The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

A (SELF) CARING CATALYST

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FAMILIAR. . . ?
Sometimes some of the worst care
is the lack we give
O U R S E L V E S. . .
Being A Caring Catalyst to Others
begins with being
A Caring Catalyst
to Ourselves
IT IS THIS SIMPLE:
We do the best we can with what we know at the time. . .
It is VERY unloving to expect more;
We often were not given the knowledge
or the tools while we were young. . .
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Life is about learning.
Sometimes that learning can be painful.
Our challenge is that once we have learned the lesson
that we do not continue to repeat it. . .
For many of us, however,
we may have to go around the track a few times
before we are able to count it as a
m i l e. . .
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
There is no finish line
(PERIOD)
There is no competition
(PERIOD)
Self forgiveness is necessary on a daily basis
and SELF-LOVE even more needed
(MORE OFTEN)
in order to bring Compassion Care. . .
BEING A CARING CATALYST
means acknowledging
YOU DID THE BEST YOU COULD
. . .Now let it go

A HALLELUJAH MEMORIAL DAY

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https://youtu.be/sv9To_Ohz9I

Happy Memorial Day.

How can you assure it?

One simple word:

R E-M E M B E R I N G

–literally, by putting together the Pieces of your Life that have meaning and significance to you the Ones who make those Memories worth
RE-Membering–Putting back together.     .     .

The World will debate and argue, but the greatest forces in and out of this World
are our Memories and the Love that makes those memories
significant,
meaningful
and always worth
observing and celebrating.        .        .

It’s easy to  
J U S T 
Limit these Memories to our Veterans
or for those who have recently died,
but any day we truly
RE-Member,

that we actually put together those snipets of

Once  Upon  a Times

and ‘Remember When’s’

that put all those glorious colors to the
Tapestry of our Lives,

becomes a true Memorial Day.

Like any Holiday,
it really is celebrated most,
not so much on it’s Noted,
Dated Day,
but when fully Recognized,
Realized,
Revitalized
again and again and again with,
yes, that one single,
beautiful thing called

M   e   m   o   r   y

So, on this Memorial Day,
R      E   –   M     E     M     B     E     R  :
It’s not enough for us to just merely
Remember,
but for us to just simply Re-Member one thought,
one memory
past Eternity.
T r u l y:

Give   thanks   not   so   much   for   those   who   have   died;                                                                      

but    for   those   who   still   fully   live   within   us   all.      .      . 

F i v e    W o r d s:

H   a   p   p   y       M   e   m   o   r   i   a   l       D   a   y.       .       .

T        H        A        N        K          
Y        O        U

YOUR MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

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The Pandemic hasn’t been all BAD. . .
BECAUSE IT HAS GIVEN ME MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO
R E A D
A voracious reader
from the even before I could read
I have loved books
and have loved passing on my
LOVE OF BOOKS
from the very first one
I can ever remember
having

To the one
I just started last night

And the
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
so many in between. . .
which brings me to the opening pages of:

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm:
One of the reasons I’ve always loved reading
is because it
has inspired
WRITING
SPEAKING
FREE-THINKING
that I have no
ON/OFF
Switch
(and one I’m not seeking or ever hoping to find). . .
It’s made my
EYES, HEAR
NOSE, TASTE
EARS, SEE
IMAGINATION, FANTASIZE
IT HAS MADE ME
M E
and my idea of a perfect death
is having
FAMILY
FRIENDS
BOOKS
surrounding me. . .
It allows me
WONDER
as I
WANDER
and to
P O N D E R
even now
AM I MORE
IF/BUT
or
CAN/WILL
KIND OF A PERSON. . .
Y O U ?

So here’s the
D E A L
We have a Pen in our hands
with Blank pages before us
waiting not just for a written word
or a secret message
but that one single sentence
that can only come from
Y O U
THE WORLD
desperately needs to not have written
but
specifically
intentionally
purposely
intimately
R E A D
(NO PANDEMIC NECESSARY)

IS HAPPINESS A PLACE?

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Wouldn’t we all do it. . .
Book a Trip
Go to a Destination
Make a Pilgrimage
Escape on a Excursion
if we knew that the final landing spot was the
U N I V E R S E
of
HAPPINESS

W E L L . . . Which Values Make You Happy? It Might Depend on Where You Live

Different cultures value different things—and that matters for happiness. . .

 KIRA M. NEWMAN a journalist with The Greater Good Magazine did a little exploring on this HAPPINESS PLACE issue with some interesting findings. . .

When a new psychology study comes out, its findings—gratitude makes people happy! meditating can boost your mood!—are often taken as truth about humanity as a whole. But in recent years, researchers have pointed out that much of psychology research involves participants who are WEIRD: Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries. 

Why is that a problem? Because it could be the case that the insights we’re learning about how to live happy, meaningful lives privilege one group’s experiences—and they may not be as useful to people from other cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.

A new study surveyed people in five regions around the world to see if the factors that influenced their happiness might be different. The discrepancies that the researchers found lend support to concerns that our current knowledge about well-being isn’t as universal as we might think. 

“The implicit claim in previous research that ‘one size fits all’ is probably incorrect,” write Bruce Headey and his colleagues at the DIW Berlin research institute. 

Values and Happiness

The study was based on the World Values Survey, which surveyed hundreds of thousands of people around the world from 1999 to 2014. The researchers decided to focus on five regions: 

  • Western countries, including the United States, Britain, Australia, Spain, and others;
  • Latin America;
  • Asian-Confucian countries: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan;
  • Ex-communist countries: Russia and Eastern Europe; and
  • Communist countries: China and Vietnam.

People in each region reported on their values and priorities in life—the things that matter most to them. These included:

  • Traditional family values: The importance of family, as well as helping people who live nearby and caring for their needs.
  • Friendship and leisure values: The importance of friendship and leisure.
  • Materialistic values: Believing it’s important to be rich, successful, and recognized for your achievements. 
  • Political values: The importance of politics. 
  • Prosocial values: Believing it’s important to do something for the good of society and look after the environment. 
  • Religious values: The importance of religion and God. 

The researchers then compared how people rated the importance of these values to how satisfied they felt about their lives. 

The results suggest that some values may be more universally important to well-being than others. In all five regions, people who highly valued family, friendship/leisure, and prosociality tended to be more satisfied with life. But the results for materialism, politics, and religion were more complicated. 

People with stronger political values were more satisfied with life in communist countries, where “good citizens are supposed to be politically active” within the limits laid out by the state, explains Headey. This was also true to a lesser extent in the West. Meanwhile, in ex-communist Russia and Eastern Europe, people who cared more deeply about politics were less happy. This may be due to the “disillusionment with politics” in those countries, after the fall of communism.

People who placed more importance on religion tended to be happier in the West, Latin America, and the Asian-Confucian countries. But they were less satisfied with life if they were living in the communist and ex-communist regions. As the researchers speculate, this may be because communist governments tend to be hostile to religion, and people in ex-communist countries may still be suffering the long-term effects of that. 

Materialism, a value that’s long been assumed to make us unhappy, actually went hand in hand with life satisfaction in Eastern Europe. It was only in the wealthier Western and Asian-Confucian countries where materialists tended to be less satisfied. In Latin America and the Communist countries, being materialistic didn’t seem to matter to life satisfaction. 

Happiness and Conformity

Why might some values be beneficial everywhere, whereas others only seem helpful in certain cultures? 

The researchers suggest that people may be happier when their personal values align with the societal and governmental norms in their country. In other words, some values may benefit us not in and of themselves, but because they give us a sense of belonging and make it easier for us to navigate the world. 

These findings also help make sense of a paradox in happiness research—the fact that some regions (like Latin America) are much happier than their gross domestic product (GDP) would predict, while others (like Eastern Europe) are much less happy. 

Examining the values people hold could help explain these discrepancies. In Eastern Europe, for example, the researchers found that many people rated all the different values as relatively unimportant, a recipe for unhappiness. In Latin America, people’s strong family and religious ties seemed to bring them a great deal of satisfaction. 

Though they aimed to be more inclusive, the researchers didn’t have access to surveys from sub-Saharan Africa or Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia—which means this picture of well-being is still incomplete. But it does point to a provocative idea: that the path to happiness isn’t the same everywhere, and what works for you may depend on the society and culture in which you live.

Amazing, stuff, huh. . .
To think that HAPPINESS IN A PLACE
instead of a PERSON
but then again, maybe that’s when it get’s really
W E I R D
(Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries)
and it gets WEIRDER still
when Your WEIRD
gets my WEIRD
. . .now that’s some kind of
P L A C E
(to be)

DON’T LOVE

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There really is a guarantee. . .
It’s a lockdown
full proof
100% sealed shut case:
You will never hurt
You will never shed a tear
You will never have a sense of loss
You will never have a moment of sadness
And to get this full proof guarantee
it’s not what you have to do
it’s what you don’t have to do
and it really is this simple:
DON’T LOVE
Don’t commit
Don’t become vulnerable enough to share your innermost self
Don’t share ever with any expectation of any reward or gift in return
Don’t be available accessible and accountable. . .

And the guarantee is yours
you will not hurt
you will not grieve
you will not experience a sense of loss
you’ll never have saltiest of tears
All of this
and probably a lot more
just because you
DON’T LOVE

Deal?

Wanna shake on it?

Get an ironclad triple your moneyback guarantee

Just
DON’T LOVE
And you too
ladies and gentlemen
can have an
UNBREAKABLE HEART

It may not beat the same
but it won’t be broken,
either.  . .

For the HEALTH of IT

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Spending Time With Friends Is One of the Best Things You Can Do for Your Health
TRUE or FALSE

Jamie Ducharme from TIME MAGAZINE asked that question and took to finding out the TRUE and the FALSE of it all. . .

When someone sets out to improve their health, they usually take a familiar path: starting a healthy diet, adopting a new workout regimen, getting better sleep, drinking more water. Each of these behaviors is important, of course, but they all focus on physical health—and a growing body of research suggests that social health is just as, if not more, important to overall well-being.

One 2019 study published in the journal PLOS ONE, for example, found that the strength of a person’s social circle—as measured by inbound and outbound cell phone activity—was a better predictor of self-reported stress, happiness and well-being levels than fitness tracker data on physical activity, heart rate and sleep. That finding suggests that the “quantified self” portrayed by endless amounts of health data doesn’t tell the whole story, says study co-author Nitesh Chawla, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

“There’s also a qualified self, which is who I am, what are my activities, my social network, and all of these aspects that are not reflected in any of these measurements,” Chawla says. “My lifestyle, my enjoyment, my social network—all of those are strong determinants of my well-being.”

Chawla’s theory is supported by plenty of prior research. Studies have shown that social support—whether it comes from friends, family members or a spouse—is strongly associated with better mental and physical health. A robust social life, these studies suggest, can lower stress levels; improve mood; encourage positive health behaviors and discourage damaging ones; boost cardiovascular health; improve illness recovery rates; and aid virtually everything in between. Research has even shown that a social component can boost the effects of already-healthy behaviors such as exercise.

Social isolation, meanwhile, is linked to higher rates of chronic diseases and mental health conditions, and may even catalyze cellular-level changes that promote chronic inflammation and suppress immunity. The detrimental health effects of loneliness have been likened to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It’s a significant problem, especially since loneliness is emerging as a public health epidemic in the U.S. According to recent surveys, almost half of Americans, including large numbers of the country’s youngest and oldest adults, are lonely.

A 2019 study conducted by health insurer Cigna and published in the American Journal of Health Promotion set out to determine what’s driving those high rates of loneliness. Unsurprisingly, it found that social media, when used so much that it infringes on face-to-face quality time, was tied to greater loneliness, while having meaningful in-person interactions, reporting high levels of social support and being in a committed relationship were associated with less loneliness. Gender and income didn’t seem to have a strong effect, but loneliness tended to decrease with age, perhaps because of the wisdom and perspective afforded by years of life lived, says Dr. Stuart Lustig, one of the report’s authors and Cigna’s national medical executive for behavioral health.

Lustig says the report underscores the importance of carving out time for family and friends, especially since loneliness was inversely related to self-reported health and well-being. Reviving a dormant social life may be best and most easily done by finding partners for enjoyable activities like exercising, volunteering, or sharing a meal, he says.

“Real, face-to-face time with people [is important], and the activity part of it makes it fun and enjoyable and gives people an excuse to get together,” Lustig says.

Lustig emphasizes that social media should be used judiciously and strategically, and not as a replacement for in-person relationships. Instead, he says, we should use technology “to seek out meaningful connections and people that you are going to be able to keep in your social sphere. It’s easy enough to find groups such as Meetups, or to find places to go where you’ll find folks doing what you want to do.” That advice is particularly important for young people, he says, for whom heavy social media use is common.

Finally, Lustig stresses that even small social changes can have a large impact. Striking up post-meeting conversations with co-workers, or even engaging inmicro-interactions with strangers, can make your social life feel more rewarding.

“There’s an opportunity to grow those kinds of quick exchanges into conversations and into more meaningful friendships over time,” Lustig says. “People should take those opportunities wherever they possibly can, because all of us, innately, are wired from birth to connect”—and because doing so may pay dividends for your health.

A HAPPINESS DISPENSER

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The problem with
H A P P I N E S S
isn’t that we don’t have it to give
so much as that we just often
D O N ‘ T
. . .after nearly fifteen months of
social distancing
we almost shrug with an overdramatic sigh
WHAT’S THE USE. . .
WELL

If You Want to Be Happy,
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Dare Making Someone Else Happy

A new study shows that doing kind things for others is an important path to happiness. 

JILL SUTTIE, a journalist for Greater Good Magazine did a little more than pulling back the Happiness Curtain to show us what’s not so much hidden but in plain sight for us to SEE. BE. FREE in ourselves and others.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he assured Americans of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This idea seems to lead many Americans to chase after new gadgets and hedonistic pleasures. But what if that approach is wrong? What if happiness comes from aiming to make others happy, instead of doing nice things for yourself? 

That is exactly what a recent study found.

In the experiment, college students reported on their happiness and on their sense of autonomy, competence, and connection to others—all what researchers consider “basic psychological needs” for well-being. Then they were randomly tasked to do something to either make themselves happier, make another person happier, or socialize. (Assigning one group to socialize helped determine if seeking happiness for another had an effect above and beyond simply being in someone’s presence.)

Later that day, after doing their tasks, participants reported what they did, and then filled out their happiness and needs questionnaires again. Those who’d done something to make another person feel better were much happier themselves than participants in the other groups, and their greater happiness was tied to a stronger feeling of connection to that person.

This finding was not too surprising to lead researcher Milla Titova, who says that it fits in with prior research on happiness that found giving to others makes you happier than giving to yourself—and that pursuing happiness directly for yourself sometimes backfires.

“Making others happy is more meaningful for people than just socializing with them or doing something to improve our own happiness,” she says. “When we aim to make others happier, we feel connected to them—our relatedness needs are better met—which is important for us.”

In another part of the study, she and her colleague tried to rule out the possibility that making someone else happier makes you happier because of how emotions spread between people, which is known as the contagion effect. To do this, they repeated their experiment, but this time asked participants to identify the recipient of their kindness and to say how much happier that person appeared to be. Then, they contacted the recipient and measured their actual happiness levels.

The researchers found that a recipient’s happiness level did not seem to be related to the increased happiness of the person trying to make them happy, which suggests something beyond emotion contagion is going on. However, if the participant perceived that their efforts made a difference in another’s happiness, that made them happier.

“If we think another person is feeling pretty good, that’s enough for us to feel pretty good ourselves,” says Titova. “We’re just not always accurate about assessing other people’s feelings.” 

She and her colleague also looked at how this effect might play out between strangers. People parked on a city street were approached by researchers and given two quarters for filling out surveys about their well-being. In some cases, they were simply given the quarters to keep or were given the quarters to feed their own meter before filling out the surveys. In other cases, they were told to feed another person’s meter, with some being asked to leave a note on the dashboard of the stranger’s car explaining what they’d done.

Afterward, the researchers compared the four groups’ happiness and how much their needs felt fulfilled. Those who’d put money in someone else’s meter were significantly happier than those who’d put money in their own meter or just kept the quarters. Leaving a note increased a person’s happiness even more. 

Titova thinks this makes sense, given that making someone else happier makes us happier through increasing our relatedness to them. But it could also be that people like getting credit for a good deed, too—or that the note is actually another act of kindness, augmenting connection further.

Whatever the case, it appears that doing something kind for anyone is better for our happiness than getting something for ourselves.

“It doesn’t require you know the person you’re trying to make happy, nor does it require an actual physical interaction with that person,” she says. “It still works—even with a stranger.”

This is a preliminary study, mostly done with a limited population, and Titova cautions against applying the finding to other cultural contexts. This is wise, as studies have found not all happiness practices translate to other cultures.

Still, they do suggest that focusing on making others happy may be a key to happiness worth considering. 

“It’s counterintuitive for some people, but if you’re not having the best day, you should think about doing something nice for your significant other or your roommates instead of concentrating on yourself,” she says. “That may not be what comes to mind naturally, but it’s probably more effective.”

It’s a shame
isn’t it that
once again the
EMPHASIS
has to be on an
I F
but you being
A Caring Catalyst
HAPPINESS DISPENSER
just may depend on that
IF
u n l e s s. . .

A LOTTERY WINNER

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T H E Y
say you can’t win the
L O T T E R Y
if you don’t play. . .
I don’t let a lot of people know
in fact,
I believe this is the first time I
O U T T E D
this little tidbit about one,
CHUCK BEHRENS
I WON THE LOTTERY

It was Friday night
and I had to do some one stop shopping on the way home
and yes,
one of the items on my
TO GET LIST
was a Lottery Ticket
because it was creeping up to close to
$400,000.00
which like everyone knows
could do a lot of damage to debt
and a lot remedy for good
so after buying all of the
THIS’S
&
THAT’S
I was making my way up to the cashier
when I passed the CARD section
and a little guy and his dad were buying some
MOTHER’S DAY cards
and he played a little game of
PEEK-A-BOO with me
. . .of course, I forgot one other thing on the list and so
I snatched it and up to the Check Out line I went,
right behind my PEEK-A-BOO Buddy and his dad
who was getting to ready to pay for his cards
only to discover he had forgotten his wallet. . .
“Your dad is so dumb he forgot his wallet,” he was telling his son and then the he told the cashier he’d be right back. . .
It was my turn to enter the stage and repeat the only lines I never had the time to memorize:
“I’ve got this.”
“No, no sir you don’t have to do that. Really, I just live around the corner and I’ll be right back.”
“Sir, please do me a good. Let me do this for you. I’ve taken my kids ‘Card Shopping’ and forgotten my wallet and remember SomeOne doing me a good. Please, let me be selfish enough to do this. I guarantee you’re doing me a favor. I’ll feel way better for this than you.”
He thanked me
. . .yes, yes, with the words,
“THANK YOU”
but even more as he wheeled his son away in the cart
telling him just above a whisper,
“SEE, SON, I TOLD YOU THERE REALLY ARE GOOD PEOPLE IN THE WORLD YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO LOOK FOR BECAUSE THEY’LL ALWAYS FIND YOU”

For a mere $7.55 I won the
L O T T E R Y
that night
that covered more than a lot of debt
and remedied more than just a bit of good
and
T H E Y
say you can’t win the
L O T T E R Y
if you don’t play. . .
Wanna BET?

TOUGH COMPASSION

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I’ve never been a big fan of
TOUGH LOVE
mostly because I
SUCK LIKE A STRAW
at showing/doing
TOUGH LOVE
so when I heard about
TOUGH COMPASSION
well. . .

What Does “Tough Compassion” Look Like in Real Life?

Tough compassion means speaking up, setting boundaries, and making uncomfortable choices for the greater good.

ELIZABETH SVOBODA, is a writer in San Jose, CA, and a regular contributor to Greater Good. She is the author of What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness. Her newest book, for kids, is The Life Heroic. And she took a TOUGH Look at TOUGH COMPASSION

On a podcast episode, psychologist and GGSC founding director Dacher Keltner described the idea, explaining how some contemplatives practice a form of kindness with a decided edge. 

“In the deeper traditions of compassion, like a lot of the Buddhist traditions, they have an idea of tough compassion—to step in and, in a good way, guide the person to a different form of behavior or out,” said Keltner.

The concept seems so at odds with the way most Americans, especially women, are socialized to think about compassion. The compassion-centered lifestyle sketched in breezy Insta posts involves attending idyllic retreats and practicing meditation. If compassion were a Pantone Color of the Year, it would be whispery rose quartz.    

In short, our culture presents a clear picture of what compassion is supposed to look like. And giving someone else an honest piece of our minds isn’t it.

It might be time to paint a new picture of compassion. When it comes to reducing suffering in the world, an uncompromising approach to compassion often trumps a pastel-hued one—and it’s an approach you can try when other attempts to engage with difficult people fail. 

“The Dalai Lama always had this greater good analysis,” Keltner later told me. “Like, ‘What does it bring about? Is being hard in the moment going to bring about greater well-being or kindness for a lot of people?’”

The case for tough compassion

Tough compassion is gaining traction because the rose-quartz version is proving so unequal to the present moment, which has been defined by human failures to meet challenges posed by the pandemic, widespread inequality, and climate change. 

Of course, there will always be a “soft” side to compassion. It’s always crucial to learn how to be a calm sounding board or comfort grieving loved ones. But warm and fuzzy compassion has little power to sway relatives who spout conspiracies, stop close friends from radicalizing online, or embarrass leaders who tout equality while harvesting the fruits of privilege.

In the Buddhist contemplative tradition, the goal of true compassion is to find ways to promote the least suffering for everyone. In this broader framing, nodding along with someone’s bigotry, bullying, or falsehoods for the sake of preserving that relationship is the opposite of compassion. It interferes with peace-building on a societal level, even though it might seem on the surface like a nonviolent act. 

If you’re a parent, you probably practice small-scale tough compassion on a daily basis, vetoing pre-dinner snacks or enforcing homework time before kids go out. Larger-scale tough compassion flows from a similar source: the willingness to bear—and even inflict—some discomfort in the moment to promote longer-term well-being. 

“You have this sense, and you’re in the position to assume, that this is a struggle they have to face,” Keltner says. “It’s good for them.”

The Dalai Lama has spoken of the importance of this kind of tough love. It means that if your aunt makes an offhand racist remark, or your work buddy insults a colleague, tough compassion involves speaking up—without rancor, but with conviction—if your goal is to promote less suffering for all. 

“By withdrawing from the conversation, you don’t force the other person to really have to encounter a different set of values,” says Medical College of Wisconsin psychologist Zeno Franco, whose research focuses on community engagement.

In committing to tough compassion, you buy into a certain kind of risk-benefit calculus. You accept the discomfort involved in hopes that the other person will consider a different way of engaging, one that will carry over into her interactions with others, and perhaps even their interactions with those close to them.

“Our actions implicate a lot of people,” Keltner says. “You’ve got to step back and think about all the utilities and consequences downstream.”

Tough compassion in practice 

It’s one thing to endorse the tough-compassion approach and quite another to try to make it work. What does it actually look like to show uncompromising compassion in the moment? And when someone in your life does something that’s actively harmful, what’s the best way to guide them without outright coercing or controlling?

In Franco’s view, tough compassion involves conveying that you value someone as a person while disagreeing openly with what they are doing. 

When he calls loved ones out for hateful or harmful behavior, he’s not shy about saying what he thinks. But at the same time, “I try to remain accessible as a human being who can be vulnerable, who can be hurt, and who can appreciate the person,” he says. “Part of that is thinking about how to respond in a way that is not designed to escalate, but almost to reach past the ‘facts’ or points that they are making to where what they are saying impacts me at an emotional level.”

A powerful way to convey this emotional impact is through storytelling, says Juliana Tafur, a filmmaker and founder of the Listen Courageously project. If you want to hold a relative accountable for homophobic remarks, for instance, you can describe the effects of that kind of behavior on people close to you: “My good friend is gay, and she hears insults like that all the time. She’s also been attacked in public. Because of that, it’s hard for her to trust that people are going to respect her as a human being.”

With storytelling, you can take a tough stance and show the other person the results of their actions without launching a direct attack. When you do this, “you’re really communicating—in a way that is enveloped in compassion—your fundamental boundaries, what you can and cannot accept, and inviting the other person into that conversation,” says Tania Diaz, a psychologist at Albizu University. Studies show that this story-based approach can create significant change in people’s worldviews.

Even when you know you’ll create more lasting change through dialogue than exclusion, you may have to push past significant inner resistance to engage in these conversations. Showing any kind of compassion—even tough compassion—to a person who behaves harmfully can feel like a form of surrender, or like tacit acceptance of their behavior.

But from the broader perspective of reducing suffering, what might seem like fraternizing with the enemy can be a potent way to guide someone on to a less toxic path. 

“A lot of people have this misunderstanding that, if I engage or listen, I am somehow going to be tainted, or I’m going to be influenced,” Diaz says. When she facilitates these conversations, she’s found that quite the opposite is true. “When you listen, truly understand, and get curious, it creates space for the person to think a little bit differently.”

To avoid shaming the other person into submission—a tactic studies show can backfire by making people withdraw from the situation—you can go on to explain how a change of course would be a win-win scenario, for the other person as well as for the world at large. 

“I show them what life might be like after they change and explain the positives,” says Dian Grier, a licensed clinical social worker in Mojave, California. That might mean pointing out that your homophobic relative will have a much better relationship with gay nieces and nephews if he chooses to engage with them differently. 

Holding fast

Perhaps the biggest challenge of practicing tough compassion is staying internally grounded while emotional storms rage. When you take a stand, other people may fire back with remarks that send your heart hammering. If you’re not prepared, that physical reaction can propel you straight into a “lizard brain,” fear-based mindset where you’re more likely to fall back on old, reactive rules of engagement.

Tough compassion, by contrast, is like an anchor pole that holds fast no matter how hard the rope tugs on it. “In those moments, I’m trying to be fully present and yet no longer upset,” Franco says. “The intent of every word is thought through to take the argument almost to a different place.”

To hone this kind of in-the-moment composure, it can help to write down some thoughts beforehand about what you want to say to someone or the kind of stories you want to tell. Then, once you’re up for it, schedule a real-life conversation or Zoom. This face-to-face connection often feels more humanizing than a long text thread, and deciding where and when it happens can help you feel more in control of the process.

But while tough-compassion conversations can be fertile ground for shifting others’ perspectives, your own well-being should always remain front and center. To steer clear of potentially traumatic encounters, “you need to know if the other person is in a position to be willing and able to engage in that conversation with you,” Tafur says. “And I think you’ll know that right off the bat.” 

If someone ridicules your attempts at dialogue or continues to sling insults, “the tough-compassion act is to leave or disengage,” Keltner says. Exiting from a harmful situation can be its own form of uncompromising truth-telling.

In line with the Buddhist teaching of dropping attachment to results, the tough-compassion approach is simultaneously about holding fast and letting go. At its core, tough compassion is about “creating space for dialogue to unfold,” Diaz says. “Ultimately, that person decides if they’re going to shift.”

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So. . .
are you a
TOUGH COMPASSION
Champion. . .
For the Good of ALL
it’s not just a mere Question
anymore
. . .it’s desperately in need of an
A N S W E R

TUDE IT UP

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It’s more than a turkey dinner and a huge slice of pumpkin pie on the last Thursday of November
T H A N K S G I V I N G
It’s more than the words
GRATIS and GRATONITE
between the word
G R A T I T U D E
in the Dictionary. . .
it’s the TUDE of all TUDES

Can Gratitude Help You Live More Sustainably
makes it all the more
T U D I E R

A new study suggests that when people give thanks, they’re less likely to overdraw from shared resources.

 ELIZABETH SVOBODA, is a writer in San Jose, CA and regular contributor to the GREATER GOOD MAGAZINE and the author of WHAT MAKES A HERO? THE SURPRISING SCIENCE OF SELFLESSNESS, pulls back the curtain of GRATITUDE and lets us know that it’s much more than a word or a feeling. . .

Among the first visual symbols of the COVID-19 pandemic were grocery store shelves picked clean by shoppers hoarding pasta and toilet paper. The bare shelves revealed a deeply ingrained human tendency—to grasp for all that’s left when supplies run low. 

As climate change puts a strain on crop yields and drinking water stores, these kinds of feeding frenzies could become the new normal. But they’re not inevitable: New research from Northeastern University suggests that when people feel grateful for what they have, they’re less likely to overdraw from a shrinking pool of resources. The study “provides initial evidence that gratitude is useful in nudging sustainable behavior,” says graduate student Shanyu Kates, the paper’s first author. 

Kates’s findings suggest that practicing gratitude could curb our collective tendency to take more than our share, says psychologist Scott Allison of the University of Richmond. 

“Gratitude led to less greedy and more generous choices,” says Allison, who was not involved in the research. “What’s really impressive is how the investigators were able to demonstrate that it was gratitude itself, not the happiness that results from gratitude, which produces more prosocial [kind and helpful] behavior.”

A depleted commons

Sustainable-living promoters tend to run up against what ecologist Garrett Hardin called the “tragedy of the commons”: People hoard resources to ensure they can meet their own needs, but the resulting scarcity takes a toll on everyone’s well-being. (TOILET PAPER, ANYONE)

Kates and her advisor, Northeastern social psychologist David DeSteno, wanted to explore possible ways to forestall this kind of tragedy. In one study, they recruited 155 undergraduate students and induced gratitude in one group by having them write about a time when they felt grateful. The remaining control-group students wrote about events from a typical day. 

After this writing exercise, all the participants took part in a game where they decided how many resource points to extract from a collective bank. The game started with a common pool of 200 points. “For each round of the game, we tell them, ‘You can take out a certain amount of points—between zero and 10—and whatever is taken out goes to you,’” Kates says.

To make sure people valued the points, experimenters told the students that the more points they extracted, the more likely they were to win a $200 cash prize. Throughout the game, participants could see how many points other players had taken and how many points were left. After each round was played, the researchers boosted the point bank by 10% to mimic the regeneration of real-life resources. 

When Kates and DeSteno tallied the results, a significant difference emerged between the gratitude group and the control group. Control participants took significantly more points from the pool when they saw it draining rapidly. Grateful participants, however, took about the same number of points no matter how quickly the pool was shrinking.

In a second, related study, Kates and DeSteno divided 224 participants into three groups. One wrote about gratitude and another about a happy time in their lives. The control group wrote about their daily routine. 

Just as in the first study, the gratitude group refrained from overdrawing resources in the game even when they were draining quickly. Feeling happy, however, didn’t inspire people to show the same kind of restraint. 

“If you’re in a neutral or a happy state, you increase your point taking when the pool is depleting,” Kates says. “But for gratitude, this effect becomes erased. It doesn’t matter if others around you are over-taking and the pool is depleting—you won’t over-take [from the pool] yourself.”

The sustaining power of gratitude

Kates and DeSteno’s study didn’t specifically address why grateful people may be more apt to behave sustainably than those who simply feel good. But past research, Kates points out, suggests that happiness sometimes drives us to become more self-centered as we seek out situations that promise even more happiness. 

“When you’re feeling happy, you might not want to sacrifice by taking less and conserving for the group,” Kates says. Picture a rat at a sugar-water dispenser—once it’s had a taste of uncomplicated sweetness, it returns to that same dispenser over and over. 

Gratitude, on the other hand, has promoted both well-being and social awareness in multiple experiments. In a University of California–Riverside study where high school students spent 10 minutes a week writing letters of gratitude to friends, coaches, and other influential people, they reported feeling more satisfied with their lives and more connected to others around them than members of a control group. 

That sense of connectedness could help inspire generous or sustainable action. In a meta-analysis reviewing 91 studies, researchers at the U.K.’s University of Nottingham found a strong relationship between gratitude and prosocial behavior of different kinds. 

“Sustainability really requires action for future benefit as well as collective benefit,” Kates says. “Gratitude promotes these dimensions—it makes us behave more prosocially, and it makes us more cooperative with others.”

Something akin to the reciprocity principle may also be at work: When someone gives something to you, you naturally feel compelled to give something back. In the same way, when people feel grateful for good fortune or for contributions others have made to their lives, they may be more likely to take a “pay it forward” approach and look for ways to contribute to the common good. 

Future interventions

The observed connection between gratitude and sustainable behavior means that gratitude exercises could potentially help keep the planet livable over the long term. “If we are fortunate enough to live in a part of the world that offers us clean, drinkable water, let’s be grateful each time we use it,” Allison says. “With the desertification of the western U.S., this simple practice of gratitude on a mass level may forestall disaster.”

However, Kates says, more research needs to be done to clarify which aspects of gratitude might promote sustainable behavior and why. She is planning a new study that examines how individual players’ behavior during the resource game affects the behavior of others around them. “Does a group of grateful people fare better in the game than those where none of them are grateful? And what happens if only one person in the group is feeling grateful? Is that enough to shift others’ behaviors?”

If grateful people turn out to set a behavioral lead for others to follow, a group might ultimately reach a sustainable “immunity threshold,” so to speak: a new social norm that encourages judicious resource use even in members who aren’t naturally inclined to care about such things.

“It’s promising to think about and measure how cultivating long-term gratitude through daily practice may be useful in this battle against climate change,” Kates says, “and be able to be the tipping point for large-scale behavioral changes.”

It’s the TUDE of all TUDE’s
. . .unless it’s not;
The Difference?
Y O U

Uhhhhhhh, Now for that piece of Pie. . .

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man