Compassion vs Empathy

​It’s easy to use compassion and empathy as synonyms, but there are several important distinctions between the two words.

Compassion means acting from a sense of empathy and altruism to relieve other people’s suffering. Compassionate people seek to exhibit unconditional love to those around them and are eager to find opportunities to alleviate the distress or sadness of others.

Empathy refers to experiencing another person's negative or positive emotions as if they were your own. While empathy is generally a component of compassion, the two remain essentially different. For example, an empathetic person might or might not respond with a compassionate action when they take on and experience the emotions of another human being.

Here are three primary areas of difference between the two concepts:

1. Action vs. feeling: Compassion requires action to relieve the pain of another, whereas empathy merely requires feeling that pain.

2. Choice vs. reflex: To fully experience compassion, you must make a choice to do so, whereas empathy is a reflexive emotional response.

3. Mindfulness vs. distress: Compassion comes from a more calm and mindful state than raw empathy can afford. Compassion allows you to deeply inhabit a person’s suffering without losing your sense of self-awareness and stability, while empathy might leave you in just as much emotional pain and distress as the other person.

Each day presents new opportunities to practice compassion. Here are five ways to show compassion in your daily life: work toward the greater good, listen to those around you, perform acts of kindness, practice loving-kindness meditation, remember to take care of yourself.
 

Sources: Master Class