Conversations on Compassion

The Positive Communication movement centralizes the role of everyday talk in facilitating health and wellbeing across the lifespan. We engage compassion for self and other through acts of positive communication. Dr. Pitts introduces the principles of positive communication that allow us to elevate and enhance our daily lived experiences, focusing specifically on savoring communication. Communication savoring brings awareness to the meanings and relationships embedded in talk allowing individuals to increase their presence in everyday encounters. Communication savoring also opens space for compassionate engagement, especially in difficult communication exchanges.

Mary-Frances O'Connor, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona

Caregivers include family members, doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and chaplains. Fatigue and burnout can hit anyone in a caregiver role who takes on this very important task in the lives of loved ones and patients. Dr. O'Connor describes the difficulties faced by caregivers, but more importantly discusses compassion as the overarching motivation for this difficult work. We can't 'run out' of compassion, but we can learn to improve our self-regulation skills in the face of difficult situations in order to decrease fatigue and burnout.

Interview with Sharon Salzberg by Chuck Raison, MD, Founding Director of UA Center for Compassion Studies

Dave Sbarra, Ph.D Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Training,

Department of Psychology, University of Arizona

Life often does not work out in the way we expected it would unfold. The human experience is fraught with challenges and pain, and a key question for living a happier existence is 'how to prevent suffering in the face of life's inevitable pain?' Cultivating self-compassion can shape how we respond to life's inherent difficulties and make the most of challenging experiences. Dr. Sbarra shares how self-compassion shapes responses to marital separation and divorce, and how this can inform the ways in which we can move through other challenging experiences.

Al Kaszniak, Ph.D, talks about how helping others expands our own happiness and well-being in this dharma talk.