Built for Battle; Learning Compassion.

Compassion is not my first response. It probably never will be.

I am an Enneagram 8, a D in the DISC, a Scorpio. My wiring leans toward intensity and decisiveness. I come from Viking blood and cowboy roots. I’m shaped by generations who survived through strength and stubbornness. My nervous system is built for forward motion, especially under pressure. When things fall apart, I don’t retreat—I organize, I act. I move toward the center of the problem, not away from it. My first instincts are clear and fast: protect what matters, take control of what can be controlled, fix what’s broken. This orientation toward action has served me well in many parts of life. But not everything broken needs fixing. And not everything painful is asking for my protection.

For example, when someone I love is in an emotional crisis.

I’m slowly learning that someone’s emotional crisis is not a battle to fight nor a problem to solve - no matter how urgently my instincts try to convince me otherwise. Their sadness, fear, or frustration doesn't need to be conquered, solved, or wrestled into resolution. Most of the time, it doesn’t even need my strength. It needs something much harder for me to offer: patience, presence, and restraint. It needs to be witnessed, not managed.

This runs against every fiber of my being. Standing by while someone I care about struggles feels almost unbearable. My whole body itches to intervene, to shield, to act. Sitting in stillness feels like abandonment. It feels like failing them. But I have learned—slowly, painfully, through experience and unwanted self-awareness—that love is not the same thing as action. That fighting for someone is not the same thing as being with them. Left unchecked, my love can turn into interference. My protection can turn into intrusion. What feels to me like loyalty can feel to them like control. And no matter how pure my intentions are, when I insert myself into their experience without permission, I am not offering compassion. I am denying them their dignity.

This is just as true in my relationship with myself. When I am hurting, my first instinct is to gear up for battle—to force a solution, to muscle through, to crush whatever feels weak inside me before it has a chance to slow me down. I treat my own tenderness like a threat: something shameful, something to be silenced or outrun. And if the pain feels too heavy to carry, my reflex is often to turn it outward—to blame, to look for someone else to fight, to make the discomfort their fault instead of facing my own fear and sadness.

The old wiring says pain is weakness, and weakness is an enemy. That if I’m strong enough, I should be able to outwork it, overpower it, bury it, or at least pin it on someone else. But real compassion—real healing—requires something I was never taught to trust. It asks me to sit with what hurts without trying to fix it or fling it onto someone else. It asks me to stay present with what feels unbearable. To believe that not everything broken is a failure, and not every fracture is a call to arms.

“Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.”

―Brené Brown

So no, compassion is not my first response. But I have worked hard to make it at least my third. I don’t expect to rewire my instincts. I don't need to. I just need to keep building a bridge between the warrior in me and the part of me that knows how to be still, to trust, to love without conditions. Here's how I've been learning to do that:

• Discern quickly what the other person actually needs.
  Before rushing in with solutions, I pause and ask myself: do they need comfort, space, encouragement, or am I making it about my need to be useful? If I make it about me, it’s not compassion anymore. It’s ego trying to disguise itself as care. Real compassion starts with humility: the willingness to recognize that I am not the main character in someone else’s story.

• Ask questions instead of offering opinions.
  It’s easy to assume I know what’s best, especially when I care deeply. It’s harder—and better—to ask: "What do you need right now?" or "Would you like help or just someone to listen?" Questions create space. They return agency to the person who needs it most. Opinions, even well-meaning ones, can unintentionally make people feel smaller when they most need to feel seen.

• Stay internally resourced.
  Other people's emotions can feel like weather systems: overwhelming, unpredictable, and exhausting if I lose my center. Before I step in to support someone, I check in with myself. Am I grounded? Am I steady? If not, I do the work to get there before I offer anything. True compassion is not a transfer of energy—it’s the offering of a stable presence. Without that, I risk projecting my own fears or needs onto the people I most want to help.

• Move from my head to my heart.
  My mind is excellent at strategies, defenses, and battle plans. But connection doesn't happen through analysis. It happens through presence. When I notice myself calculating or scripting responses, I drop back into my body. I breathe. I feel. I remember that compassion is not something to perform; it's something to allow. The heart understands things the mind never will.

• Channel my protective instincts into creating safe spaces.
  The urge to protect is sacred. It’s not something I want to erase; it’s something I want to refine. Instead of trying to shield people from pain—or rush in to solve it—I use that protective energy to help create environments where they feel strong enough to face whatever they're carrying. I protect boundaries. I honor consent. I offer shelter without taking away their weather.

These shifts haven't made compassion my automatic response, and they probably never will. I still notice the surge of adrenaline when someone I love is struggling. I still have to fight the reflex to jump in, to act, to fix. But more often now, I catch it. I choose differently. I slow down. I listen. I trust the person in front of me, and I trust the process they’re living through.

I don't always get it right. Sometimes I fall back into old patterns and move too fast, speak too sharply, offer too much. But more often now, I catch myself. I breathe. I soften. I let the moment be what it is, not what I think it needs to become.

Compassion may never be the first thing that rises in me. But it is rising more often.
It is becoming a true part of who I am—not by overpowering my instincts, but by partnering with them. Strength and tenderness do not cancel each other out. They complete each other.

In the end, I am realizing that real emotional strength is about what I can hold without needing to change it or fight it. It’s the willingness to stand steady at the edge of another person’s pain—and my own—and trust that it belongs exactly where it is, for as long as it needs to. Emotions are not the enemy. They are not problems to solve or weaknesses to eliminate. They are the raw materials of growth, connection, and meaning. Strength is not rushing in to rescue. It’s resisting the urge to interfere with what is sacred. It’s the willingness to witness hurt without turning away, to stay present without taking over, and to love someone enough to walk through the fire with them, not put the fire out.