We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.
Desmond Tutu
By Mary Freer
It always amazes me just how much humans can care. We all came into this world ready to love and be loved in return. If we are fortunate enough to be born into a compassionate community or family, we will develop finely tuned compassion.
Compassion isn’t soft and fluffy. The kind of compassion I’m interested in is muscular. It is brave. Compassion can be fearless and forthright. It can be quiet and still, simply holding space for what is unfolding.
My view of compassion is that it goes one giant step further than kindness.
So what is compassion? Paul Gilbert and Kunzang Choden (2015) in their book Mindful Compassion say this:
Compassion is not just about kindness or ‘softness’ and it is certainly not a weakness, it is one of the most important declarations of strength and courage known to humanity. It is difficult and powerful, infectious and influential. And, crucially, is perhaps the only universally recognised language with the ability to change the world.
The word compassion literally means ‘to suffer with’. When we act with compassion we stay the distance. When we walk alongside someone with dementia our job is to read the map and guide them and most importantly be with them on the terrain.
Many times health and aged care workers say to me, “I’m too exhausted for compassion” or “I don’t have time for compassion.” I hear you. If you’re tired, worn down or feel unseen and you need to do one less thing, I implore you: don’t let compassion be the thing you let go of. Your Self needs you to give it some compassion, your Self needs you to find time to feed it and give it water.
Put very simply: compassion is a sensitivity or awareness to suffering or distress, in ourselves and others, with a commitment to try and alleviate and prevent it.
Put very simply: compassion is a sensitivity or awareness to suffering or distress, in ourselves and others, with a commitment to try and alleviate and prevent it.
Most of us have spent our lives thinking that compassion was exclusively about other people. You need to count yourself in.
Compassion is a skill, not a feeling or an emotion. Compassion has a set of steps that require deliberate attention and response. Most importantly compassion requires action. This is not always easy; in fact, it often feels like hard work. It’s the hard emotional labour of showing up and speaking up. I see compassion as both the driving force and the touchstone of health and aged care. Anyone who has ever worked in a health or aged care organisation knows it is compassionate leadership that rises up with strength and power and shines a light so we can all stay together and survive the storm.
There are four steps in every compassionate action. I call these steps SUMA. You don’t have to count them out or make a conscious effort to follow them in strict order. SUMA is a practice and it takes some time to develop.
It’s the same as growing any muscle. Maybe you signed up for the gym, and you set the alarm to wake up. Maybe you even posted a pic on Insta of you and the new training gear. When you got to the gym you couldn’t lift the weights and you didn’t know the routine and it was cold at 6:00am. After two sessions, you said, "I'm not a gym person." The difference between you and a gym person is that the gym person keeps going. That's all it is. It's about growing a muscle. Be kind to yourself, let yourself off the hook and create a practice.
Mary Freer is the CEO of Compassion Revolution and the author of the book Compassion Revolution: Start Now. Use What You Have. Keep Going. She will teach the practice of SUMA at the International Dementia Conference 2026, 4-5 June in Sydney. This article first appeared in Australian Ageing Agenda.