Today I want to discuss the differences that I see between compassion and pity. The differences can be subtle and hard to notice, but I feel that once we are aware of them and develop the ability to distinguish between the two, they become as different as night and day. I personally strive to always approach others with love and compassion, but that wasn't always the case. There were plenty of times I thought I was being compassionate and caring in the past and I was actually just pitying others. I'll discuss below how I distinguish between the two.
I feel that the core distinction of creating a sense of compassion or pity is formed in our love or fear of others and need for control. If we fear others or ourselves, or we are caught up in that need to control the situation or the other person, then we are actually seeing others with a sense of pity and judgment. Pity is essentially our denial of what is happening or how others choose to exist and our judgment that we are in some way superior or more "right." Essentially, pity is a manifestation of our own denial and fear and a projection onto others that they are somehow below us or less than. I highly encourage everyone to avoid pitying anyone as it's a fear based behavior and often reflective of something we are not happy about ourselves. That can be a fear of death or fear of the unknown and it is usually our denial that we are powerless over some situations.
Compassion from my perspective is the opposite manifestation of pity. If we approach others from a loving place and with acceptance, we never feel a need to change them or to want them to change. We don't look at events in the world and feel fear or terror at things that are happening, but we can still feel sadness and sorrow through our empathy. I feel a prime example of this is when someone is sick or lives a lifestyle that we don't want for ourselves. We can still love them and accept that their path is different from our own. We can feel sadness and empathize with their struggles, but we don't try to control the situation and we don't feel they are wrong or in any way less than us because of their situation. There is no need to compare or contrast who is better or worse off because we look at everyone with love and our offers to help are based on that love and not our fear. Hopefully this helps distinguish between the two different types of behavior for anyone that struggles with these two concepts. Namaste.