Suffering Hack – George Mumford – The key to compassion and have more of it – The hack to compassion is suffering. Because it is by sharing the same experiences in that same pain that you’re able to relate to others on a deeper level. Me going through that pain and suffering makes me sensitive to other people’s pain and suffering! This is why when you go through struggling and adversity, and you push through it, many people become successful because they’re able to relate to others on a deeper level because they have already gone through it themselves. Inspire others to overcome that same adversity or challenge that you’re dealing with. So, I always look at the current circumstances in adversity as a place that allows you to more deeply connect with other individuals who share the same pain or suffering. When you’re able to break through it, you will inspire others to do the same. Because while we all have pain and suffering, it is temporary, and we can push through it. 

Three Levels of Compassion Hack – Kelli McConnell – How to teach others to be compassionate –– for all of us, there’s three different levels of compassion and we usually follow one of the three during the current phase of our life. As far as teaching compassion, we could be just simply becoming more aware of compassion so maybe we just simply focus on ourselves and just not able to empathize and feel what the other person is feeling. That’s just bringing a level of awareness and realizing that we need to take a few moments and put ourselves in another person shoes and feel what they’re feeling and just understand. But it doesn’t mean that we try to solve the problem, it just means that we understand where they’re coming from. 

The second level is where it’s on the exact opposite extreme world with our compassion, which means were overwhelmed by it all, to the point that we’re so affected and so empathetic to what we feel, that we feel it’s too much, and we can’t help everyone! So, we just simply shut down. For those, we have to just come to a point where that compassion is broken down into segment sizes where one can take action and not be overwhelmed by it, so maybe dealing with one person at a time or one story at a time. 

The third level is where we have the compassion, but simply need more tools. We feel what the other person is having, but just need to have a deeper level of listening so that person feels heard and feel like we understand them. The biggest hack for this is deep listening, which is simply listening without wanting to talk. We usually talk to connect, but here we’re just making sure that the person feels heard while we empathize and try to understand what it’s like to be in their shoes, without judging and simply observing! 

Deeply Listening Hack – Kelly McConnell – We have a great heart to show people how they can listen deeply. For most of us, when we listen, we listen by talking, and we listen by deflecting, or using humor and justifiably so, because we do so to connect. When I have students come to my workshop, I have them listen with their heart, which means exactly as it sounds. I have them imagine being able to go and visualize their heart and imagine their ears being down next to their lungs and their nose and face right there in their chest. They’re not allowed to speak, which means they are literally listening from the heart and their intention during this time is simply to observe and understand. No problems solved or deflected with humor. By doing this exercise, whenever they’re talking with someone, they’re able to deeply listen and allow the other person to feel they are being heard. Because for most of us, we usually never get a chance to talk and to have someone just listen to us, without judging or interrupting, but by simply observing and understanding, and we feel heard. So, this is a great hack to visualize. This is what it means to listen with the heart so you can deeply listen to others and practice this technique to get better. The more you practice, the deeper you’re able to compassionately connect with others!