Ep 84: Courageous Compassion with Laura Banks

Today I’m talking with Laura Banks. Laura is a Certified Compassion Cultivation Training© (CCT) teacher through the Compassion Institute and Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE). Laura has studied literature, languages, folklore, and philosophy to explore expressions of human experience across time. She has traveled around the world to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch life in its countless forms. Joys and sorrows, life and death crossed her path. Again and again, she saw how fear and anger could complicate and magnify pain, but also witnessed people choosing compassion for themselves and others –meeting anguish with loving presence – and spinning the straw of suffering into the gold of connection, healing, and wisdom. You can learn more about Laura's work here: https://www.lauralbanks.com/ and she is a teacher in the Liberated Being embodied practice studio which is set to open to new members in January. You can find out more about Liberated Being at https://www.liberatedbeing.community/ Resources mentioned in this interview: A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives by Thupten Jinpa The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Carlton Abrams Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection by Barbara Fredrickson The Compassionate Species, article by Dachner Keltner, faculty director of Greater Good Science Center Compassion does not fatigue!, research article by Trisha Dowling Contesting the term ‘compassion fatigue’: Integrating findings from social neuroscience and self-care research, research article by Anne Hofmeyer, Kate Kennedy, and Ruth Taylor