Are You a Kind Person, or Do You Choose When to Be Kind?

Open Compassion vs. Compassion Bias

Being a kind person is intrinsic, one’s basic nature embodied. Choosing when to be kind is extrinsic, one’s response to bias.

Compassion Bias, or what I refer to as Selective Kindness, Compassion & Empathy is when an individual, consciously or unconsciously, offers kindness, compassion, and empathy when it suits their own needs, biases, preferences, or when they believe it is justified. This occurs everyday, everywhere, at macro and micro levels, and you may sense it when interacting with another being as feelings of superficiality, exclusivity, moral superiority, or virtue signaling.

I remember a woman I once followed on social media often voiced her strong opinions on the political climate and events in the Mid-East. She spoke freely about injustices on women and how focus needs to shift to eradicating this hostility to give all women a fair chance on life (I’m on board with that!). However, one day she posted a story about how the mother of another child at her own child’s school was “a trash parent” because she sent him to the school Halloween party in a “lazy, subpar costume”.

I was in disbelief. Why is it that the women she didn’t know across the world deserved love, fairness, and freedom from hostility, but the woman on her street was subject to harsh criticism, and judgment? What if that very woman was a refugee from the Mid-East? What if she was struggling to make ends meet, dealing with illness, or marital stress? What if her child just didn’t want to wear a costume, or he asked for that costume and loved it? What if the costume was a nod to an absent loved one? What makes us the supreme authority on determining what type of suffering and how much of it is necessary in order for us to extend kindness to someone? More importantly, why does someone need to be in a state of suffering for us to justify that they are deserving of our compassion?

You may notice compassion bias manifest in subtler ways. As a natural intuitive, energy healer, and yoga and meditation instructor, I’ve had a fair amount of exposure to a vast spectrum of spiritual groups, and it’s common to see people who use the “right” lingo or vernacular, or have the “right” demeanor, look, diet, political affiliation, or way of living celebrated and lifted up, while anyone who doesn’t fit that mold is minimized, or excluded completely. Non-performative states or emotions can be labeled as “unaware” or “asleep”, which greatly reduces the complexity and nuance of our individual and collective human experiences. Environments in which you are loved or accepted only if you meet specific criteria, or have a specific personality type are based in false light, and pseudo-spiritualism.

What I refer to as Open Compassion, is simply being in the natural flow of compassion without control or attempting to figure out who or how someone receives it, or if they “deserve” to receive it at all. Just allowing that energy to softly settle the way it wants to in another person’s life.

How do we move out of Compassion Bias and into Open Compassion? The underlying energy of Compassion Bias is paradoxically one we could offer compassion to itself. At a primal level, it’s a means to be accepted, or to stay “safe”. It’s rooted in the energy of proving, either to yourself or others, to bolster your ego or image, where it becomes more important to be viewed as morally superior than to actually be true to yourself. The focus is on perception instead of reality. The underlying energy of Open Compassion is rooted in self-acceptance, and not needing approval from others to feel safe. The focus is on self-authority and empowerment, which organically flows outward and gives others the permission to find that for themselves.

So, what’s the way forward? Gently yet honestly, noticing when and where you clamp down on your ideas of right or wrong, where you judge yourself, another or a life event. And then making a conscious choice to shift into openness, or not assigning any meaning to the situation in front of you, and allowing it to be in presence with you (which is the most important state of being for energy movement). The idea isn’t to judge yourself for judging (lol), the idea is to allow the judgements to soften and move through presence and awareness.

Every Single Judgement is a doorway to greater self-awareness. 

The more self-awareness, the more healing. The more healing, the more genuine compassion and love infused in the world. (Operative word: genuine).

An important note for everyone but particularly those who identify as highly empathetic or energetically sensitive: Open Compassion is not approval of or advocacy for everything happening in the world. Nor is it a call to override your intuition or boundaries. Open Compassion is the natural byproduct of radical acceptance. Meaning, you are where you are, I am where I am, it is what it is, now how do we move forward in the most beneficial, supportive, and appropriate way? Naturally compassionate beings can oftentimes ignore, or suppress their own feelings about something because they easily sense into others suffering or why people do what they do. But many situations do require you to assert boundaries, and stand up for yourself, so the invitation for Open Compassion not only includes, but starts with yourself.

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT medical advice, psychological or therapeutic support. These writings are energetic and spiritual in nature.

To Your Highest & Best,

Kiran