Compassion is essential for living in a community. Being able to empathize with others and willing to proactively work to make things better are important components of strong, healthy relationships. Because human beings are inherently social, we need to be able to relate to others to thrive, and compassion drives us to feel a connection with something larger than ourselves. When we feel this connection, we are spurred to make positive changes in our communities that ultimately benefit everyone. It is often more compelling to help others than it is to help ourselves, but in reacting to others’ needs, we are truly helping ourselves as well.
Living in a society that praises individualism and individual accomplishments can often feel at odds with compassion, so exploring ideas of empathy and compassion during adolescence can help build that “muscle” that enables us to reach out to others even as we are pressured to perform.
“Empathy is about finding echoes of another in yourself.”—Mohsin Hamid
Objective: Students will examine their individual reactions to seeing others in emotional pain and think about whether there are limits to their willingness to be compassionate.
Tools:
• Discussion Prompt (5–10 minutes of introduction, 20+ minutes of discussion)
• Struggling with Compassion activity (10 minutes)
• Lovingkindness meditation (5 minutes)
Discussion: Often, when we see someone else in emotional pain, we do one of two things; turn away or reach out to them. When we make the choice to reach out to them, it is often in spite of our own discomfort with their pain, and that in and of itself is an act of courage. At that point, we have three choices: we can try to fix things for or with them, we can get down in the pit of sadness with them and hang out, or we can try something called “holding space.”
Holding space is simply about acknowledging someone else’s despair and sadness without offering advice, trying to change their perspective or diminish their feelings, actively taking on their emotions as our own, or trying to fix anything. It is a way to recognize and accept someone else’s right to feel whatever they are feeling and allow them to process those strong emotions without judgment. It has the effect of letting the other person know they aren’t alone and can be quite powerful.
Discussion Questions:
• Talk about which of the three strategies students generally choose when they see someone else hurting: empathizing deeply (getting in the pit with them), fixing/making it better (this can include attempting to talk them out of feeling the way they feel), or holding space.
• Is there one reaction that feels more caring? Is there one that feels more effective? Can they find examples of each of the three in their own lives?
• Ask students to think about what happens when they are struggling. Do they seek out people who will suffer with them, who will try to fix things or change the situation, or those who are simply loving and supportive? Are there times when one of these feels better than another? Why?
Activity: Struggling with Compassion (see Appendix A)
Meditation: Lovingkindness
Educators can introduce this meditation to students by explaining that it is a fairly basic compassion meditation, often called “metta” or “lovingkindness.” The goal of these meditations is to first focus on finding compassion for yourself and then extending it outward to encompass kindness and love for all beings. As always, be sure to allow for ample quiet time as students breathe and practice sitting quietly.
Begin by finding a comfortable position and closing your eyes. Take a few deep breaths in and out to settle into this place and clear your mind of other thoughts that might linger.
Once you feel relaxed and your mind is free from thoughts, imagine that each breath you take in fills you with warmth and light. Each breath is designed to feed you, to nourish you, to keep you going. After a few rounds of this breath, focus on feeling gentle and kind toward yourself, accepting yourself for who you are. Keep breathing.
After several more rounds of breaths focusing on kindness, continue to breathe deeply, and say to yourself, “May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy.”
Repeat these phrases slowly a few times until you begin to feel that self-love within you in the form of warmth and light.
Now, imagine that as you exhale, you are extending some of that warmth and light outward to others without diminishing it inside yourself. It is simply amplifying, and you are the source. Much like using your candle’s flame to light another candle, it doesn’t extinguish your flame to share it.
As you breathe, continue stoking your warmth and light as you inhale, and as you exhale, think to yourself, “May all beings be safe. May all beings be healthy. May all beings be happy.” Take several more rounds of breath as you repeat these phrases and send warmth and light out to all beings.
When you are ready, take an especially deep breath in, and slowly open your eyes.
“Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it’s accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another’s eyes or heart.”—Sue Monk Kidd
Objective: Students will explore the idea that the way they see the world is just one of many different ways to see it. They will be given the opportunity to view things in a completely different way and explore how doing so might lead to more compassionate relationships with people whose beliefs are not the same as theirs.
Tools:
• Discussion Prompt (5–10 minutes of introduction, 20+ minutes of discussion)
• Assigning Feelings activity (10 minutes)
• Changing Suffering to Caring meditation (5 minutes)
Discussion: Educators can use the following two stories to introduce the concept of how different people can see the same thing in very unique ways.
During a TED Talk, Derek Sivers first talks about the difference between how addresses are noted in Japan and the United States. He asks the audience to imagine a traveler from Japan asking an American for the name of the block they’re on. The person is confused, and responds, “The blocks don’t have names. The streets have names. The blocks are simply the empty spaces between streets.” He then goes on to illustrate how the exact opposite is true in Japan—the blocks are named, but the streets are not—they are simply the empty spaces between blocks.1
The second story is about some rural villages in China. In these places, the local medical professional is paid by the townspeople every single day. He or she comes by each house in the morning to collect coins from a box placed outside for that purpose. If he or she happens upon a house where there is no money in the box, that is a message that there is someone inside who is sick and needs care. In these villages, the physician is only paid when the people in his or her care are healthy. They believe that this is the best way to ensure that the physician is doing all they can to prevent everyone from getting sick in the first place.
These two stories illustrate the idea that two seemingly opposite things can exist and that both can work.
Discussion Questions:
• Without judging whether one is right and another wrong, engage students in conversation about perspectives. What effect did these stories have on them?
• Ask students to talk about how often they judge others based on their own idea of what is “normal.” Can they imagine that these ideas might seem odd in a different context or culture?
• Can anyone provide an example of a story like this where they were surprised to learn of a very different way of being in the world? Has anyone had to explain to someone else how their perspective is vastly different? How did they handle that? What did they learn from it?
Activity: Assigning Feelings (see Appendix A)
Meditation: Changing Suffering to Caring
As always, make sure you are allowing plenty of opportunities for students to sit quietly and breathe and practice keeping their minds focused and still.
In any given moment, there is a lot of suffering in the world that we are almost constantly reminded of by the media and our loved ones. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by events that are out of our control, and this meditation is a great way to extend compassion for those who are struggling even when we are powerless to change it.
Find a comfortable position, and close your eyes. Take several deep breaths as you settle in, and clear your mind of all thoughts. Once you are ready, I want you to imagine that the state of suffering has a color associated with it. As you breathe in, see that color as a kind of smoke that you inhale. It can’t hurt you, and it won’t stay inside because it isn’t yours. It doesn’t belong to you. You are simply the agent of change for this struggle.
By the magic of meditation and compassion and imagination, as the suffering breath reaches your lungs, it is converted into love. You can tell because the color changes. Imagine the color of love, and see it replace the color of pain in your lungs.
Exhale, and imagine that you have replaced a little bit of the suffering in the world with a brighter, cleaner love. Continue to breathe in the suffering and breathe out love. You can’t change it all, but you’re making a difference.
Breathe this way for a few minutes. When you’re ready, inhale one clear, clean breath and exhale one clear, clean breath to reset, and open your eyes.
Name-Calling v. Owning Your Emotions
“Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.”—Henry Ward Beecher
Objective: Students will talk about how often we resort to labels when there is a conflict to distance or protect ourselves. They will discuss the emotions behind conflict and determine whether they can act in more compassionate ways when they disagree with others.
Tools:
• Discussion Prompt (5–10 minutes of introduction, 20+ minutes of discussion)
• Accepting Circle and Emotional Mirror activities (20 minutes)
• Lovingkindness meditation (5 minutes)
Discussion: Often, when we are hurt or bothered by someone else’s words or behavior, we dismiss them with a label: “liar,” “jerk,” “idiot,” “slut,” and so on. In fact, this habit is so well ingrained for most of us by the time we are in our teens, we do it without even stopping to acknowledge that what is lying beneath our anger or frustration is fear or hurt feelings. We simply jump to labeling the person we are angry with and use that label to justify our actions and attitudes toward them. This is a distancing tactic that divides us and shuts down conversations instead of bringing us together in the community. Because of that, it is ultimately harmful to everyone involved.
One problem with name-calling is that it defines someone else, even if that definition is only temporary. When someone lies—which, let’s face it, we all do from time to time—we often call them a liar. That puts the other person into a pretty tight box and has the effect of defining them by their biggest mistake or worst act, and it tends to make people defensive.
If, instead, we are able to take a breath and say, “Wow, I’m really upset that you didn’t tell me the truth,” they have a little more wiggle room. They might still get defensive, but being called out for one act leaves the opportunity for forgiveness and compromise open. Labeling someone a liar sends the message that they are forever in your mind a horrible person, and it says that you aren’t interested in working things out because you’ve already decided that they aren’t going to change.
Expressing how you feel might still lead to the other person getting defensive, but at least they know how their actions have affected you, which is really the point, right? It seems obvious that getting upset and calling someone a name means that you’re upset and your feelings are hurt, but think about the difference between “You suck!” and “Man, it really bothers me that you did that.”
Discussion Questions:
• Have students talk about how they might react differently to name-calling than they would to someone telling them how they feel. How might it shift the dynamic of the conversation?
• Ask students to talk about what it would be like to be the person who refrains from name-calling and, instead, expresses their feelings. Does that feel too vulnerable? Does that take more courage than striking out in anger? What is the hardest part of that?
• Have students imagine that the next time someone labels them, instead of getting angry and defensive, they simply ask what the other person is feeling. Ask them to imagine what it would be like to encourage the other person to talk about what is upsetting them and how they might react if someone did that for them.
Activities: Accepting Circle and Emotional Mirror (see Appendix A)
Meditation: Lovingkindness
Educators can introduce this meditation to students by explaining that it is a fairly basic compassion meditation, often called “metta” or “lovingkindness.” The goal of these meditations is to first focus on finding compassion for yourself and then extending it outward to encompass kindness and love for all beings. As always, be sure to allow for ample quiet time as students breathe and practice sitting quietly.
Begin by finding a comfortable position and closing your eyes. Take a few deep breaths in and out to settle into this place and clear your mind of other thoughts that might linger.
Once you feel relaxed and your mind is free from thoughts, imagine that each breath you take in fills you with warmth and light. Each breath is designed to feed you, to nourish you, to keep you going. After a few rounds of this breathing, focus on feeling gentle and kind toward yourself and accepting yourself for who you are. Keep breathing.
After several more rounds of breathing focused on kindness, continue to breathe deeply and say to yourself, “May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy.”
Repeat these phrases slowly a few times until you begin to feel that self-love within you in the form of warmth and light.
Now, imagine that as you exhale, you are extending some of that warmth and light outward to others without diminishing it inside yourself. It is simply amplifying, and you are the source. Much like using your candle’s flame to light another candle, it doesn’t extinguish your flame to share it.
As you breathe, continue stoking your warmth and light as you inhale, and as you exhale, think to yourself, “May all beings be safe. May all beings be healthy. May all beings be happy.” Take several more rounds of breathing as you repeat these phrases and send warmth and light out to all beings.
When you are ready, take an especially deep breath in, and slowly open your eyes.
Myths and Misperceptions about Bullying
“It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak and the other to hear.”—Henry David Thoreau
Objective: Students will explore their own ideas about what it means to be a bully and why people choose to bully others. They will talk about what it might look like to have compassion for someone who is branded a bully.
Tools:
• Discussion Prompt (5–10 minutes of introduction, 20+ minutes of discussion)
• What Does Bullying Look Like? activity (20 minutes)
• Diversity and Community meditation (5 minutes)
Discussion: Ask students to pull out a sheet of paper and answer the following questions on their own. Once everyone is finished, share the answers with them and encourage discussion.
1. True or False: Nearly 40 percent of American teens are involved in bullying. (True. 13 percent admit bullying others, 21 percent say they’ve been bullied, and 6 percent say they’ve experienced both at least once.)
2. True or False: Most incidents of bullying happen in high school. (False. Bullying incidents rise sharply beginning in sixth grade and drop off after ninth grade.)
3. True or False: Schools and communities that are more diverse report more incidents of bullying. (False. Bullying happens in all communities, but diverse communities that are inclusive and work to promote inclusion have fewer issues with bullying.)
4. True or False: Students who witness bullying often refuse to remain friends with the victim and feel guilty for not reporting the incident(s). (True. Witnessing an act of bullying has negative consequences even if a student is not directly involved as the perpetrator or victim.)
5. True or False: Bullying is about power and control. (True. While students who bully others often have high self-esteem, their behavior is directed at their own need to be seen as powerful. We tend to shame and strike out at others we think we can control, even if they haven’t upset us directly.)
6. True or False: It should be up to the victim to report and deal with any bullying incidents. (False. Bullying prevention approaches that show the most promise confront the problem from many angles. They involve the entire school community—students, families, teachers, administrators, and staff, such as bus drivers, nurses, and cafeteria and front office staff—in creating a culture of compassion and respect.)
7. True or False: Suspension and expulsion are not effective ways to deal with students who bully other students. (True. These approaches are not helpful in addressing social dynamics in a school community, nor are they effective in helping perpetrators learn to change their behavior over time. Many students who have bullied others and are expelled go on to have criminal convictions as adults.)
Activity: What Does Bullying Look Like? (see Appendix A)
Meditation: Diversity and Community
As always, allow students ample time to reflect quietly during this meditation.
Find a comfortable position, and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths to settle in and clear your mind of any random thoughts. As you relax, picture a computer keyboard in your mind. Can you see all of the letters and numbers and symbols? Even if the keys all have the same basic shape and their jobs are similar, they look different and have different functions. Each letter of the alphabet, each number, each key with a punctuation mark is important on its own and really powerful when it’s used with the other ones.
Imagine that you are one of the symbols—you decide which one. Think about your school papers and email and text messages, think about how they would be different if that symbol didn’t exist. Think about how important each one of them is as part of the bigger picture.
Now think about your friends and family and classmates. Each of them is a unique symbol, too, and together you make up a community that is rich and diverse and full of possibility. That is because you are all different. Think about how each individual plays an important role, how you each function on your own, with your own ideas and beliefs and experiences, and how you function together, much of the time pretty comfortably and seamlessly.
Reflect on how vital it is to have each individual performing their role, whatever it may be. Be grateful for the qualities you bring to the table. We are, each of us, important in our own right and, at the same time, part of something larger that both needs us and nourishes us.
When you are ready, take a deep breath, and slowly open your eyes.
“There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.”—W. Somerset Maugham
Objective: Students will consider that it is nearly impossible to know all of the details of any situation at first glance. They will examine the ramifications of making decisions and judgments without considering other perspectives and factors.
Tools:
• Discussion Prompt (5–10 minutes of introduction, 20+ minutes of discussion)
• Actor’s Nightmare activity (10 minutes)
• Completing the Puzzle meditation (5 minutes)
Discussion: Tell students the following story of a king who assembled several blind men and presented them with an elephant. One at a time, the men were guided to the elephant, stationed at a particular part (front leg, trunk, head, back leg, etc.), and asked to use their hands to explore the animal. When each of the men had thoroughly explored the part of the elephant they were stationed beside, the king asked them each in turn, “What is an elephant?”
The man who had explored the animal’s head answered, “An elephant is like a huge pot turned upside down.” The man at the ear disagreed, saying, “An elephant is like a huge plant with enormous leaves.” The man who had explored the tusk told the king that it was more like a pole while the man who touched the trunk said it was like a giant serpent. They continued on this way, each man describing his own portion of the elephant and, eventually, a heated argument began among them.
Discussion Questions:
• Ask students to discuss the meaning of the parable. Does it illustrate how we each get attached to our own view of the world without considering that there are many more parts we have yet to experience?
• Can anyone recall a time when they were certain of something that they later learned was very different than they originally believed? Has anyone ever vigorously defended a position or belief that they later discovered wasn’t entirely accurate?
Activity: Actor’s Nightmare (see Appendix A)
Meditation: Completing the Puzzle
As always, be sure to allow students plenty of time to sit quietly and reflect without talking.
Find a comfortable position, and close your eyes gently. Take a few breaths normally to clear any stray thoughts from your head.
When you’re ready, imagine a puzzle in your mind that is missing most of the center pieces. The sides and corners are complete, but there are large gaps in the center such that you can’t quite determine what the picture is supposed to be. Think about how that feels. Notice how your mind tries to rush ahead and fill in the openings with something that makes sense. Resist that urge as much as possible.
As you trail your imagination around the parts of the puzzle that are complete, notice if that feels different to you. Our brains are wired to fill in gaps with information, even if it isn’t absolutely correct. When we do that, we get a surge of dopamine, the feel-good chemical, in our brains. It doesn’t matter whether the information is right; it just has to make enough sense to us to feel complete.
Sit for another minute with your eyes closed, and see if you can get more comfortable with not knowing what the full puzzle is supposed to look like. Can you let yourself stop wondering about it?
When you’re ready, take a deep breath in, and slowly open your eyes.
“If at first you don’t succeed, you’re about average.”—Unknown
Objective: Students will explore the idea of compassion and boundaries and will learn how to have compassion for themselves when they make a mistake.
Tools:
• Discussion Prompt (5–10 minutes of introduction, 20+ minutes of discussion)
• Self-Compassion activity (10 minutes)
• Appreciating Your Body meditation (5 minutes)
Discussion: It is a common misperception that selfishness is the opposite of compassion—that if we are not actively helping someone in need, we are being selfish. In fact, there are many reasons we choose not to reach out to others and some people spend far more time and energy helping others than they do taking care of their own needs. That can be counterproductive, but because helping other people is often praised in some cultures, it can be hard to stop. Sometimes we find ourselves agreeing to something because we think we ought to, even when we don’t have the time, energy, or interest. This is when it is important to examine our own boundaries, especially when it comes to relationships with our family and close friends.
Following are some signs of unhealthy boundaries:
• Acting against your values to please someone else
• Letting yourself be defined by someone else
• Sacrificing something for someone else and later resenting it
• Helping someone because you think you “should”
• Overidentifying with someone else’s struggle
• Feeling responsible for someone else’s emotions
Discussion Questions:
• Have students give examples of unhealthy boundaries and talk about whether they have made these choices before. Has anyone experienced a difficult situation because they didn’t have boundaries in place?
• Ask students to think about and perhaps jot down ideas about which people and situations are the most challenging for them when it comes to relationship boundaries. Can they discuss ways to protect themselves by deciding what they’re comfortable with? Can they give themselves permission to say no or redefine boundaries with others?
Activity: Self-Compassion (see Appendix A)
Meditation: Appreciate Your Body
As always, be sure to allow students plenty of time to sit quietly and reflect without talking.
We all spend a lot of time and energy critiquing our bodies. As teenagers, most of us spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, cataloguing the things we would love to change—even just a little bit—and paying more attention to the things we don’t like than the things we do. This meditation is designed to give you an appreciation for the things we take for granted every day.
Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths in and out to settle in and clear any random stray thoughts you’re having. Starting with your feet, think about what they do for you on a daily basis. How they squeeze into shoes or take a beating on hot pavement or sand when you go barefoot. Maybe you play sports and they keep you balanced as the bones and muscles flex to move you in the right direction without you having to think about how that happens. From there, move to your ankles and lower legs.
Think about how the bones support you every day, how blood courses through the veins and arteries to bring nutrients and blood cells, how the old skin sloughs off on its own and new skin is constantly created beneath it automatically. You don’t have to tell it when.
Think about the marvel that is your knees, how they bend smoothly to help you squat down and tie your shoe and how they lock into place when you need them to. What about your upper legs? Those powerhouses of muscle and bone that hold you upright, that flex and extend to help you walk and run and skip and ride a skateboard. Your hips? They are amazing, too.
Make your way up your body like this, pausing to be astonished at what happens in your gut all day, every day—hormones and digestive juices being released at the right times, and your food broken down and distributed throughout your body to the places it needs to go without you directing it there. Your kidneys and liver deal with the waste products, and your diaphragm moves to help you breathe. Your lungs exchange gases seamlessly, and your heart beats, beats, beats, and it responds to scary things by speeding up so you can run away if you have to.
Your immune system sends healing cells to make scabs and flush out germs. Your neck holds up your head all day long and twists to help you see what you need to see. Stop and appreciate your arms and hands. Think about how your hair and your fingernails just grow, cells constantly dividing while you’re not even aware of it. Acknowledge your ears and eyes and nose and mouth, as well as your brain, for orchestrating all of these complicated and incredibly essential tasks, mostly without your supervision or interference.
Take one more pause to be appropriately awed by your body, and the next time you look in the mirror, give it thanks instead of criticizing it.
When you’re ready, take a deep breath in, and open your eyes.
“Know what you own, and know why you own it.”—Peter Lynch
Objective: Students will expand their understanding of the strengths they have to draw on that aren’t immediately obvious. They will explore what those reserves are and how they are important in their lives and how to acknowledge them in others as well.
Tools:
• Discussion Prompt (5–10 minutes of introduction, 20+ minutes of discussion)
• Wealth Mapping activity (10–20 minutes)
• Wealth Mapping meditation (5 minutes)
Discussion: Cash is king, right? In large part, that’s true, but it’s interesting to look at the ways that people have leveraged other forms of wealth to get what they need or want. Human beings have always traded goods and services, and even those without a great deal of material wealth have been able to find opportunities based on their individual skills or talents in many cases.
Modern examples include corporations such as Mercedes-Benz and Dom Pérignon “paying” Instagram personalities for drawing attention to their products by sponsoring parties or giving them goods. However, we can also see folks using their wealth of street smarts or language or natural talent to get their needs met.
Consider the story of Ted Williams, a man who was homeless but had formerly been a radio announcer. Someone heard him asking passersby for money and made a video of him that went viral. He ended up being offered a job and a book deal. It isn’t always that striking, but we use our personal wealth in many ways every day, often without really thinking about it.
Some key kinds of wealth we have include:
• Family
• Social capital
• Ability to navigate complex systems
• Willingness to resist
• Language (bi- or trilingual)
• Cultural
Discussion Questions:
• Ask students to consider how these different kinds of assets have impacted their lives. Does anyone have an example of a time when they used one to help themselves or others?
• What does it feel like to think about having a reservoir of wealth such as this? Do students feel more secure in their ability to hold on to these kinds of wealth?
• Have students talk about where these strengths and talents come from and why they are important. Are they as important as money?
Activity: Wealth Mapping (see Appendix A)
Meditation: Wealth Mapping
As always, be sure to allow students plenty of time to sit quietly and reflect without talking.
Find a comfortable seat, and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths in and out to clear your mind of any random thoughts.
Imagine that you are the center of a wheel, and there are spokes radiating out from you toward other people. Each of these people has wisdom and strength that they’ve helped you develop. They might be teachers, parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and so on. You don’t have to name them or identify each of them, just take a minute to acknowledge the lines that connect you to them.
These people make up your history, your culture. Maybe they’ve struggled to give you a better life or taught you something important. Maybe they simply supported you when you were struggling or taught you how to enjoy something that you still love. Imagine energy and wisdom traveling from them to you through the spokes—filling you up so that one day when you need to access information or strength, it is there in reserve. Take a minute to just feel the energy from each of these people going to you.
Think about these reserves as muscles. Every time you use them, they get stronger. Every time you speak up or make your way through a challenge, these forms of wealth grow. Take a minute to express gratitude to those who helped you develop this wisdom. Take another minute to acknowledge yourself for drawing on it and knowing how to use it.
It’s important to remember that the life you’ve led so far has given you an abundance of tools to use as you make your way through the days. Be proud of the wealth you have that is unique to you, and know that using it is an affirmation of your resilience.
When you’re ready, take a deep breath, and open your eyes.
NOTE
1. Sivers, Derek. November 2009. “Weird, or just different?” Video retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_different#t-142839.