Ambivalent Compassion: Honoring Complex Emotions

When those we dislike or disagree with suffer, it feels complicated. There can be a reflexive sense of validation or numbness. But if we stay with it, something softer can arise: care. I call this jumble ambivalent compassion. And in this divided time, it offers something essential and all too rare: a chance to honor complex emotions in ourselves and others.

Schadenfreude Is Shallow

Schadenfreude, pleasure at another’s pain, is so deep in the cultural lexicon that it has its own song in the Broadway musical "Avenue Q" ("Happiness of the misfortune of others? That IS German!").

It’s almost instinctual to smile when a rival sports team loses a big game or a driver swerves around us impatiently, only to get caught at the red light.

But that shallow emotion is only part of being human. Articles in Harvard Business Review and the journal Emotion show that emotional ambivalence, where we experience both positive and negative feelings, is more the norm than exception.

Source: Jerrin James / Unsplash

This resonates with my experience. At work, when a boss I disliked was passed over for a promotion, I felt relief: Finally, others saw what I saw. But I also can relate to the pain of not getting the job. In relationships, when I hear an ex is still single, I’ve felt some satisfaction: Yes, I am that hard to get over. But there is also tenderness for her longing to start a family. In the news, when a rival like Russia faces setbacks, it’s easy to focus on geopolitics and become numb to the fact that its soldiers have mothers and fathers, too.

Ambivalence in Tragedy

And when tragedy strikes, ambivalent compassion is both most uncomfortable and needed. Given the charged environment, I’m hesitant to address the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but I feel moved to share my experience.

My reaction to his killing doesn’t fit the extremes on social media: It certainly wasn’t Schadenfreude. But it’s not pure compassion, either. I feel disgust at his death and compassion for the pain of his family and supporters. At the same time, I found his rhetoric divisive, unkind, and unhelpful. I also have noticed my mind moving to the practicalities: what this might mean politically, whether it will further inflame division, or somehow temper it.

Naming this ambivalence feels vulnerable. But it’s more honest than pretending I only feel contempt or saintly compassion for him.

Nothing Human Is Alien

Flashes of judgment or thoughts about practicalities don’t make us less human; ignoring them does. As meditation teacher Tara Brach writes in Radical Acceptance, steadiness doesn’t come from exiling uncomfortable feelings but from welcoming them. She often says, "Nothing human is alien to me," as a reminder that complexity and contradiction are in our nature, not something to be ashamed of. She adds a bonus: When we allow that messiness in ourselves, we are more able to hold the complexity in others, too.

What matters is not what we think or feel, but our words and deeds. Ambivalent compassion reminds us that we have a choice in how we respond. We can have mixed feelings and still choose to act from a deeper sense of common humanity and care.

A Practice to Try

One way to slow down with our thoughts and embrace ambivalent compassion is Tara Brach’s RAIN practice:

• Recognize your diverse feelings: blame, dislike, care.
• Allow them to be there, even the uncomfortable, conflicting ones.
• Investigate where you feel that emotion in your body or what that feeling might be pointing toward, like care for others or a recognition of common humanity.
• Nurture with self compassion, remembering that it's OK to have complicated feelings—we all do, if we pay attention long enough.

Choosing Humanity—Ours, Theirs

Earlier this week, a woman who seemed to be struggling with her mental health was yelling at a barista in a local coffee shop, asking for free food. I felt both judgment and compassion. Honoring both made it possible to respond with kindness, rather than self-righteousness.

Ambivalent compassion isn’t about resolving the messiness of being human. It’s a reminder that in our polarized, sound-bite era, we don’t have to. As Walt Whitman said, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

We can disagree with Charlie Kirk and also be devastated at his death and the pain his many supporters are feeling. And in a fractured America, where each of us carries our share of suffering and pain, that ambivalence may be the most important choice we can make.