2024 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute: Awakening Compassion in Times of Division

In 2024, I was selected to attend the Mind and Life Institute Summer Research Institute as an Emerging Leader. While at the Institute, I learned about the science of compassion and engaged with research highlighting the transformative power of compassion in action.

Kayla is pictured in between sessions on June 5th.

Compassion in action is a powerful, world-changing force. In the public service field, there is a great opportunity for us to cultivate and harness compassion and care as tools for social change. As speaker, Dr. Liz Grant shared, “compassion fills the space between” and can create bridges of understanding across sectors grounded in the common language of care. Dr. Sarà King reminded attendees of the importance of grounding work in and actively sharing our “why.” Awakening compassion requires relational work and investment, which is time-intensive, but the outcomes create space for holding the “both/and” in a growingly polarized world.