12 Reasons to Invest in
Conscious Compassion
Here are twelve reasons why we should all invest in conscious compassion. (Compassion that is aware of the effects it is having and continually adjusts for optimal health and well-being.)
Compassion is a force for good and a practical way for anyone to lift the spirits of someone who is suffering. This is how we bring out the best in people when they are feeling at their worst. When rightly understood and consciously applied, compassion:
1. Transforms suffering. In the company of a good listener, we are no longer facing debility, pain, or our mortality alone. We feel heard, understood, respected and appreciated. We have an opportunity to tell our story and share our wisdom. In this way, we gain access to our inner resources.
Adventures in Caring Volunteer visit.
These are important tools for every single person on this planet. Your webinar for the USC Pain Center gave our clinicians the tools to forge stronger healing partnerships with our patients, who are putting their lives in our hands.
2. Cushions the impact of illness or injury. Facing danger with a friend by your side changes your perception of the situation. It shifts from feeling threatened to a sense of challenge—a far more resourceful state of mind. This reduces fear, anxiety and distress—along with their caustic stress hormones. This in turn reduces bodily wear and tear, and frees up energy for healing.
3. Builds bridges. Across generations. Compassion is a two-way street. Its very nature is a reciprocal back and forth between two human beings. It helps patients, families and caregivers connect with one another.
4. Shrinks the size of our own problems—by putting things in perspective.
5. Builds well-being. Because the reasons we wish to be alive are spoken of and heard. Such reasons tend to cluster into seven domains. When we listen to the things that give someone a greater sense of: connectedness, identity, security, autonomy, discovery, meaning and joy—we enable their well-being.
6. Develops lifelong emotional intelligence in young people (our future doctors and nurses) as well the ability to listen and relate to people who are: 1) four or five times their age, 2) suffering greatly, and 3) facing the end of life mostly alone.
7. Guards against misunderstandings that can lead to bad decisions and the mistakes that cause lifelong injury or death.
8. Protects those who are isolated, shunned, shamed, blamed, bullied or simply forgotten.
9. Dissolves hard feelings, harsh thoughts and bitter memories. Compassion promotes posttraumatic growth.
10. Is good for the heart. It brings out the best in you too.
11. Goes with you, wherever you go. Forever.
12. Compounds in value, growing from year to year, from generation to generation.
See our documentary, The Adventures in Caring Story
The work of Adventures in Caring endures because it is the real thing. It is a mission to bring the healing power of love to as many as possible. There is no other agenda. We have simply followed the example set by Mother Teresa, to create something beautiful and uplifting where it is least expected. Such beauty endures.
We hope you will you join us in this mission.
Your gift will put compassion into action
- $50 brightens the day for ten chronically ill, socially isolated seniors.
- $100 sponsors a nursing student taking the Oxygen for Caregivers online course.
- $250 gives an undergraduate student their first 20 hours of pre-professional training in relationship-centered care.
- $500 breaks the social isolation of seriously ill seniors for a whole year, for two.
- $1,250 sponsors a one-year internship in relationship-centered care, for a student to gain skills that last a lifetime.
- $5,000 sponsors an entire skilled nursing or memory care facility for one year.
For information on how to make a tax-wise gift of appreciated stock, a bequest, or to make a gift from your donor-advised fund, please contact:
Simon Fox, Executive Director, Simon@AdventuresInCaring.org (805) 962-4500.
To send a check through the mail, please send it to:
Adventures in Caring Foundation
1528 Chapala Street, Suite 202
Santa Barbara, CA 93101