Estimated Reading Time 8 Minutes
Hey You! I’m Emily Romrell. Welcome back to The Vibrant Life Podcast. I’ve taken a few weeks’ hiatus, my friends and I appreciate your patience. You may not realize this, but this podcast is a one-woman show, and while I love it, it does take quite a bit of work. I decided to take some time for some self-care. Sometimes we all need that, right? I hope you also will take time to take care of yourself when you need it. But I’m back now, and I’m thrilled to be with you again, my friends.
And in case you’re new, this podcast is the place to come for short messages each week that focus on creating your best life. We dive into topics relating to personal development, spirituality, productivity, self-love, mindfulness, and more. My hope is that we can learn and grow together and truly build a vibrant life.
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For this comeback show, I’m sharing an idea that is near and dear to my heart. It’s a concept that I’ve attempted to live for a while now, and it seriously makes life more vibrant. Obviously, I fall short more times than I’d like to admit, but we’re all human and effort counts for a lot. Today, we’re talking about Compersion.
Although I’ve been living this principle for years, I only recently learned the word ‘compersion’. I’m a wordy person and I’m always looking for fun new words and their meanings. Side note, it’s a fabulous feeling to name something in our human experience that we weren’t able to communicate before, isn’t it? It’s magical. That satisfying click in our understanding happens much more as children. As adults, we hit plateaus in our learning and growth. We get into a complacent rut, and we don’t experience the wonder of learning as we did in childhood. We need to work our way back into wonder, my friends.
Anyway, I heard about compersion on TikTok so take that for what it’s worth. Compersion is slang and you can’t actually find it in the dictionary. The great thing about language is that it evolves and grows like a living thing and new words are born all the time. Compersion is a newer word. I’ve been waiting for it to define this significant principle in my life. Thanks for being patient with all of this build-up, haha.
Compersion is an empathetic and whole-hearted joy that we feel when someone else has a positive experience. You can think of compersion as a cousin to compassion. We have compassion for someone when they are going through a difficult or painful experience. We feel for that person in our hearts, right? Well, compersion is that same kind of love and feeling for others. But compersion is a true joy that you feel when things go right for someone else.
A key factor in compersion is that you are genuine and sincere in your happiness when others experience good things. This joy is full when the catalyst of the delight does not involve or benefit us directly. Compersion isn’t diminished by jealousy. Compersion isn’t tainted by possessiveness. In this way, compersion is a state comparable to what is described of Nathanael in the bible.
The only description that we have of Nathanael is that he was without guile. He doesn’t get much attention after that. We know that he was introduced to the Savior by Phillip who was another of the original twelve apostles. Phillip asked Nathanael to simply come and see Jesus and then he would know the truth.
The verses relating to Nathanael are short, so I think I’ll just read them to you. You can find this story in John chapter 1 verses 47-51:
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the aSon of God; thou art the bKing of Israel.
50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.
51 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
There is a lot you can unpack from just these five verses. Today I’ll keep it short and sweet. We can surmise that previously Nathanael had a spiritual experience under a fig tree. During that tender ordeal, Nathanael thought he was alone. But the Savior knew what occurred and had been with him all along. That is powerful to remember when we go through hard things and it feels like we are so alone.
But the trait that Jesus focused on was Nathanael’s sincerity of heart. He had no guile. Guile is another word that may be new to you. It’s not super common in everyday language. Guile is a craftiness and deceptiveness in spirit. It’s basically a “What’s in it for me?” attitude. In a fabulous talk entitled Without Guile, Joseph B. Wirthlin explains that “To be without guile is to be free of deceit, cunning, hypocrisy, and dishonesty in thought or action.” In other words, you truly have a pure heart. If you’re going to be remembered for something, having no guile is not a bad epitaph.
I think this factors in greatly with both compassion and compersion. They are two sides of the same coin, right? On one side you have compassion, a deep sympathy and a desire to help when others are suffering. And on the other side is compersion, a deep joy and love for others when they experience something great.
Have you ever been excited to share good news with a friend? Maybe you just got back from a terrific vacation and you want to tell your peeps about it. It seems like there is always someone who needs to one-up your story. “You went swimming with dolphins? That’s nothing, When I was on vacation I did this… ” and they make the moment all about them. It’s the worst when that happens.
But sometimes you have that special friend who celebrates with you. “You went swimming with dolphins? Wow! That is so cool and exciting. What was it like? What did their skin feel like? What was your favorite part about the experience?” A friend like that is golden and the best part is that they are genuinely happy with you. They have compersion.
I’m human and I absolutely get jealous sometimes. But honestly, I know the true joy that comes from being happy for others. There’s this special blink of an eye moment that sparks a delight in both the person with good news and the person sharing in it. I think maybe it’s a vulnerability thing. When someone shares a piece of themselves with you and you accept it, that connection is what life is all about. And when you connect like this over the good things, those good things become great.
When the truth clicks in your brain that when someone else wins, you win too, it’s incredible how much more fun and more rich life becomes. And I’m telling you, you’re surrounded by opportunites for compersion:
Your neighbor is a gardener and you celebrate the beauty of it with her. You probably even benefit from a few of the veggies. Your boss at work tells you that their kid has been struggling in school but they finally got an A on the test. That’s two times the compersion, haha. But celebrate with them. Do a victory dance. Maybe one of your friends created something, an artwork, or a poem, or a song, or maybe they built something like a chair, whatever. We all know it takes guts to share something you created from your heart with another person. When a friend shares these things with you, take it for the honor that it truly is. Embrace the joy that comes from being happy for others. Be compersionate, haha.
Even though compersion in itself requires that you don’t have ulterior motives in your delight for someone else, here’s the truth. When you are happy for others, they are happy for you. I want to start singing like Elton John and say, “It’s the circle of life.” haha. You can call it Karma, or good vibes, or if you’re more left-brained you might call it reciprocity. One good deed deserves another, right? I simply call it love.
If you love someone sincerely, if you are compassionate during the tough times and compersionate during the happy ones, then they are going to be there in similar ways for you. Because when you love like this you are connected. There’s another famous verse in the bible where Jesus says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” I believe that’s true, and it helps a lot to try and see people as the Savior sees them. It makes it easier to serve if you know that by helping someone else you are also serving the Lord.
But here’s a secret that will change your life: When you love others sincerely in both word and deed, you are also loving and serving yourself. Because we are all connected. We are all children of God. We all make a difference and send ripples throughout humanity with the actions we take each day. When I send a ripple out by loving someone else, eventually that ripple will come back to me.
It makes me think of that Chain of Love song by Clay Walker. I’m all about the ’90s and 2000s Country Music. But in the song, a man named joe helps an older woman whose car broke down. He tells the woman to just pay it forward and not to let the ‘chain of love end with you’. Then the woman stops at a diner to eat and ends up leaving a big tip for her waitress who was pregnant. Well, it turns out the waitress is Joe’s wife. I know this is a song, but things like this happen all the time. What you send out into the world comes back to you, my friends.
So the challenge this week is to be happy for others. Show some compersion for the people in your life. Celebrate all the good things, big or small. Find joy for others without thinking about how circumstances might affect you. This is one of the big keys in life, my friends, even though it may not seem like it. I promise you will be a happier person and your life will definitely be more vibrant. Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today, Live the Vibrant Life!
