And do we find it?

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Compassion can be a big word.
The energy that it holds can seem monumental. Like an achievement.
Possibly even unattainable.
But what if it is the most basic state that we have just mired underneath layers of survival?

I started thinking about what makes compassion seem so difficult.
The further I followed that thread, the deeper I went, the more clarity emerged.

When I think about what makes me lose my grip on compassion, I try and drop out of my head and into my body.
I think about the moments where I feel attacked, dismissed, or even threatened.
Expectations, judgement, disappointment.
Any trigger.
Pick your favorite.

What does that really feel like?
Beyond the spike in heart rate.
Beyond the racing thoughts.
Beyond the ache in the heart.

To me, it feels like my life force is being extracted from my body.
And I believe that this is exactly what is happening.
Whether intentionally or not is worth sitting with.

For much of human history, survival meant needing to take or defend.
Food.
Territory.
Mates.
Fire.

We were hard-wired for scarcity.
And to overcome that we needed to compete.
Not to win a card game. To survive.

I guess it isn’t surprising that triggers can feel like life and death.

But let’s leave the past and look at it through the lens of the present.
Humans have come a long way in making life easier.
The daily battle for most of us isn’t life or death.
Even though we may still treat it that way.

These battles are more subtle. More subconscious.
But no less destructive.

Think of the last time you were in conversation about anything relatively important to you.
Now, imagine the conversation moves along smoothly, traversing rugged terrain, but gently.
The situation can have a slight charge, but feel uplifting.
There is understanding and cooperation in moving towards a common goal.
The felt sense is compassion. Maybe even love.

And then somewhere along the line, a boundary is breached.
The mind is scrambling to make sense of the sensation, but the body is screaming that this is a threat that needs to be taken care of…
Immediately.
There is a 5-alarm fire and everything I’ve ever worked for is still inside.

What just happened? How did I move from compassion to survival in the blink of an eye?
If energy was passing freely, back and forth in conversation, what changed?
What boundary was crossed? Why did it sting so deeply?
And how can you sit there as if nothing has happened?

I’m frantically backpedaling, grasping for a rail so I don’t fall off the cliff.

When I think about this at its most basic level, I drift into the unseen interactions between people. The ones that are unexplainable, not because they don’t exist, but because words don’t seem to do it justice – even though the sensation is undeniable.

This is where our individual energies are interacting.

And maybe the energy was suddenly in quiet competition – attempting to draw from the wrong source.
Instead of drawing from the well of compassion – one is now trying to pry it from the other.
This seems to be where compassion ends…
and competition begins.

It seems culture evolved faster than biology, so we stopped competing for calories and started competing for:
attention
validation
status
control –
but with the same ancient circuitry running underneath.
The weapons just became more subtle.

And so did the defenses.

Through this view, I’m starting to relate to boundaries differently.
My goal is to make sure they are at least semi-permeable.
Malleable.
More like a trampoline,
less like a brick wall.

And I think that has to do with compassion directly.
If I find myself drawing the energy of my experience directly from a compassionate state, there is no lack. There are no limits.
Even dredging through the swamps of challenge, there can still be beauty.
Words flow easier. Thoughts are clearer.
Honesty is not frightening. Vulnerability is more available.
Resolution and agreement become possible. And even if not…
Expansion becomes inevitable.
Framed this way the boundary is not a problem.
It is an opportunity.

On the other hand, if I am relying on another person to provide my source of energy, we find ourselves in a quiet competition. I will give it to you as long as I feel you deserve it, or until I run out.
The boundary becomes where I stop giving…
and start taking back.
Framed in this context the boundary is a place that breeds resentment, and is just competition wearing a generous mask.

The question I am beginning to ask myself is this:
If compassion isn’t the actual source... is there a transaction underneath?
Generosity as debt creation.
Kindness as positioning.
Care as leverage.
The control doesn’t have to be conscious or malicious to be real.

What is actually moving between people, and in which direction?
Can relational dynamics be summed up by the exchange of energy?
There is a part of me that is starting to say yes.

If we were to look at the evolution of the human experience over the last couple hundred years through this lens… competition for energy…
And we see where we are today. Especially today.
What would be the single largest expression of that competition?

Oil.

Oil is literally compressed ancient energy. And we built an entire civilization on the premise that energy is scarce, external, and worth going to war over. That’s a collective psychological statement about where we believe power comes from.

When we bring that home to the individual experience, it’s not that hard to see that the way we’ve evolved seems based on old patterns that we may be outgrowing.

Like a snake that is trying to shed its skin.
It’s tight.
Itchy.
It served a very important purpose.
But now –
the time has come to let it slide off to reveal what was always underneath.

Now, is drawing energy through compassion sustainable?
This is where it gets sticky.
I don’t think our ability to stay constantly rooted in it is…
And maybe that is by design.
I believe that contrast is incredibly important as a means for the full range of experience.
Would we know love if fear did not exist?
Would we know joy, if not for anger or sadness?
Would we have any reason to search for meaning, if it wasn’t worth searching for?

There will be times when it hits so hard, so fast, that the backpedaling isn’t fast enough.
Maybe the rail is wet and when you grab for it, you still slip.
I still find myself here.
Often.
Words come flying out of my mouth in pure reaction. And they sting.
I brace against expectation before disappointment arrives…
setting the stage for failure before the curtain is ever pulled.

Sometimes it happens purely defensively, when it feels like my own energy is being drawn without consent.
There are times it happens without even being noticed.
There is also a layer between noticing and being able to process in real time that is quietly devastating.

Manipulation as a means of extraction through deception.
Domination extracting through force.
Provocation and accusation as a method of destabilization.
And the subtle art of guilt inducing and shaming – attempts to impart self-draining…

These approaches come with a special kind of pain. One that seems to encode in DNA.
You can’t unhear it.
You can’t unthink it.
You can’t unfeel it.

The question becomes: was it intentional, or purely a reaction itself?

Whether on the giving side of the equation or as the receiver, the felt sense is very similar.
My chest tightens.
My voice cracks.
My mind becomes jumbled noise with no coherent thought pattern –
like it is either some evil prank, or a built-in moderator that I haven’t tuned into yet.
But the tension build is undeniable – like being a living pressure-cooker testing the bounds of the emergency valve…

It is as if my physical body is trying desperately to collapse into itself to ward off the explosion.

And then –

I fall.

Self judgement comes screaming in – arguing with rational thought…
You know better!
-That is only going to make this worse…
This is justifiable!
-For who?
Shut up so I can enjoy my cup of rage!
-Ok, have it your way… would you like a side of regret?

Banging off rock outcroppings like I am a pinball.
Flipping and spinning at terminal velocity.
Praying that the end is near.

Until finally, compassion is the first soft landing.
When I am finally too tired to keep fighting.
I have exhausted all of the negative thoughts.
I have drained the energy from the entire block.
My cup was empty. My excuses were gone.
It was just me.

The volatility has finally settled and now it is time to process.
We can finally see the entire arc of what happened from the outside.
And now that the fire has turned to embers,
we see that we survived. And we are safe.
Now we can reflect. Honestly, with curiosity and openness.

This is where I notice compassion returning.
But it doesn’t feel like I had to work to find it.
I just had to let go of the death grip I had on control.
Trying frantically to balance my own energy so I felt ok.
Leaving a trail of carnage as far as the eye can see.

In the end –
I just had to open to it.
Let it in.
First to myself. Then to others.

I still drift. I get caught up in moments. I fall.

But the return gets easier over time.
Quicker. Softer.

The fall is shorter.
Less sting.
Less impact.

Maybe it’s more about balance.
Sometimes we are the ones slipping,
sometimes we are watching the slip…

If in that moment – where the chest begins to tighten…
The mind begins to frantically grasp for justification of the sensation…
I feel suddenly that the source of my energy is shifting outward.
This is an opportunity to gently refocus my attention and redirect it back to my well.
Move inward. Honestly. Compassionately.
Find my breath, and speak from the heart – not the hurt.

Because if we are drawing energy from compassion instead of each other,
the slippery hand rail won’t matter.

There won’t be anywhere to fall.