Petrina Barson · 51 min
A doctor who lost her three-year-old daughter to sepsis turned catastrophic grief into a lifelong mission to build a more compassionate society, one person, one community, one act of courage at a time.
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Petrina Barson is a GP who has spent her life learning what compassion really means. Not kindness, not empathy, but something harder and more specific: a sensitivity to suffering that moves you to act, staying loving even when you encounter pain. She grew up surrounded by love as the youngest of five girls, but also absorbed perfectionism and a lack of self-compassion that would shape her for decades. In 2006, her three-year-old daughter Maya died suddenly of sepsis. That catastrophic loss could have closed Petrina's heart. Instead, it deepened her understanding that suffering is part of life, and that accepting compassion from others is just as important as giving it.
Medical training nearly broke that compassion. The six years of her degree and early hospital practice felt soul-destroying: compassion was unspoken, sometimes treated as weakness, and patients were reduced to their worst moments with dehumanizing language. But Petrina held on. In 2013, she heard a radio interview about Compassion Cultivation Training at Stanford University and knew it was her calling. She trained as a teacher and brought the program to medical students at the University of Melbourne. She also discovered the Richards Trauma Process, which she understood as self-compassion in action, allowing people to re-parent their wounded younger selves.
Today, Petrina runs the Center for a Compassionate Society in Clifton Hill, a small church-based space where people's natural compassion is fostered and given room to grow. She has facilitated letter-writing campaigns for refugees, stood in a human-sized cage outside the Park Hotel in Melbourne to protest their incarceration, and connected climate action to responsibility toward her children and grandchildren. She teaches that compassion is not weak; it can require you to take a stand against cruelty. And she believes that as you attach your purpose to something that serves the world, your own sense of self grows stronger and more rooted.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
“compassion is defined as a sensitivity to suffering leading to the desire or action to relieve that suffering”
“that was the biggest, worst, most impactful thing that has ever happened to me to us”
“having to rest into the arms of our community, our friends and family kind of really wrapped us in cotton wool for a long time”
The hero, today
Compassion is loving-kindness that stays loving when it encounters suffering, and it requires the ability to hold understanding of another person's history and context rather than reducing them to their worst moment or behavior. Petrina did not become self-compassionate until adulthood despite being surrounded by love as a child, and she learned that helping children develop emotional language is what allows them to meet their own needs and navigate others' needs skillfully. When she received support from her community after her daughter Maya died, accepting that compassion from others was itself a lesson in the interconnectedness of compassion: we do not only give it, we must receive it too. Petrina describes the Richards Trauma Process as self-compassion because it allows a person to re-parent and re-empower their wounded younger self, and it requires the therapist to embody deep compassion to create the safety needed for that work. Compassion is not weak or wishy-washy but may require people to take a stand and say no to cruelty, whether toward refugees, animals, or future generations harmed by climate change. Petrina believes that as people connect with others and attach their sense of purpose to something that serves the world, their own sense of self grows more robust and their life feels more connected and meaningful.
Yes. Petrina Barson is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Compassion is loving-kindness that stays loving when it encounters suffering, and it requires the ability to hold understanding of another person's history and context rather than reducing them to their worst moment or behavior.
Petrina did not become self-compassionate until adulthood despite being surrounded by love as a child, and she learned that helping children develop emotional language is what allows them to meet their own needs and navigate others' needs skillfully.
When she received support from her community after her daughter Maya died, accepting that compassion from others was itself a lesson in the interconnectedness of compassion: we do not only give it, we must receive it too.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:05
Welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes, helping people tell the stories they need to share so you can find the stories that you need to hear. In this episode, Petrina Barson shares her journey from a loving childhood to becoming a passionate advocate for compassion, but as both a doctor and a teacher. When tragedy struck with the sudden loss of her young daughter, Petrina relied on the support of her community and her deep commitment to compassion to heal and rebuild.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 00:36
She now empowers others to cultivate compassion in their lives through her work at the Center for a Compassionate Society and her teaching in trauma recovery.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:45
Katrina's story shows how compassion can help us navigate even the most difficult moments and inspire positive change for others. Enjoy this episode with Katrina. Hello, Petrina.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 01:10
Hi, Natalie.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 01:11
Welcome to Kintsugi Heroes Podcast.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 01:14
Thank you, lovely to be here.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 01:17
Lovely to have you, Petrina. Before we start it with your life story, can you tell the audience what compassion really means? Because before I met you, I thought kindness and compassion was the same, had the same meaning, but actually they're quite different. Could you describe what each word means and how they differ?
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Petrina describes the Richards Trauma Process as self-compassion because it allows a person to re-parent and re-empower their wounded younger self, and it requires the therapist to embody deep compassion to create the safety needed for that work.
This conversation includes compassion is not the same as kindness, surrounded by love, but absorbed unrelenting standards, maya dies suddenly of sepsis, connection and staying open in medical practice, an image of welcoming a patient and medical training that threatened her natural compassion.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 01:39
Yeah, for sure. It's a common point of confusion. So compassion is defined as a sensitivity to suffering leading to the desire or action to relieve that suffering. And so it obviously involves kindness involves empathy. So those are both concepts that often get confused with it. Now, the Dalai Lama has said that when loving kindness, similar to kindness, meets suffering and stays loving, then that's compassion. So what he's saying there, I think, is that he's drawing attention to the fact that one can have an intention of kindness, but that can become derailed when we meet suffering for various reasons. So it's that ability to stay loving in the face of suffering that is compassion. It can involve empathy, which, as I said, is another construct that gets a bit confused with it. We need an ability to tune into another's suffering. So compassion is also a response, a loving response to that suffering.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 02:51
Would you say it's like a long-term action of kindness, long-term kindness in action?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 02:59
It's certainly kindness in action, but, and specifically in response to suffering. And it might be long-term, might be very immediate, might be very sort of spontaneous and heartfelt, but certainly it can be. I think in saying that, probably what you're drawing attention to is it can be very sort of methodical and planned and not necessarily a feeling that arises in the moment. You know, obviously a program that's designed to relieve suffering is also an act of compassion, even though it's not maybe a spontaneous arising to seeing an instance of suffering. Thank you.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 03:36
Katrina, can you take us to your childhood and start with your personal story from your childhood? And can you paint a picture of what your childhood was like and then how compassion entered your life.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 03:49
Yeah, so I was the youngest of 5 girls in a very loving family. I had— I was in fact doted on because I was the youngest by a long way. And so I think I was probably surrounded by compassion and love all my early life, so it was my normal. And so I think going out into the world and experiencing unkindness was a bit of a culture shock. It was kind of, why, why would you behave like that? I don't understand why people would do that. I don't understand how you could sort of erase the empathic trail between you and another person enough to— or block that empathic trail enough to want to treat that person that way. Why would you do that? So it was very much my norm. I was also raised in a nominally Anglican household and went to a church school and heard about, you know, Christian principles there. And that while I didn't swallow the whole bolus of that, I nevertheless kind of understood the principles and felt them to be kind of a guiding light for me. And at the same time, so, but my childhood was not perfect, and at the same time I was somehow absorbed very unrelenting standards for myself. I kind of expected a lot of myself, became quite the perfectionist and quite the driven person. And so at the same time as, you know, being surrounded by a lot of compassion, I also had a feeling that I had to be perfect and I had to do everything right. And so there was a lot of lack of self-compassion that I absorbed along the way. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but it just felt like— and so, you know, a growth point for me throughout life has definitely had to be how to turn the compassion that I want to direct to others also around on point of tension and growth and learning. Yes, yes, self-compassion.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 05:48
Petrina, I know you've experienced some profound tragedy and very deep loss in your life. Be comfortable to share that part of your journey and how compassion was a contributing factor to your healing.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 06:02
So in 2006, a 3-year-old daughter, little Maya, died suddenly of a— of sepsis. And, uh, you know, that was the biggest, worst, most impactful thing that has ever happened to me, to us. She was our middle child at the time. And in terms of the role of compassion, you know, I think, I think that kind of being in the domain of compassion working in that space in my professional life, in my way of being. I think first of all, it kind of gave me the understanding that this is not particularly unusual, you know, that suffering is part of life. And so I remember the day that it happened kind of being a little shocked that— shocked obviously by the fact that it happened, that kind of goes without saying— but it stopped me by our friends' and family's response, you know, that there was a kind of a sense of, I don't know, being appalled or something. For me, of course, a part of me was appalled. I don't mean to minimize that, but there was the intellectual part of me that was saying, well, this happens, children die. And I was kind of aware of that in my work and in my conceptual life. And so I wasn't shocked by it in that sense. So I think just kind of, I was prepared as much as anyone could ever be prepared for something momentous like that. And then I think, you know, having to rest into the arms of a community, our friends and family kind of really wrapped us in cotton wool for a long time. They were amazing. Providing us with support and accepting that support. We really, really needed it. We really needed to be held, and our community was amazing at being able to do that. Um, so accepting compassion from others was a, was a lesson, you know. That's kind of part of the interconnectedness of compassion, is that we don't just give it, we have to receive it too. Yeah. And also, I suppose having to find a way of holding our own pain with compassion, of my husband and I holding each other's pain, understanding that we would perhaps grieve in different ways, and being there for our children, our other children, who got to deal with that through the different stages of their development, you know.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 08:45
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And professionally, how did compassion come into your professional life? You were and you are still a doctor, a general practitioner. Can you tell us about woven compassion into your professional life as a doctor?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 09:02
If compassion wasn't present for you, I think the work would be incredibly draining or unrewarding, you know. I— the thing that I enjoy most about my work is the connection that it involves, and the connection is based on based on being human together, but also on the ability to hold an understanding of the person in front of you, their context, the fact that maybe their distress, the way they're expressing their distress, even though it might be awkward or inconvenient or just in some other way aversive, is probably there's probably a reason for that. There's probably a reason in their history, in their experience, because as I said, compassion has been defined as loving kindness that stays loving and when it encounters suffering. And so the stays loving bit is important, you know. In order to stay loving, you need some bigger appreciation of this human in front of you who might be behaving badly, who might be having objectively, who might be just not to your liking in some way, or so there might be judgment comes up. So the staying loving piece is really important to be able to deal with those things that come up skillfully in such a way that you— your heart remains open to the person in front of you. And I don't mean to say that I've mastered that, but it's certainly been a work in progress for me as I've gone through my medical career. And so you know, one of the greatest joys of my work is looking after families across generations, you know, being able to look after the grandma and the mum and the children, whatever, and kind of being involved in their lives as something of a reference point, as something of a guide. And I'm conscious of the privilege of that, you know, that's an amazing, amazing privilege to have that role in people's life. And I think that's always what I wanted. When I went into medicine. I think I always wanted to kind of be, you know, be a resource for people across their lifespan.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 11:12
Was there one moment that actually led you to wanting to become a doctor?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 11:18
No, but I— there wasn't a moment, and I actually made the decision very late in the, you know, preferencing application stage. And I also nearly dropped out, you know, like I got very close. I found the training to become a doctor very soul restoring in lots of ways. No, there wasn't a moment, but there was an image, and I did have this image in my mind of me standing in a corridor outside my consulting room welcoming a patient into my consulting room, and something about that kind of epitomized, I guess, what I was saying before of having that role in people's lives.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 11:55
And what led you to be— to want to study and teach Compassion Cultivation Training. Can you tell us about your work in that field?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 12:04
Yeah, I think it was what I said before about finding the education that I received to become a doctor quite soul-destroying. The 6 years of my medical degree and then the early years of my practicing as a resident doctor in the hospital system, I felt I sort of increasingly felt that my natural compassion— not just mine, everybody's natural compassion— was under threat. You know, it wasn't spoken about, it wasn't reinforced, it wasn't very often modeled to us. I felt we had some very bad role models and not, not that many good. The ones that were good, I really kind of latched on to in my mind.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 12:51
Surprise you, Petrina, in that sphere of—
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 12:54
Really horrified me.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 12:55
There wasn't an absence or a lack of compassion training.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 12:59
It horrified me for the patients that I was, you know, involved with, but it also horrified me for myself because I felt that my natural compassion was unwelcome, even uncool, you know. And so spending extra time with patients or finding out about their lives or I want— it's an overstatement to say it was not encouraged or wasn't part of the process, but it was— it tended to be a, you know, a kind of an approach to patients that was, you know, get their physical problem fixed. Okay, that's a good thing. That would be a good thing to do, but in a way that often, I think, brutalized the person that carried the physical problem. And I think it brutalized the medical students. I think it taught us to be sort of functionaries, somewhat authoritarian. I'm talking about the dark ages. I, I believe that medical education has probably changed since then. Well, I know it has, thankfully. But there was no— we got no training in communication skills. We got— the word empathy was mentioned sometimes, compassion never. And if it had been mentioned, it would have been considered a weakness. And so, you know, I very much kind of absorbed the notion that somehow something about me that felt on the one hand critically important to me being a human being, was not welcome or fostered and could not find a community within the medical world. And so, you know, patients were denigrated, they were called names, they were, they were, you know, there was lots, there was a favorite word at the hospital where I trained, and it was used to apply to people who were alcoholic, people who were repeat attenders, self-harmers, smelly people. And that was 'dunny'. They were routinely around the emergency department and elsewhere, they were called a 'dunny', and that was just an accepted term that we used to describe a human being. So dehumanising ways of referring. And ahistorical— what I mean by that is not seeing the story behind how did a person become like this, and what, and what else is this person beside this presentation. Very a very reductionist view of human beings. They are their illness, they are their smell, they are their alcoholism. And so I kind of probably absorbed a bit of that, but on the other hand, part of me really didn't want to absorb that. So I felt at odds with my medical training. And so when I heard in, I don't know, 2013 or something, Professor James Doty speak on the radio from the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford Uni about this thing called Compassion Cultivation Training. I thought, that's my calling. So I applied to do— become a teacher of that, and then I've been doing that since then. So I taught that to medical students for quite a while at the University of Melbourne, managed to get it onto their timetable for a while until COVID hit and other priorities had me have the enterprise sidelined. Nevertheless, doing that was a very rewarding experience. And one of the most rewarding things that a student ever said to me after taking this 8-week course in Compassion Cultivation Training in a small group context was, "I now feel there's a community for my compassion." Good. I thought, well, done my work then. Because even I said to myself when I sort of proposed this to the faculty, I said, even if— I said to myself, even if these students only hear the word compassion 100 times, that's 100 times more than I heard it in my training. So it can become a concept that becomes part of their awareness.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 16:47
So is that program, the Compassion Cultivation Training, is that program in any other universities, medical universities around Australia, or just the University of Melbourne?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 16:57
Well, it's not at the University of Melbourne now. It was for a few years. Not that I'm aware of, although there are other efforts towards compassion cultivation of different kinds elsewhere. So I know Monash has some programs in that direction, but no, the small group experience of compassion cultivation training, to my knowledge, is not taught anywhere else anymore.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 17:20
Right. Oh, what a shame. How do you feel about that?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 17:24
I feel very sad about it. I feel that it's, you know, the medical curricula are crowded and they've got a lot to teach. But, uh, yeah, it's a shame that compassion doesn't get that much of a look in.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 17:38
Didn't quite make the priority. So later, Petrina, you also became a practitioner of the Richards Trauma Process. What drew you to TRTP, and what's the connection between the Richards Trauma Process and compassion?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 17:55
One of my patients drew me to it is the short answer. So she had long-term depression, traumatic childhood, and often got herself the Richards Trauma Process, which I'd never heard of, and came back after a month saying, 'Tutuina, I'm not depressed anymore,' which had literally never happened to me. Now, the context for that was that I had been looking for a while for a a method to safely and effectively deal with trauma. Um, I was perhaps belatedly becoming aware that so many of my patients who come and sit with me with anxiety and depression, wanting mental health plans, wanting either counseling from me or referral to a psychologist, that so many of them, if not all of them, the underlying cause was trauma. And none of the methodologies that we were using through that trauma was actually treating the trauma, was treating the symptoms. I knew that these methods were not powerful enough to get to the core, to the source of it. And I also knew that just talking about the trauma was not always— sometimes it was helpful. People needed to unburden, but— and they needed to be unburdened and, and, and find that nobody rejected them because of— because of speaking that trauma. But most of the time, very often, just talking about the trauma made it worse. So people would walk out of their psychologist's office, or even my office, worse than when they walked in, because they had kind of relived the trauma. So I knew something was— something different was needed, and I'd done a little bit of training, specific training here and there, looking for that, and hadn't found it. And then, so I pricked up my ears when I heard about the Richards Trauma Process. And so the connection with compassion is that I often think of TRTP as like self-compassion in a bottle, you know, because— but it's also, it's not just that, it's also an incredible opportunity for compassion from the therapist. In order to do such profound work so in such few sessions, the therapist has to absolutely embody compassion to make that a safe space. That you have to very kind of intensively create a bubble of compassion that the client can be in and feel safe enough to do the work with you. Because you're essentially, you're sort of, as the creator of TRTP, Judith Richards, often says, you're taking them by the hand and you're saying, come with me, I know how to get you to the other side of this. Pain. But if in order for them to take your hand and sort of walk with you metaphorically, there has to be a huge amount of trust. And it's self-compassion for them because they get to re-parent and re-empower their inner child or their younger self. So it's like ultimate compassion towards that wounded child. And it's beautiful to watch, it's beautiful to see. Someone actually really grasped that child was wounded and that child needs them as their adult self to do that work for them.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 21:08
We're going to approach the nature-nurture subject. Do you think compassion is something that we're born with, or is it something that we learn and grow?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 21:19
Yes and yes. It's certainly something that we're born with. I think children have a natural capacity to connect, to register the emotions of another, and to care about those emotions too. They probably have, first of all, have the capacity for emotion share, which is not quite the same as compassion, but you know, everyone's had the— everyone who's parented has had the experience of— I remember when I cried one day, one of my children would start crying, you know, they're sort of— they share that emotion. That's not compassion, but it's a precursor to it. And so, you know, they have a natural concern for others. So it's definitely inbuilt, but I think it can be either augmented, you know, through our experiences and our training, or it can be squashed. And it's interesting, no one has difficulty with the idea that you could kill someone's compassion. We all know that you could be trained, you could become a child soldier and have your compassion, you know, traumatically squashed and extinguished. You know, we— everyone knows that it's possible to become brutal. Yes. Become cruel. So everyone accepts that, but there's a lot less acceptance of the idea, what about if you could do the reverse? What about if you could create conditions and an inner landscape in which compassion could flourish? And I suppose that's the presupposition of Compassion Cultivation Training, that it is possible to do that. That's probably gonna need to be done in community because we support each other to do that, hence CCP is a small group process. But also, it's gonna need to sort of set up a conceptual landscape and a set of personal resources that are gonna support the amplification of compassion so that it becomes our default mode. We can walk into a room with many intentions. We can walk into a room of people with the intention of looking good, of dressing someone down, of making a bold impression, whatever. Or we can walk into a room with the intention of bringing compassion into that room. So it begins there. And between that and being compassionate, there's a whole lot of things we're doing when we are being compassionate. Whether we're aware of it or not. Sometimes breaking down those things into their various steps and amplifying the underlying sort of capacities that we have to mobilize to be compassionate, breaking them down into their parts. You know, we have to be mindful, we have to have a sense of common humanity, we have to have some courage, we have to have an intention of kindness. All those things we have to do, and we break down the very complex thing that we're doing when we're being compassionate into its parts, we can build up our capacity to end up remaining compassionate or bringing compassion into a situation.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 24:17
Interesting. Petrina, how can we as parents cultivate more compassion in children?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 24:25
I think number 1, 2, and 3 is by being compassionate towards ourselves. I don't think you'd talk about compassion with children, you just have to be it. First of all, modeling is definitely it, but also I think helping them find an emotional language. You know, I said before that I think, you know, I'm not quite sure how I managed to end up being not very self-compassionate, given that I was surrounded by compassion as a child. But I think one of the reasons was I wasn't really taught an emotional language. Yeah. Feelings were not part of the discussion. There was spending, you know, I was brought up in a household that was, you know, kind but emotionally illiterate. And so in the end, what matters to us is our feelings. You know, we value our achievements because how they make us feel. We value our relationships because of how they make us feel. And so if we don't have a language for that very fundamental aspect of our experience, then we don't know how to meet our own needs, and we don't know how to skillfully negotiate or navigate the landscape of other people's deep needs. You know, my children are in many ways so much wiser than I was at their age, because I hope that we have worked to help them develop an emotional language. And my youngest in particular will sometimes tell me off, "Mum, you didn't have to say it that way. You know, that doesn't make me feel good." Right. Yes, okay, yes, I agree, sorry.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 25:53
I think it was probably a sign of our generation, Petrina, wasn't it? Where emotional language just wasn't part of our upbringing. It wasn't normal to discuss how we felt, whereas now we can pass that down to our children. Emotional language, it's a really good point. And how can we cultivate more compassion in our own lives?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 26:16
First of all, we have to want to, perhaps even see the rewards of it. That. Some people think that if you're being rewarded by being compassionate, then it's not real compassion, but I don't agree. I think, wouldn't it be terrible if we were made in such a way that being compassionate made us feel bad? Then no one would ever do it, you know. So we are made in such a way that being compassionate helps us. Actually, there's a— there's a fulpa's fire, there's a reward from being compassionate. Yeah. So yeah, maybe just seeing that is a Good start. I think the answer to your question is huge, but it might start with healing our own trauma. So I think it's difficult to have room for anybody else when we are kind of caught up in our own pain and trauma. So seeking healing for that, I think, is incredibly important. I think it's important to, as I said, have a community, and have a community of people who encourage your compassion, who have a kind of a— what we tend to meet around, and we tend to form communities around, you know, just neighborly proximity or, you know, hobbies or something like that. But, you know, finding a community that actually maybe is interested in compassion and welcomes it and that talks about it and that, that, you know, makes you— makes you feel that your compassion is welcome. And there are various courses, and CCT is one of them, that maybe helps you break it down into its component parts a bit more and helps people understand compassion more to be able to work more skillfully with it.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 27:56
Yeah, you mentioned before about the rewards of compassion, and I remember a long time ago when I studied animal welfare through Monash University, there was research about the rewards of kindness, and it was discovered that if you pet a dog, it's the— it's not only the receiver of the kindness, the dog, or the, um, pater, the giver of kindness, but it's also the observer of kindness also has benefits, has rewards from acts of kindness. It's interesting how it flows from the receiver and giver. And observers.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 28:33
Oh, absolutely. And you know, petting an animal is a very pleasurable experience for most people, but we forget also that feeling of having contributed to someone else's life is an incredibly self-affirming thing. You know, we, we love to be useful. We love— there's something very rewarding to us about being useful. Yes. And it's so— it can— it connects with our sense of meaning, our need to connect with other people. And so, yeah, that's right. We— and of course, it's important to distinguish that though from resonating with suffering, you know. So we don't like to resonate with suffering, suffering in ourselves, but of course even suffering in others is aversive. We don't like looking at it. So part of compassion is developing our ability to be with suffering. And respond. That's the important bit. Not just resonate, not just sit there feeling disempowered and overwhelmed by the scale of suffering in the world, but to be able to be with the discomfort of that and bring something out of ourselves that is loving, that is a response. Even if it's only a wish for the other person's well-being, that's still an empowering thing in terms of our inner experience to do that. And it doesn't always— it might be an action, it might be actually doing something to help that person. But so much of the suffering we witness is remote to us, you know. And so finding a way of actively bringing something out of ourselves is a way of allowing loving kindness to encounter suffering and stay loving.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 30:10
Yeah. And Patrina, later you founded the Center for a Compassionate Society. Can you tell us about the work you do there and your vision for the center.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 30:23
The Center for Compassionate Society is the outgrowth of a small, rather open-minded church in Clifton Hill that I've been a member of for many years, and it is a deliberate and honest attempt to create a space for people who value compassion, no matter what their background and their sort of beliefs. A space people to come together. So our byline is building community around compassion, and we really want the center to be a place where people's natural compassion is fostered, is grown, is given opportunities to express itself in the world. So we run various activities. We run talks, we run courses, we facilitate some activism. We're looking soon at running some events around just friendship, so decreasing loneliness in the world. We, I guess, have a vision for a center where there are no barriers of belief or subscription that you have to overcome before you can belong at this place. We want people to feel that they, that they and their compassion belong. And that we wanted to sort of make compassion a subject that people think about, that people talk about, that people foster in themselves and kind of ripple out to the world.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 31:54
Petrina, you touched on loneliness before, and we've already covered grief. What do you think is the main cause of human suffering at the moment?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 32:06
It is the inability to see each other as we really are. So when I look at you, Natalie, I, I don't— I mean, I— when I'm being conscious, I'm not on an automatic mode, you know. I see a human being who is one expression in this moment of a vast consciousness. You know, I see, I see someone with a whole history, a whole set of sensitivities and strengths, and a miraculous ability to process information and unfold in a very unique way. You know, you are an unfolding being, and you are precious, you know, in your uniqueness and your ability to do so many wonderful things. And when we look at each other in that way, we cannot wish ill on each other, we cannot harm each other. So the word that I use for that is reverence, and reverence is my second favorite word, and I think they're incredibly linked. And reverence also involves an ability to hear each other. So to actually— so if I'm— if I have a— if I have that expanded view of you, for example, then that creates channels, I suppose, or willingness in me to hear your world, because you're a miracle, you're amazing. And so it links with hopefully my ability to deeply listen, to receive what you have to say. So the other part, I suppose, I think of what is a huge cause of suffering in the world is people feeling unheard. You said, talk about loneliness before. What is loneliness apart from not being seen and heard by anyone? Not being, not having anyone gaze at you in a loving way, you know, not have anyone make space for you and your perspectives and the whole richness that you bring into the world. And so I think, you know, as, as, um, Gabor Maté and Judith Richards both say, it's not what we go through that so much damages us, it's going through it alone. And so that feeling alone in what we go through. And so I think, I do think that a huge aspect of our suffering is not connecting at that deep level, not having anyone, or not being able to really deeply listen to one another. If we, if we, if we stopped and deeply listened, so much conflict in the world would be impossible. It would just be unthinkable. So there you go, that's my attempt at an answer to a very big question.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 35:06
And yeah, thanks. Well, you did well. It was a very big question. But Trina, in a previous conversation that you and I have had together, you've shared an activity or an approach where— which encourages very deep and effective listening. Do you share what that is? Was it something that people might want to practice at home in their families, in their personal relationships, but also in the workplace? It's an amazing, effective, powerful technique.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 35:33
It is. I call it reflective listening. It's also been called by others looping for understanding, and it's essentially Very simple. It's a suspension of the normal rules of conversation, which are present. We have rules. You know, we don't always know that we have rules, but there are rules. So when you're having a conversation, the normal rules are: I speak, you listen until you get very excited, and then you maybe interrupt me and say what you want to say. That's the normal rules of conversation, and they work in social settings, but they don't work in settings where people's emotions are wound up. And when they're triggered.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 36:11
Yeah.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 36:11
Then people just— it becomes an argument. People interrupt, they don't listen. They're— when you're speaking, I'm thinking about what I want to say next. I'm not really listening to you. So this method that I call reflective listening is a bit weird because it suspends those normal rules and puts some mutually agreed rules in place that are different from normal. And the mutually agreed part is important because It does have to be something that both people do and agree to do, because they know that they're gonna— they are having or they're going to have a conversation about something that's a bit triggering for someone in the conversation. So the rules are this, they're very simple. You speak, I listen until you're finished for now. When you say you're finished for now, I summarize back to you, to your satisfaction, what you've just said. To your satisfaction is important. So, if you don't agree with my summary or you think that I've missed something important, you get to say, to clarify what you said, and I still have to summarise back to you until you're happy with my summary, that I've got the gist of it. Not that I've repeated it back in so many words, but that I've got the gist of it without adding anything of my own or without commenting. And then when that exchange is completed, now becomes my turn to speak. And same, same thing on repeat. I speak, you listen in silence. When I've finished, for now, you summarize back to me, to myself, that is, back from what I just said. The strength of this is that while you're speaking, instead of thinking about what I'm going to say next, I have to listen to you enough to be able to summarize back to you what you just said. So it's— it actually forces empathy on me. It requires me to stand in an empathic relationship to what you're saying, even maybe reluctantly. It might even be, I don't want to do that, but something about the method encourages me to do that. And secondly, when I say— when I summarize to you what you've just said and you agree with my summary, something in you relaxes because you go, oh, finally she's listened to me, she's heard me. You feel heard, and that's profoundly calming to feel heard. And so Little by little, as the conversation goes on and people come to say everything that they need to say, little by little, the temperature of that conversation gets wound down and people actually can listen. So I've used that in my personal life, I've used that in mediation settings. Another good thing about it is it's simple. You don't have to go and do a course to become a mediator. Or to, you know, in Nonviolent Communication, much as I love Nonviolent Communication, it's very simple, the words are there, they take up half a page to explain that method. And as long as you agree to stick to those rules and you do stick to them, it's highly effective. It may be good to have a third person there to just— but all that, they don't have to have great skills to mediate that, they just have to make sure that both people stick to the rules. Sometimes that's helpful when emotions are really high. But most of the time it can just be done between the two people involved.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:23
Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was implemented in schools and children learned that and practiced that from a young age to help their own conflicts, to resolve their own conflicts, but also just as a skill to go into adulthood with?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 39:37
Absolutely. And actually, the center is moving towards collaborating with others to have some public conversations around divisive issues using that method. Um, so we're kind of just working towards that at the moment because listening is such an important part of compassion. We can't be compassionate towards someone who we refuse to hear or are unable to hear because of our own pain. Yes, yes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 40:06
Now, while we're still on the subject of the Center for a Compassionate Society, you have been involved with some advocacy work as well, particularly refugees, climate change. Would you like to tell us a bit about, about those projects?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 40:22
Yes. So the center has been involved for years with a weekly letter writing campaign where we provide text for a team of letter writers to edit and send on to their local MPs and so forth, protesting successive governments treatment of refugees. We also ran the Freedom Cage protest outside the Park Hotel in Melbourne, where 100 or so refugees formerly held for so long in the lead-like conditions of Thor were then incarcerated in a hotel with very little access to light and exercise and no access to the outside world apart from through their phones. So The Park Hotel in Melbourne became a focus for protest, and there were lots of groups, thank goodness, came there and protested. But one of them was us. We ran the Freedom Cage protest. So every Friday we took a human-sized cage there, and various people, some of them celebrities, came along and stood in that cage to symbolize, you know, the cruel incarceration of these people who the Australian government policies had so wounded and made unwell. So that photograph is of Bishop Philip Huggins, who was one of the kind of luminaries who came and sat in the caves for us in order to kind of, you know, display the dilemma of the men inside and hopefully attract media attention. But I guess I love this photograph. He's sitting quietly meditating in the cage while You know, we're walking around taking photographs and so forth, and I think the sign on the front says something about Thich Nhat Hanh. And you know, for me, that's such an image of compassion. At that point, the men were still incarcerated. The government appeared not to be listening, but he's quietly sitting there praying, meditating, just being the calm, the the kindness that he wants to see applied to this whole situation. So for me, it's a very beautiful image, and a man who also lives a very compassionate life in many ways. So yeah, I just wanted to bring that to his epitome, I guess, compassion.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 42:42
Yeah, he's being the change he wants to see in the world.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 42:45
Yes, exactly. That was in leading up to the last election in 2022. So the moment when those men— or the moments, because it was done in waves— when those men were released from the Park Hotel was an incredible moment. But prior to their release, you know, we would— the protesters, the friends of the refugees— would stand on Swanston Street in Carlton here and look up at the windows and just see these people who the world kind of forgot. You know, when Djokovic came there and was briefly incarcerated there because he wouldn't be vaccinated, suddenly the media turned up because there was a person in there. And we felt like saying, there have been people in there for a long time. They just aren't people who have the profile of this one man who came there. Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 43:38
And, Katrina, what is the connection between compassion and climate change? I know climate change is another subject that you're passionate about.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 43:49
That's, you know, for someone who's just turned 60, that's compassion for the next generation. Because by and large, Natalie, you and I won't experience many of the effects of climate change. Some perhaps, but the worst ones, you know, may be visited on our children and grandchildren. So, you know, that's It's absolutely our responsibility, as, you know, people of our generation have benefited from decades of peace on the whole and prosperity, and we've been able to chew up the atmosphere and the climate as much as we want, and it's absolutely now time for those chickens to come home to roost and for us to do our bit to save this world for future generations. So It's kind of an act of imagination, I suppose, which is something that our politicians seem to lack, you know, the imagination past the next 3-year term to say, you know, well, we really— there are more important things than propping up the economy by digging stuff up and spreading it into the atmosphere. You know, we really have other responsibilities. So compassion, the thinking, the sort of public perception of compassion is that compassion is something that's sort of weak and and wishy-washy, but it's absolutely not. Compassion is something that may require us to take a stand, to, you know, to say enough, this is, this is wrong, this is cruel to future generations. And to have that imagination to be able to see that beyond the, you know, the next election cycle. Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 45:30
And this is probably a good segue into the— my next question about animals from climate change, nature, caring for nature and animals. There's a well-known quote by Albert Einstein about our need to extend our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures. What are your thoughts around compassion towards other animals?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 45:53
That it's part of a reverent approach to life and to existence in the natural world, and that it's a reverent approach to another being, you know, that this other being, you know, we all know it of our pets, don't we? We're so mushy about our pets. We look at them and we melt, you know, and we see this being. That's why I say compassion is also an act of imagination, because if we can look at a dog that way, why not a pig? You know, they absolutely have an interiority with a whole set of preferences and intelligences. And perceptions of the world, and, you know, a life that helps them flourish and one that doesn't. And so it's absolutely a reverent approach to look at any other being as a potential kind of an interlocutor, someone who has something to say as well as— just as we do, just that they might not use the same language and has an experience of life, has an interiority. You know, they're not automatons walking around, they're not objects. They're not robots. They are— they have preferences and needs. And so, you know, I think we will look back on our way of farming animals with— one day I hope we will— with intensive farming and caging animals and so forth. Yeah, factory farming. With incredible shame, the way we look back on slavery or human trafficking now. If we do, then it will be that we've had step forward in our consciousness as a human species.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:27
Yeah, thank you. So, Petrina, what does life look like for you now with compassion woven into all aspects of your life?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 47:39
Well, it looks colorful and interesting and—
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:43
Busy?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 47:45
Sorry?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:45
Busy.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 47:47
Busy. Very busy. But that's not because of compassion, that's just because I've always been a driven person. Busy, yes, so, but interesting, you know, I'm, I have connections with so many gorgeous people, and my work in compassion just keeps on bringing me into contact with amazing people. But if you want to know what my life looks like in practical terms, about half of it's spent earning the money for the family to survive, and being a GP, and running a practice, and I love that, and probably the, almost the other half of the time that I am not spending with family is running the centre and, you know, kind of dreaming up or co-dreaming the various activities that we run, and hopefully also mentoring others to find their expression of compassion within the centre's activities. Yeah, great.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 48:39
Katrina, one final question for those in the audience who may be struggling at the moment, perhaps with grief or loneliness. What advice would you like to offer them in relation to the power of compassion?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 48:52
The advice would be that you are a miracle of embodied consciousness. You are a creature with infinite capacity to connect and understand and grow. And your ability to make a difference in other people's lives by reaching out with kindness and compassion is an incredible resource for you as well. So that as you do that, you may find that your own life feels more connected, more purposeful, more meaningful, more roots. Of course, that, you know, that reaching out and helping others or reaching out and connecting with others needs to be balanced with meeting your own needs. Your needs are important as well. But as you connect with others and sort of attach your sense of purpose to something that serves the world, perhaps serves the natural world, or serves the human community, your sense of self will grow and become more robust.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 50:02
Yeah, wonderful. Thank you, Patrina. It's been such a pleasure hosting you on Kintsugi Heroes today. For anyone who wants to find out more about the Center for Compassionate society and about your work, how can they find you?
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 50:18
Yeah, so they can go to our website, which is centerforcompassionatesociety.net, and check us out there, sign up for our mailing list to hear about activities that we're running.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 50:28
Great, thanks for your time, Katrina.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 50:32
You're welcome. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 51:01
If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation.
Dr Petrina Barson (Guest) · 51:13
Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
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