Image by Charlotte Govaert

InnerSelf's Daily Inspiration

March 6, 2024

The focus for today is:

I consciously and proactively choose how
to respond from a place of love and kindness.

Today's inspiration was written by Friedemann Schaub:

The difference between empathy and compassion is that with empathy you don’t only notice somebody’s emotions and energies, you internalize them. On the other hand, with compassion, you’re aware of another’s internal experiences without losing the connection with yourself.

Here’s an analogy. Let’s say you spot somebody drowning. Empathy makes you jump into the water and go down with them. With compassion, you stay on the shore and look for a life-preserver or a rope to throw them. 

In other words, empathy is the subconscious awareness of what others feel. Compassion is awareness plus consciously and proactively choosing how to respond from a place of love and kindness. And in contrast to empathy distress, compassion releases the trifecta of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters: serotonin, called the happiness hormone, dopamine, the feel-good hormone, and oxytocin, the love hormone. So it’s a win-win for all.

CONTINUE READING:
Today's inspiration was adapted from the InnerSelf.com article:
     Five Pitfalls of Being Stuck in Your Helper Pattern
     Written by Friedemann Schaub, M.D., Ph.D.
Read the complete article here.


This is Marie T. Russell, co-publisher of InnerSelf.com, wishing you a day of consciously choosing to respond with kindness (today and every day)

Comment from Marie: I know I've said it often... and that's because it is so important: We always have a choice. We can choose anger or we can choose to let go, we choose disappointment or we choose acceptance. And the choice determines how the rest of our day -- and our life -- will go. We are never powerless in front of any situation. We always are the one who chooses how we respond. And our power lies in that very fact... we have the ability to respond in whichever way we choose. 

Our focus for today: I consciously and proactively choose how to respond from a place of love and kindness.

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RELATED BOOK: The Empowerment Solution

The Empowerment Solution: Six Keys to Unlocking Your Full Potential with the Subconscious Mind
by Friedemann Schaub.

In this step-by-step guide, Friedemann Schaub, M.D., Ph.D., explores how to break free from the six most common survival patterns—the victim, invisibility, the procrastinator, the chameleon, the helper, and the lover—by engaging the part of the mind that created them in the first place: the subconscious.

Providing research-backed insights and brain- rewiring methods based on his 20 years’ experience, Dr. Friedemann details how, through activating the healing power of the subconscious, you can throw off the shackles of these self-sabotaging patterns and “flip” them into the six keys to self-empowerment, allowing you to take self-reliant ownership of your life. 

Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book. Also available as a Kindle edition.

About the Author

Friedemann Schaub, M.D., Ph.D., a physician with a Ph.D. in molecular biology, left his career in allopathic medicine to pursue his passion and purpose of helping people overcome fear and anxiety without medication. For more than twenty years, he has helped thousands of his clients worldwide to break through their mental and emotional blocks and become the empowered leaders of their lives.

Dr. Friedemann is the author of the award-winning book, The Fear and Anxiety Solution. His newest book, The Empowerment Solution, focuses on activating the healing power of the subconscious mind to switch out of stress- and anxiety-driven survival mode and make authenticity and confidence the everyday way of being.

For more details about his work, please visit www.DrFriedemann.com