About this episode

Dr. Diana Hill explores compassion as sensitivity to suffering and a commitment to alleviate it, discussing common blocks to compassionate action and offering a grounding-based compassion practice.

Do you shut down, look away, or push yourself harder when you’re faced with suffering—your own or someone else’s? In this Secret Sangha episode of The Wise Effort Show, Dr. Diana Hill continues the month-long series on the “four immeasurables” by exploring compassion as both sensitivity to suffering and a commitment to alleviate it. Using examples from neuroscience, the Milgram experiments, and personal stories, she unpacks common blocks to compassionate action—like overwhelm, avoidance of difficult feelings, the “just world” bias, deferring to outer authority, and diffusion of responsibility. Diana offers a grounding-based compassion practice to help you stay present, connect with your values and inner authority, take responsibility with care, and build wise action from small moments to bigger conversations, including civil discourse with people you don’t understand. Listen and learn: How compassion includes both sensitivity to suffering and committed action What the Milgram experiments reveal about authority, responsibility, and harm How grounding helps you stay present and act from values and inner authority Share this episode with someone who wants to meet suffering with…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Diana Hill

Topics covered

• compassion
• suffering
• neuroscience
• psychological flexibility
• civil discourse

Keywords

• compassion
• suffering
• Milgram experiments
• grounding practice
• psychological flexibility

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Wise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most

More episodes of The Wise Effort Show

• Hope, Joy, and Are We Going To Be OK? Live in Costa Rica With Doug Abrams · April 20, 2026 · 1h 10m
• Secret Sangha: Annoyance · April 6, 2026 · 11 min
• Bonus Meditation: Annoyance · April 6, 2026 · 22 min
• Secret Sangha: Recovery · March 30, 2026 · 14 min
• Bonus Meditation: Recovery · March 30, 2026 · 24 min
• Secret Sangha: Growth · March 23, 2026 · 16 min

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