Resource Guide
Compassion as Container and Compass: Navigating Nervous System Regulation Through Care
Awake Network Summit, 2025
On this page you’ll find…
A summary of the core content from my presentation
A list of key references if you’d like to go deeper
A free self-assessment tool to reflect on your care and compassion
And a few other helpful extras…
What’s Your Unique Compassion Spark?
Content Summaries
Click the + to view a brief summary of the presentation’s core content.
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What if compassion isn’t just one means to regulate the nervous system, but a broader container and compass that makes all other regulation strategies work better?
Universal Entry Point: Works as an effective starting place for any regulation strategy
Attunement to Key Signals: Enhances real-time attunement to cues (safety, threat, connection)
Motivates Change: Deepens the drive to reduce suffering and engage with other tools
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The Empathy-Compassion Gap: In both empathy for suffering and compassion, empathy for suffering is the starting point, but then there’s divergence that grows as we venture further downstream from the event. We see different patterns of brain activity, regulation, and eventually, meaningful differences in helping behavior. What is it that makes the difference between these two states? As we discussed, it largely comes down to something called proactive emotion generation. For more, see Chpt. 4 of my book, From Self-Care to We-Care.
Care Bypassing: Care bypassing occurs when compassion for ourselves goes down as the amount of others’ suffering we’re empathizing with increases. This devalues our self-compassion in ways that ultimately weaken our capacity to show up fully across our lives. By staying mindful of the social benefits of self-compassion, we are less likely to devalue it in ways that leave us dysregulated. For more, see Chpt. 9 of From Self-Care to We-Care.
The Regulatory Key to Resilience: Recent research in the science of regulation is pointing to the importance of regulatory flexibility – which means having a toolkit of potentially effective strategies, and ability to employ them in context-sensitive and flexible ways. Thus, rather than finding the perfect strategy for any given situation, effective regulation is more about having a variety of different strategies alongside the motivation and flexibility needed to apply them over time. For more, see Troy et al. (2023), “Psychological Resilience.”
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Each of these quotes, which come from therapists with a background in compassion training, can be found in Quaglia et al. (2022), “Caring for You, Me, and Us.”
“It seems really contrary or counterintuitive—but somehow, the more compassionate I can be with a client, the less frustrated I feel, the less likelihood there is of feeling burnt out, or any of those kinds of things. The more I care, the less it affects me.”
“When I'm able to hold compassion for myself and to be with whatever is coming up, there's more space to be with whatever clients are showing up with, and it becomes this loop of compassion”
“A client brought in something that kind of caught me off guard because it was something that was occurring in my personal life. So I was, you know, feeling myself having that compassion towards the client of like, wow, that does sound really difficult, and also then coming back for a second and being like, yeah, this is oddly specific and this is definitely pulling at your own heartstrings. So, like, breathe and it’s okay, and also be with this client.”
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Compassion Spark: We discussed this in the context of being able to self-generate feelings of warmth and care—something that is key to the regulatory benefits of compassion. See Chpt. 4 of From Self-Care to We-Care.
Reverse Self-Care Journaling Activity: This activity involves listing different “self-care” activities, followed by who benefits from each one to encourage reflection on the potential interpersonal and social benefits of caring for oneself. Deepening our understanding of the social benefits of self-compassion is a helpful shift in perspective that can increase one’s motivation to practice self-care not just for oneself, but also for the benefit of others.
Free-Flowing Care: This activity is useful for exploring where our care and compassion naturally want to go. See Chpt. 5 of From Self-Care to We-Care.
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Can I open to others’ suffering without taking it on as my own?
Can I honor and tend to my own suffering—even when it seems small compared to others I’m empathizing with?
Can I fluidly navigate the flow of care—inward, outward, or both/and—as the moment calls for?
The Care Pathways Quiz
Discover your unique Care Pathway in just 10 minutes. This free, science-based assessment reveals your natural strengths in caring for yourself and others while providing personalized insights for deeper, more meaningful care.
From Self-Care to We-Care: The New Science of Mindful Boundaries and Caring from an Undivided Heart
by Jordan Quaglia, PhD + Foreword by Daniel J. Siegel, MD
Learn to harmonize self-care with caring for others through we-care, a science-based approach designed to enhance personal and social well-being, promote healthy boundaries, and offer a path of healing and transformation.
"Combining neuroscience and contemplative practice, Jordan Quaglia offers quantitative backing for the felt experience of our interconnected nature—compassion and care become far more potent when they are extended not only to ourselves but to a broader circle of ‘we.’"
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Life
Too many of us are familiar with the burnout that can come from overextending ourselves for others. Self-care is often promoted as the solution to this imbalance, but there are growing concerns that an overemphasis on self-care is exacerbating interpersonal challenges, fraying the fabric of our communities, and diminishing our responsiveness to broader social issues. In a world where time can feel increasingly scarce, we find ourselves in a dilemma: should we prioritize ourselves or others? Yet as psychologist and compassion scientist Jordan Quaglia demonstrates, this choice is based on a false dichotomy. The emerging science and practice of we-care reframes the very concept of care as a social force that includes both self and other.
Through personal stories, guided inquiries, practical social exercises, and insights from cutting-edge neuroscience, Quaglia offers a framework and toolset designed to help you find a more balanced way to express your innate sense of compassion. This holistic approach sparks transformative changes across your health, relationships, and work—uplifting yourself and others while supporting a stronger, more connected society for us all.
Your purchase includes a free companion ebook — The Reverse Practice Series. Simply order the book, then click here to enter your information.
Take a Look Inside From Self-Care to We-Care
Key References
Presentation & Book
Quaglia, J. T. (2025, October). Compassion as container and compass: Navigating nervous system regulation through care. Awake Network: Nervous System in Therapy, Online Summit.
Quaglia, J. T. (2025). From self-care to we-care: The new science of mindful boundaries and caring from an undivided heart. Shambhala.
Quaglia, J. T. (2025, October). What is nervous system regulation? Bridging neuroscience and practice. Awake Network: Nervous System in Therapy, Online Summit.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Ashar, Y. K., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Dimidjian, S., & Wager, T. D. (2017). Empathic care and distress: predictive brain markers and dissociable brain systems. Neuron, 94(6), 1263-1273.
Batson, C. D., Lishner, D. A., Cook, J., & Sawyer, S. (2005). Similarity and nurturance: Two possible sources of empathy for strangers. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27(1), 15-25.
Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2014). Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(6), 873-879.
Quaglia, J. T., Leigh, D., Berry, D., & Simmer-Brown, J. (2025). Dualism and beyond: A unified framework for self- and other-oriented compassion. Theory & Psychology.
Quaglia, J. T., Cigrand, C., Sallmann, H. (2021). Caring for you, me, and us: The lived experience of compassion in counselors. Psychotherapy.
Quaglia, J. T., Soisson, A., Simmer-Brown, J. (2020). Compassion for self versus other: A critical review of compassion training research. Journal of Positive Psychology.
Singer, T., & Klimecki, O. M. (2014). Empathy and compassion. Current Biology, 24(18), R875-R878.
Steinnes, K. K., Blomster, J. K., Seibt, B., Zickfeld, J. H., & Fiske, A. P. (2019). Too cute for words: Cuteness evokes the heartwarming emotion of kama muta. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 387.
Troy, A. S., Willroth, E. C., Shallcross, A. J., Giuliani, N. R., Gross, J. J., & Mauss, I. B. (2023). Psychological resilience: an affect-regulation framework. Annual Review of Psychology, 74(1), 547-576.
Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., & White, T. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5.