Hello Dear Community,

Much of the work that sustains and repairs our world passes unnoticed. It unfolds over time, through the steady efforts of people who see suffering or injustice and choose to respond, again and again, bringing their gifts to the needs before them.

Last week, we introduced Compassion Weavers, a new GCC initiative honoring people whose sustained acts of care strengthen communities and improve the lives of others. This week, we are delighted to introduce the first person selected for this recognition: someone whose life and work beautifully embody the spirit of the initiative.

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Meet Our First Compassion Weaver! Kim Behan

Executive Director and Founding Member of Buddhist Global Relief

Born in Saigon, Vietnam, Kim Behan grew up under the influence of a devout Buddhist grandmother and a humanitarian father. At a time when boys’ education was often valued more highly than girls’, her father insisted that his daughters be educated, and taught them that success brought a responsibility to care for those in need. Kim never forgot the girls her age who had to leave school to support their families.

At eighteen, she moved to the United States, earned degrees in management and software engineering, and built a career in technology. Yet she longed for a life rooted in spiritual practice and service. That calling reawakened during a 2006 retreat led by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi. The following year, Kim and her sister founded a nonprofit providing medical assistance in rural Vietnam; in 2008, Bhikkhu Bodhi invited her to help establish Buddhist Global Relief, and she became one of its founding members.

Kim retired early in 2009 to devote herself fully to BGR. Under her leadership, the organization has addressed hunger through food assistance, education, women’s empowerment, and sustainable agriculture. The projects she has helped design and implement have lifted thousands out of poverty and enabled children (especially girls) to continue their education, in some cases through university.

Kim has always preferred to remain behind the scenes, directing attention toward the communities BGR serves. We are honored to recognize her as our first Compassion Weaver. May her efforts and her heart inspire our community to keep striving for meaningful change.

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Who Is Weaving Compassion Around You?

We are grateful to have already received many wonderful nominations, and we look forward to sharing more of these stories in the months ahead. At the same time, we want to keep widening the circle, so that people working quietly in different communities, fields, and corners of the world have a chance to be seen and celebrated.

If someone comes to mind (a neighbor, educator, organizer, colleague, or friend whose sustained care is making life better for others) we would love to hear about them. Tell us who they are, what they do, and how their compassion has touched the lives around them.

​Nominate a Compassion Weaver​

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News You Can Use: Does Self-Compassion Make Us Healthier?

Why does a difficult day lead one person to take a restorative walk, while another skips a meal, reaches for a cigarette, or drinks too much? A new systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that self-compassion may be part of the answer. Drawing together 19 studies involving nearly 9,700 participants, researchers found that people with greater self-compassion tended to report healthier behaviors (including exercise, nourishing food choices, and better sleep) and fewer harmful ones, such as heavy drinking and disordered eating. They also experienced substantially less stress.

Stress partly explained the connection: people who treated themselves with greater kindness tended to feel less stressed, which was associated in turn with healthier choices. But it did not account for the whole relationship, suggesting that self-compassion may also influence how we respond when stress inevitably arises. Because most of the studies were correlational, the researchers cannot yet say that self-compassion causes better health habits. Still, the findings raise an intriguing possibility: caring for ourselves in difficult moments may affect not only how we feel, but what we do next.

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Insight & Inspiration: When Citizens Decide How the Money Is Spent

Since 2014, Paris has invited anyone over the age of seven who lives in the city, regardless of nationality, to propose projects for public funding. After officials assess their feasibility, residents vote on the ideas online or at ballot boxes across the city. More than 21,000 proposals have led to 1,345 funded projects and €768 million in public investment.

The results include rooftop farms, playgrounds, community murals, shade structures, storage for people experiencing homelessness, and improvements to neighborhood gathering places. Although many Parisians remain unaware of the program and critics would like to see more deliberation alongside voting, participatory budgeting offers a promising response to declining trust in government: it gives people not merely a voice, but a tangible role in shaping the places where they live. Read the full story in Reasons to Be Cheerful.

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Have You Read It? Loving the Me I See

How do hurtful words, sometimes spoken casually or in teasing, shape the way a child sees themselves? In Loving the Me I See, the GCC’s own Kathryn Lovewell explores how those words can become an inner critical voice, and shows children how to respond with kindness instead.

Warm, playful, and deeply compassionate, the book gives children (and the adults who care for them) a simple language for recognizing self-criticism and strengthening the voice that lifts them up. Drawing on Kathryn’s acclaimed Booster Way®, it plants the seeds of self-compassion early, helping young readers meet the inevitable hurts of growing up without losing sight of their own worth. A thoughtful and heartening book to read and discuss together.

​Discover Loving the Me I See!

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The Growing Edge. Voting Is an Act of Care

At a time when many people feel helpless or despairing about the state of the world, Heal Democracy, a nonpartisan initiative of the Global Compassion Coalition, offers a simple but powerful reminder: civic participation is one way to recover a sense of agency and care for the wider community. That is why voting can hearten the voter even as it strengthens democracy.

Voting is not only about expressing our own interests. It is also a way of standing up for others and helping shape the conditions in which we all live. For readers in the United States, Heal Democracy provides links to register, learn about candidates and issues, and make sure your voice is heard. Your vote is your voice. Make it heard.

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Save the Date!

Expanding Compassion for Our Times​
​Monday, September 21 | 1–2 p.m. ET | Free online event
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Join GCC founder Rick Hanson, PhD, for a special Mindfulness and Compassion Grand Rounds presentation hosted by the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion as part of its Grand Rounds series at Harvard Medical School. Rick will explore a more expansive form of compassion: one that extends empathy toward those we oppose, embraces bold and even fierce expressions of care, and addresses the systemic causes of suffering.

The session is free and will be held live on Zoom. All registrants will receive a recording afterward. Register here.​

Building a Culture of Empathy​
Thursday, September 24 | 9 a.m. PT / 5 p.m. UK | Free online event

What happens when we think of empathy not only as an individual quality, but as something we can cultivate collectively? Join Edwin Rutsch, founder of the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy and creator of the Empathy Circle practice, for a conversation exploring the science of empathy, what can make it difficult, and how we can strengthen our capacity to connect across differences.

Together, we’ll explore simple, intentional ways to bring more empathy into our relationships, communities, and everyday interactions. This event is part of GCC’s new Connectors: The Essential Toolkit series and is open to all. Learn more and register for free.

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We’re Hiring: Come Work With Us!

Are you a social media visionary who loves mindfulness and self-compassion? We are looking for a part-time Head of Social & Digital Brand (15–20 hrs/week) to take over our platforms, shape our short-form video strategy, and help share our mission with the world.

If you have a keen eye for design, know your way around video editing, and want to put your creative heart into meaningful work, we’d love to meet you.

Note: Please apply via the Google Form linked in the document below only. Email replies and DMs will not be accepted.

Read the Full Job Description & Apply Here​

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Let’s Practice! Put One Gift to Work

Compassion often begins by noticing where something hurts, but it takes form when we bring what we have to meet what is needed. Think of one concern in your community that regularly touches or troubles you. Then ask: What gift, skill, connection, or resource do I already possess that might be of use here?

Choose one small, concrete way to put that gift to work this week. Share the practice with others!

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A Question For You “The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” —Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) ​ What good in your own life (education, safety, belonging, nourishment, opportunity) would you most like to help make available to others? What might it mean to incorporate that good more fully into our common life? ​ Please reply and share your reflections! We may publish your response in a future edition.

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As we celebrate our first Compassion Weaver, we are reminded that no one person repairs the world alone. Thank you for all the ways you contribute your own thread, and for helping us notice and honor those who humbly hold our communities together.

With warmth,
Fabiana
Editor, Coming Home

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