McMusing: Compassion that Transforms
How trauma-responsive compassion changes our assumptions and engagements with those who struggle.
It is possible for well-intended compassion to—at best—fall flat. At worst, our good intentions can cause harm. Our intentions and how things turn out can be very different. It is easy to become defensive when our good intentions are misunderstood, or our actions are criticized. Reacting compounds the damage, and the opportunity to reflect is lost.
The point of today’s McMusing is to provide an opportunity to reflect on compassion.
Often, in our well-intentioned desire to show compassion, we reserve a space at the table for judgment. This can occur when faith communities provide compassionate programs for people who struggle in some way—addiction for example. How can the good intentions of these programs fall flat or cause harm?
Because of assumptions that are not trauma-informed, sensitive, or responsive.
For the most part, the underlying hope for these programs is that those people come to God and overcome the struggle. This underlying hope leaves us with the following two options for reflecting on the situations in which those people have found themselves:
If those people knew God, they would not be struggling.
If they knew God, they would not struggle unless there is sin or lack of faith in their lives.
Whenever a program is mentioned or promoted, I scan the mission statements for assumptions. Sometimes these two assumptions are directly stated; in other cases, I have to dig around to find information about the curriculum. Even when a program is described as trauma-informed, that does not ensure that these two assumptions are not driving the mission.
We are often unaware of how these assumptions impact our capacity to offer judgment-free compassion. Many recovery programs are based on these underlying assumptions. Don’t get me wrong here—many who struggle have been helped in recovery programs. This likely has to do with the leader's capacity to set judgment aside and focus on relationships even if the program itself includes judgment-based assumptions I appreciate all who show compassion for others in this way and I also believe we can do better. How?
We need to acknowledge these underlying assumptions and transform them.
I have always compassionately cared about people (mostly students) and desired to help them live more functionally. Without knowing it, I was judging them by those two assumptions. I never said this to them—maybe they sensed it—but I can see now that my compassion leaned heavily on fixing people.
The desire to fix people is judgment cloaked in compassion. It assumes that there is something wrong that needs fixing—so they can live more functionally. Add spirituality to this, and you have the two assumptions. It puts us in the driver's seat of how that person can reach the goal of thriving (or an abundant life).
What changed for me?
What changed was my understanding of how trauma had impacted me and every other human on this planet. No one is exempt. Changing my assumptions about why people do what they do involves moving away from asking, “What is wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” It transforms the assumptions into the following:
What happened to this person that is causing them to struggle?
How can I walk with them on a journey of healing that will allow them to draw closer to God?
When I became compassionate with myself concerning the impact of my story, I stopped asking people what they did to get into the mess they were in. Instead, I began to ask them what their story was. I began to say, “There isn’t anything wrong with you; bad things happened to you.”
My underlying assumptions turned judgment-based compassion into Trauma-Sensitive Compassion.
Our participation in programs, ministries, or actions that intentionally or unintentionally focus on judgment-based compassion is unlikely to transform us. Trauma-responsive compassion isn’t as much about what I offer to others; it is about how changing the assumptions transformed me. This started by offering myself judgment-free compassion.
The most important part of what I do is how it changes me.
My journey began by understanding what happened to me and how it impacted my life. Part of survival is denying or diminishing our own stories. Time and time again, people begin sharing stories about struggling by saying, “Well, I didn’t have a bad childhood,” only to continue with a story that describes an extremely difficult childhood. These are often the very people who serve in compassionate programs or ministries. Trauma-responsive compassion must begin with our own story.
As long as I judge myself judging others will be the natural outcome.
Last week, during a Zoom conversation with a woman who contacted me after reading Trauma in the Pews, she said, “This conversation surprised me. I thought you would be an author who was connecting because you were selling books, but instead, you showed up as a real person who cared about me and what is happening in my life.”
In that moment, I recognized a shift in how I engage with others. The underlying assumptions that drive my compassion have been transformed. Trauma-responsive compassion is based on understanding how our stories impact us. It grows from healing our wounds and realizing that behavior is only a symptom that provides clues to our stories and opens a path to transformation.
Next week I will continue this McMusing with a story that illustrates this transformation. It is about how I learned to carry the lemonade myself. Stay tuned!
Great things to ponder. It is so hard to remove the judgement, yet compassion without judgement has been the most healing thing for me.
How do you do it for the people who have harmed you?
I have spent far too long trying to understand them- they have much of their own trauma and I do understand what shaped them. Yet I still get so angry at them and want to fix them, despite knowing that I can’t.
It is hard to have both compassion and want justice and them to stop hurting others at the same time.
This is one thing that comes into play with adoptive parenting... assumption is that the child comes from a situation where their parent had to make this choice, now it's my job to change the trajectory of their lives since they're no longer in that situation. Two negative assumptions - that they need fixed, that I have the power to do it - causes a child to feel less than because they come from a specific situation rather than embracing all of who they are in order to find the healthy way forward. This has challenged me in the area of compassion more than I would like to admit (in other words, I was the one with the fixing mentality thinking I was doing them a favor) but in fact, the children taught me more about compassion and not judging stuff you don't know anything about more than I deserve.