Thank you for having me on, Jamie, and thank you for the amazing work that you all do with supporting people in, you know, charting a new path in their lives. My name is Burrell. I am a board member uh at an organization called Compassion It that encourages uh people to commit to going out into the world to do something compassionate each and every day. And we believe that if everybody went out into the world with the intention of doing something compassionate, then we would live in a better world. And it really is that simple. In listening to the introduction, one of the things that came up for me in the work that I do is really around raising people's capacity for compassion. And I do that through many different avenues, but primarily through workshops and hosting workshops to help people think about compassion, understand what compassion is and what it means, and then how to employ it in their daily lives. We believe that compassion is an innate ability that everyone has. And, you know, just like any other innate ability, it with some training, it can get stronger. Without training, it's it's not as strong. So in leading these workshops, what we do is we help people grow their capacity for compassion, become more compassionate people. And it works in workplaces, it works in communities, and it works with people from different stripes, different backgrounds. And yeah, so I'm really excited to do that work, and I'm excited to talk to you about, you know, maybe some of the insights that I have from that work and how I could apply to your community.

SPEAKER_00: 3:36

Thank you. Thank you. How do you how would you define compassion in a way that goes you know beyond being nice or sympathetic?

SPEAKER_01: 3:43

Compassion is one of those words in the English language that is very commonly used, but not very well understood. So the way I talk about and define compassion is really uh a response to struggles, a response to suffering with a certain quality of I want to help. Uh, and if I can do something, I will help. And that's different than sympathy or being nice. Compassion really is something that orients us into a particular direction of peace and love and tranquility and all of that kind of stuff. How we respond to other people struggling with the quality of compassion is what makes compassion unique and special because it's not just about being too nice. You know, a compassionate person could provide, you know, feedback that may be critical. A compassionate person may be moved to put themselves in between, you know, someone who is in danger and someone who is causing danger, right? That that's an incredible amount of strength and fortitude. So it's not just about being nice. You know, a compassionate person probably is nice, but that's not what compassion is, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_00: 5:09

It does make sense. Thank you. Where do you see compassion sit in relation to responsibility and moral judgment?

SPEAKER_01: 5:15

So let's start with this idea of responsibility, because I think responsibility is a really important concept that people have to explore in relation to the world around them, in relation to our communities. Who's responsible for what is a really important question that everybody asks. Compassion provides a lens for responsibility in the sense that if compassion is how I respond to somebody else's struggle, it is my responsibility to see struggling. It is my responsibility to care for those who are struggling within my ability. It is my responsibility to take care of myself and to look out for myself with compassion. Compassion is uh its relation to responsibility is that of help, is that of how do I support, how do I alleviate someone else's struggles. And then when it comes to morality and how it textures our morality, once again, it's focused solely on who's struggling, how do I help someone who is struggling? Which means that when it shapes your morality, then the way that you view harm shifts in that I don't want to harm others. Because if I'm compassionate and I'm used to responding to people's struggles with that of compassion, then my morality is going to be really strongly rooted in this idea of harm to others and suffering is not something that people want to see. And it is my responsibility, my duty, my moral take is always to reduce harm and to ensure that people have a better life.

SPEAKER_00: 7:05

Coming as a former, even when you teach someone compassion, does that excuse the harm, the previous harm?

SPEAKER_01: 7:11

Yeah. So, you know, in relation to previous harm, one of the things that compassion helps or support with in that there are different mechanisms of accountability. So, you know, does someone need to go through the justice system or, you know, the different, you know, restorative justice kind of mechanisms like a peace circle or something like that? Yes. One of the things that I would point out about compassion is how do you move forward? Because looking back, you can't take back anything that's been done already, right? No, you can't. There's nothing you can do about that, at least for now. Maybe somebody will figure out time travel, and then you can say, Well, I'm just gonna press the button, I'll go back and do that over again, right? But you know, until we get to that point, there's nothing you can do about the past. And wherever you came from, you're where you are at now, right? Like you're there now. You can't go back into the past, you can only look at it and learn from it. And a compassionate view of your past, one recognizes humanity, and that's we're all people and we all make mistakes. One of the things you know, I talk about is self-compassion. And my work around self-compassion is shaped strongly by the work of Dr. Kristen Neff, who talks about self-compassion and has these three pillars of self-compassion. The first one being awareness of your own struggles. So being aware that, hey, I don't like what I did in the past and it makes me feel a certain type of way. Acknowledge that feeling, right? Lean into that feeling, understand what that feeling is, and learn from that and grow from that. The second piece is common humanity. And this common humanity component is really understanding that, yes, sure, we're all unique. And if you made mistakes in the past, other people have made mistakes in the past too. You may even know people who've made similar mistakes in the past. Can you show compassion to them? Right? Can you imagine, like, there's a person who may have made similar mistakes? Can I show compassion to this person? Right? Can I imagine this person being being able to move forward in a certain type of way? Maybe even being redeemed in a certain type of way. If I can imagine that for someone else, can I imagine that for myself too? If I can show compassion to somebody else progressing in a way that I appreciate, then I can show compassion to myself in a way that I too can progress in a certain kind of way. And this could be an observed progression in seeing people who are foremers, right? Um, move forward. Like that, like, ah, I can look at that and I can say that this person in the past, they're really trying to move forward in a constructive way. So that's the common humanity component. And that, like, if I can imagine, you know, showing some compassion to somebody else, I can also imagine showing compassion to myself. The third pillar is about self-kindness and self-mentorship. And this idea, what I like to share is having a certain amount of respect for yourself, in that you are deserving of kindness. You are deserving of mentorship, you are deserving of, you know, someone, you know, taking you by the hand and moving you forward, moving you forward in a direction that you want to go. And in order to kind of build that internal dialogue, you have to build a base amount of respect for yourself. And I like to tell people to imagine yourself as LeBron James. And LeBron James uh is a better player, he plays on the floor. Technically, the coach is in charge of the team. The coach dictates, you know, what plays are played. But because LeBron James is so good, even though there's a hierarchy, the coach, the coach can't be disrespectful to LeBron James. If the coach was disrespectful to LeBron James, he wouldn't be a coach for very long. And understanding that kind of relationship in that the coach still has to do their job. The coach still has to provide constructive feedback to LeBron James, but they're gonna figure out how to do it in a way that's not disrespectful, that's not unsupportive, which means that when we're, you know, building our capacities to show compassion to ourselves, we have to build a kinder, more constructive voice in ourselves, that we are worthy and that we are deserving of respect and that we will show respect to ourselves. And I think a lot of times people beat themselves up and they assume that that's gonna lead them to a better future. And usually that's not the case, right? Compassion is what's gonna get you to where you're trying to go, which means that that's what you need to lean into. And it doesn't come from this perspective of I need to be, you know, punished or I'm not worthy of being a full member of my community. That's not true, right? Everybody is deserving of being a full member of your community. No matter what your past is, what really builds your connection to a community is what you do now, is what you do moving forward. Are you moving in the world with compassion? If you're moving in the world with compassion, then you're you're gonna find community and you're gonna support the communities that you are a part of. And that's it, right? So it's what you do moving forward that matters.

SPEAKER_00: 13:20

What happens though when people are so stuck in the past and they feel guilty about what they did and they can't get past that?

SPEAKER_01: 13:27

Yeah, and it's tough. I find this a lot in my work, and it's a part of my personal journey as well. And it's healing from moral injury in that, you know, I look back and I know that I've done something wrong in the past. And it's not about trying to do accounting, you know, it's not about saying, you know, oh, I did this bad thing, so I need to do a hundred good things, you know, or that kind of a um it's not like that. It's really about finding a way to be at peace with your past and but not forgetting your future in that you can't take away your past. There's nothing that you can do about it. It's happened, it's happened already. Um, but what you can do something about is your future. And when you move into the future with compassion, then you're gonna provide healing in the world moving forward. That does it's not about it, doesn't erase your past. Your past can't be erased. What's happened, happened, right? Like it's already there. But can you move forward? Can you turn around and look and say, how do I want to move forward? Do I want to take control of my destiny going forward uh with compassion? And all it takes is just really engaging in small, compassionate acts. Help someone out, help someone cross the street, hold the door open for someone, um, you know, listen to someone when they're talking to you about their problems with an open ear. You know, do really start to take account of all these positive things you're doing in your life right now, right? Get more positive stuff that you're doing in your life now. Appreciate that, celebrate that. And once you do that over enough of an amount of time, you're not going to be consumed by your past because you have a responsibility to your community in the present now that is is now taking up your time and attention.

SPEAKER_00: 15:35

So, really, compassion is is important for people leaving these spaces. They really need to become self compassionate. A lot of that is self-compassion. So, but what happens though with when when they just shut down instead of reflecting? Like, how can we get them to that point? Because I have talked to people that are still stuck and won't move forward, and they're just stuck in that past of like, I did this, I did this, I did this. I'm like, well, yeah, but you need to sub you you need to forgive yourself. You you held yourself accountable, but you're not moving forward. You're basically like at a standstill.

SPEAKER_01: 16:08

Yeah, and and and that's the that's the the the power of being engaged currently. Like you have to have positive engagements now and connections now, things that you're responsible for now, your morality now and moving forward. So, you know, I used to work in nonviolence training and compassion and nonviolence training with people who were former, and I used the the term former very loosely, gang members. And these were people who were in violent organizations, gang organizations, and who had served time in jail. You know, a lot of them had very long rap sheets, were in and out of jail, and had done things in the past and had committed crimes and weren't happy about that, right? Like that's something that really does uh stick with you. And and when you're trying to heal and become a better person, it's like, well, how can I be a good person? Because look at what I did. But what they were able to find supportive is helping others and going out into their community to talk to people who were still on the streets who hadn't, you know, picked, hadn't tried a different path and working with them uh to to try to guide them into a a better life, right? So, and and some people are prepared for that. Not everybody's prepared for that. People aren't prepared for like, okay, let me go out and connect with people who are living my lifestyle and guide like because that does take a lot of training and that does take a lot of time. A lot of these were older people who had spent a lot of time in and out of jail and had to learn their lesson over and over and over again before they had gotten to that point. But it doesn't have to be, you know, connecting directly to some of the things that you feel like connecting directly to some of the harms that you cause in the community before, it could be just connecting with something else. Like just you have to contribute positivity, right? Like you have to exercise your compassion muscle. So the first step is always do something to help somebody else now, right? If you can't, if you can't, you know, uh stop focusing on past harms, right? Focus on something that you can heal now. Do something now, get engaged now in some kind of a way. You you gotta do something good, you gotta start that healing process. And that's the only way, particularly when it comes to moral injury, from what I've seen, um, is that you you gotta you you you gotta start contributing and you gotta feel like you're helping somebody. And if you don't feel like you're helping somebody or you don't feel like you can help yourself, then that's that's that's one of the huge barriers. Like you, because what else can you do but focus on what you what kind of harm you've done if you haven't actively tried to heal something, right? Tried to fix something. Like you gotta, you gotta go out and you gotta get your hands dirty, you gotta do something. Even if that's planting a garden somewhere or growing the tree, like you know, even even you go into the local soup kitchen, you know, it's it's it's like you gotta do something good, though. You really do actually have to get your get your feet wet.

SPEAKER_00: 19:46

I'm just thinking of people like myself, right? Who get framed as weak because of the work that we do, you know, because we have become compassionate and I go out in the community and I do these talks, and then I'm looked at as sort of like a weak person now. Do you think that's relevant to talk about?

SPEAKER_01: 20:02

Yeah. So my training, uh I started this journey at Stanford uh University, and they have a program called the Center for Compassion, compassionate, compassion and altruism, research and education, see care. And there's a strong link between compassion and altruism. And you know, with altruism being I'm willing to put myself in danger to help somebody else. And they were like, there's this link between that. Now, putting yourself in danger to help somebody else is the strongest thing that somebody can do. That is the most powerful symbol of strength is someone saying, I am willing to sacrifice something of myself to help somebody else. And like, I'm not even going to think about it, right? Like this is this is how I'm going to move to action. Um, you think about something going wrong, and there are people who run toward the danger and people who run away from the danger, right? Compassionate people run to the danger. There's nothing stronger than that. There's the strongest, you know, um, I would say the strongest force in human society is compassion. It has always been compassion because compassion is a value for strong people. It is a value of strength. You got to think about it, right? If I'm opening myself up to care about your struggles, and I want to be in a position to help you with your struggles. That's what compassion is. That's strength. I'm already positioning myself in relation to others with a str with a straight spine and in a stance that I'm always ready to help when necessary, right? I'm always willing to support somebody else. You're not willing to support somebody's else if you're weak. If you're weak, you're never in a position to help somebody else out, right? Because you're too weak to do so. Which means that in order to be compassionate, you must be strong, right? And that strong people employ compassion. There's no way around that. Like compassion is a value of strength. You're you're being vulnerable to you know someone taking advantage of you or you know, someone trying to, you know, get the upper hand. Oh, what if this person you know betrays me in some kind of way? When you can start to not live your life constantly in fear of others, and you open by demonstrating the vulnerability of compassion, what's stronger than that? There's nothing stronger than that. That is not the mindset of a weak person. That is the mindset of somebody who is immensely strong because I'm here to help, I'm here to support others and heal others. What's stronger than that?

SPEAKER_00: 22:57

Nothing is. That is the perfect way to end the episode. Thanks everyone for tuning in to today's Daily Dose. Chat soon.