The Compassionate Instinct

R R: Yes. We know from history in this country and elsewhere that empathy is related to facing common challenges. The more people feel that they are in the same boat, the more they empathize with one another. Do we face a common challenge today? Of course. Terrorism. Global warming. An aging population. All of these and many others are common problems we face. The art of leadership is the art of enabling people to understand their commonalities and to build empathy upon that sense of commonality.

G G: And do you see that art practiced by our public leaders today?

R R: Not nearly enough. Public leaders today—that is, elected officials—tend to be too dependent on public opinion polls. And public opinion polls only register where people are right now. You can’t lead people to where they already are, because they’re already there. The essence of leadership is leading them to where they’re not, but where they could be.

G G: So if people aren’t in a position right away to be public leaders or effect policy change, what do you hope will change in their consciousness? What could they start to do tomorrow?

R R: I hope they have a sense of their own power and their capacity to inspire others. Too many people in this country today are discouraged, if not cynical, about the possibilities for reform and progressive change. And yet the climate is ripe for it. People are waking up to some of the large problems—the social inequities in this country and around the world—that are beginning to haunt us. If we do nothing, they will simply get worse. An individual working alone has limited capacity, obviously. But individuals coming together—in their communities, in their neighborhoods, in their small societies—and linking up with others in other communities and neighborhoods can accomplish a huge amount.

THE ACTIVISM CURE

Meredith Maran

PHILOSOPHER-PHYSICIAN ALBERT SCHWEITZER once said, “The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

Kate Hanni, 48, a real estate broker in Napa, California, is living proof—emphasis on living. On June 21, 2006, she was lured to a million-dollar home by a man who’d posed as a home buyer, then attacked her when she arrived. For 25 minutes he beat, stabbed, and tortured her, then left her on the floor to die. “My hair was torn out,” Kate says. “The skin on my hands and knees was gone. But worst of all, so was my dignity and my sense of safety in the world.”

Kate’s physical injuries healed over time, but the psychic damage she suffered was lasting and profound. “After six months of intensive therapy,” she says, “I was still afraid to be alone. If no one else was home, I had a panic attack every time I opened my own front door.”

In December of that year, Kate and her husband and sons were en route to a family vacation when their plane was stranded on the tarmac for 9 hours, leaving them and their fellow passengers without food, water, or working toilets. “Being trapped on that plane triggered the victimized feeling I’d had since the assault,” Kate says. “All of a sudden I thought, ‘Enough is enough.’” Within weeks Kate launched a Web site, flyersrights.com, to spearhead the swelling movement for airline passengers’ rights. Within months she’d quit her job and become the executive director of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights—appearing on national TV, being interviewed by every major newspaper in the United States.

“When I took on this issue,” Kate says, “I’d tried everything therapy had to offer, but I was still a prisoner of my fears. Then I was invited to fly to New York to appear on Good Morning America. Either I was going to face my fears and go, or I was going to miss an opportunity to spread the word.”

“I went,” she says. “And I forgot to be afraid. Since then, my terror has been gone.” Kate exhales a long, jagged breath. “Taking on this cause has done me more good than any therapy ever could.”

VOLUNTEER FOR HEALTH

Kate Hanni’s experience illustrates what doctors and psychotherapists have long observed and scientists can now explain. People who give to others give healthier, happier lives to themselves.

Whether a person has experienced a life-altering trauma like Kate’s or suffers from anxiety or depression or is grappling with a garden-variety case of the blues, research shows that those who take “the activism cure” find personal healing in their efforts to heal the world.