Hello Dear Community,
Trying to make a difference can bring us face to face with our own limits: whom we find easy to care for, how we respond to disagreement, and what helps us keep going when change feels slow.
In this edition, we explore compassion that can listen deeply, take a firm stand, and include ourselves in its care. We also meet people whose willingness to show up for strangers became a celebration and then a chance for care to find its way back.
Take a Stand: Expanding Compassion for Our Times
At the GCC, we envision a compassion that reaches beyond our immediate circles and helps shape the world we share. In this talk for the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion’s Grand Rounds at Harvard Medical School, our founder, Dr. Rick Hanson, explores what this expanded understanding asks of us.
Compassion often comes most readily toward people we identify with. We may express it through gentleness and comfort, helping ease the suffering before us. Rick invites us to extend that care to people we dislike or oppose, to recognize when compassion calls for a bold or fierce response, and to address the systems that keep producing harm.
Watch “Expanding Compassion for Our Times”
The Growing Edge. Beyond Being Right
What happens when our wish to do good makes it harder to see our own blind spots? In this interview, activist and author Anthea Lawson reflects on the habits that can undermine our efforts to create change, and how listening, self-awareness, and compassion can help us reach people we might otherwise alienate.
With this conversation, we’re opening a new space in Coming Home to explore questions that challenge us to deepen our understanding of compassion and how we put it into practice.
Read the full interview.
Have You Read It? The Impossible Will Take a Little While by Paul Rogat Loeb
How do we keep working for a better world when our efforts seem too small to matter? A comprehensively updated edition of Paul Rogat Loeb’s anthology, out October 13, brings together stories and essays from people who have faced that question under daunting circumstances. Accounts of South Koreans resisting the 2024 coup attempt join reflections on the struggle against apartheid and the ongoing work of climate activism. Contributors include Nelson Mandela, Jesmyn Ward, Alexei Navalny, Mary Pipher, and Desmond Tutu, offering different perspectives on finding the courage to stay involved.
At the heart of the collection is a question many of us know well: how can we keep caring and acting when change is slow and the outcome uncertain? These voices explore the relationships, convictions, and sources of renewal that sustain people through long struggles. For anyone feeling worn down by the news, the book offers companionship and a reminder that we can contribute without knowing how far the effects of our actions will travel.
News You Can Use: Offering Support Linked to Younger Brain Age
Listening to a friend’s worries or comforting someone through a difficult time may have benefits for the person offering care, too. A new study in Translational Psychiatry examined 194 adults whose reports of time spent supporting others were collected, on average, nearly four years before their brain scans. Those who reported providing more support had younger-looking brains relative to their actual age, based on an estimate derived from MRI scans. The association remained after accounting for health, lifestyle, relationship quality, and the support participants received themselves.
An exploratory analysis found a stronger association for emotional support than for practical assistance, such as transportation or household tasks. The study cannot establish that helping slows brain aging, and it did not measure whether participants lived longer. Still, it offers an encouraging reason to value everyday moments of care. Checking in, listening attentively, and making room for someone’s feelings are accessible ways to nurture connection and may support our own brain health along the way.
Read the study.
Insight & Inspiration: When Strangers Become Wedding Guests
Jayden Sink and Kimberly Laprad had planned a wedding with about 45 friends and relatives on North Carolina’s Hatteras Island. When a storm damaged the highway, most of their guests couldn’t reach them. A friend posted an invitation on social media, welcoming anyone nearby to join the celebration. More than 400 people turned up.
The gathering took shape through contributions from across the island: a campground host offered a venue and volunteered to officiate, a DJ supplied music, a photographer offered her services, and residents and visitors brought food and supplies. Within a day, people who had never met the couple were helping them celebrate their marriage.
Now the newlyweds are passing that generosity on. To thank the community that welcomed them, Jayden and Kimberly have launched a fundraiser for the Frisco-Buxton Pathway Project, helping create a safer route for people walking and cycling on the island. If you’d like to join this next chapter of the story, you can contribute to their fundraiser here.
Read the full story at Sunny Skyz.
Save the Date: Shaping AI For a Better Life
November 4 | 11 a.m.–1 p.m. Pacific Time | Online | Free
How can we help artificial intelligence support a more compassionate world? Join the GCC for a symposium hosted by Dr. Myriam Mongrain, bringing together voices from AI, ethics, science, and contemplative practice.
Two panels will explore how researchers and practitioners are working to bring compassion and human well-being into AI—and how we can participate in shaping its direction. Whether you work with technology or are simply curious about its impact on our shared future, you’re warmly invited. No technical background is needed.
Learn more and reserve your free place.
In Case You Missed It: Including Ourselves in Compassion
Why can it feel easier to offer compassion to others than to ourselves? In this episode of the GCC’s The Compassion Podcast, host Michael Juberg welcomes clinical psychologist Dr. Chris Germer, co-developer of the Mindful Self-Compassion program with Dr. Kristin Neff, and GCC Founding Supporter and Board Member.
Chris explores how we learn to leave ourselves outside the circle of care—and how we can begin to include ourselves again. An invitation to anyone who could use a little more kindness toward their own struggles.
Watch the conversation.
Let’s Practice! Listening Before Responding
Think of a conversation in which you felt eager to explain, persuade, or defend your position. Take a breath and notice what the conversation stirred in you. What mattered to you? What were you hoping the other person would understand?
Now turn toward what they were trying to convey. What concern, experience, or hope might you have missed? Let this remain a question rather than deciding you already know.
A Question For You
Where in your life could compassion help you be both more open and more courageous?
Reply to this question, and we might feature your response in a future newsletter.
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As we keep finding our way, may we find room to listen, courage to act, and time to care for one another. Thank you for being part of this community and for the compassion you bring to your own corner of the world.
With warmth,
Fabiana
Editor, Coming Home
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