In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience—our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. C

While empathy is essential, if we over-identify with the person or people hurting, the empathy turns into empathic distress, where our own discomfort ironically takes center stage. We collapse or run away.