Compassion Power

11/16/2025

Well-being experiment: On a crowded street, note the current state of your well-being. Walk down the street, thinking everyone you pass is valuable. Note how you feel at the end of the walk.

11/14/2025

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202507/how-empathy-in-love-relationships-misleads-us

Higher-order compassion is sympathy for vulnerabilities and hardships we do not share (or even grasp) but very much want to alleviate.

11/09/2025

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202506/how-to-develop-autopilot-wellness

Genuine confidence is not about living mistake-free, with nothing bad happening. It’s about making good things happen and improving the bad things that will happen.

11/07/2025

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202506/what-contribution-do-we-make

To contribute is to give something of value—time, effort, knowledge, kindness, or creativity—to others or to a cause larger than oneself. In doing so, we find purpose.

11/05/2025

For enduring emotional connection, partners must share their core emotions: fear, guilt, shame, sadness, and sorrow, not coping habits of blame, denial, and avoidance.

11/02/2025

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202504/misunderstandings-in-love

To paraphrase the Buddha, much of the suffering in the world comes from wishing it were not the way it is. Nowhere is this truer than in differences between loved ones.

10/31/2025

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202506/barriers-to-compassion

It’s so painful when loved ones have negative impressions of us that we perceive them as attacks and attack back, aggravating their negative impressions.

10/29/2025

If we don’t value our relationships – treat them as important, worthy of appreciation, time, energy, and sacrifice – we’ll judge them for their utility – financial, sexual, or service. Utility runs on autopilot. Value is a choice. Which do you want?

10/26/2025

How We Got Here: Pre-World War II was marked by “rugged individualism.” No social safety net, Welfare, food stamps, Medicare, or Medicaid. During the War, we were the most collective and patriotic in history, in the name of the “war effort.”

Following the war, individualism returned, spurred by new consumerism, which evolved The Culture of Narcissism, described by Christopher Lasch in 1979.

The Culture of Narcissism gave way to the Age of Entitlement, when perceived rights greatly expanded and became demands. Entitlement morphed into identity politics, which elected Trump.

10/24/2025

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202506/the-core-self-in-love

In love relationships, appreciate as many differences as you can and tolerate the ones you can’t appreciate.

10/22/2025

When feeling powerless, do something that will make you feel more valuable or just remember when you were compassionate, kind, appreciative, or loving. Within 20 minutes (at most), you’ll feel more empowered.

10/19/2025

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202507/memory-and-the-sense-of-self

On autopilot, memories generalize, which can temporarily enhance the sense of self or diminish it.