Laura Banks

For as long as I can remember, I have paid attention to the beauty and complexity of life. Along the way, I have learned that while there are as many ways to live a good life as there are people, no one gets to opt out of pain, disappointment, or sorrow. No amount of health, wealth, power, or even happiness and love can protect us from suffering. But I have also been astonished to observe that somehow love is still protective - even across space and time. Compassion - one of the many flavors of love - can heal and transform even the most difficult experiences, revealing what is most meaningful and enduring in life. I treasure these stories and delight in telling them.

Where This Began

A childhood crash on new roller skates was infused with compassion. A neighbor who lived at the bottom of the hill saw me fall and carried me home. My parents took me to the hospital and stayed with me. A skilled doctor stitched up the wounded knee. My body transformed the bleeding gash into a scarab-shaped scar. I observed how people responded and remembered having seen compassion's fingerprints in other places. But I also knew its absence and already understood that compassion was just one of many responses to suffering, and that sometimes the lack of response, anger, or overwhelm was worse than the original hurt. I was intensely curious about what made the difference.

What I Kept Noticing

I studied literature, languages, folklore, and philosophy to explore expressions of human experience across time. I traveled around the world to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch life in its countless forms. Joys and sorrows, life and death crossed my path. I saw how fear, anger, and blame could complicate and magnify pain, even as I witnessed others find connection, healing, and wisdom as they chose kindness, patience, and our shared humanity.

Opening Doors

Over ten years ago, I worked with a grief counselor during an intense period of medical challenges, and in our last session together, she asked, "What's next?" I knew that I wanted to find a way to share what had helped me navigate those difficult months. Over the course of my life, I had cobbled together stories and practices that sustained and guided me, but I wasn't sure what it would look like to make something out of them. Soon afterward, I learned about Compassion Cultivation Training^© (CCT^™) and was able to take the 8-week course through Inova Fairfax's Life With Cancer in the spring of 2017.

As the class progressed, I knew that I had found the next step in my journey. Not only did CCT contain many of the gems I had gathered across a lifetime, but the course was sequenced in a way that mirrored the naturally unfolding of compassion. As I participated, I felt the experiences of the previous year integrate into my body and life with more ease. I applied and was accepted to participate in that year's CCT teacher training cohort, and completed my practicum in 2018 becoming dual-certified as a CCT instructor by Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) and Compassion Institute. I have since taught the full 16-hour course 20+ times and have offered hundreds of other talks, classes, and workshops grounded in the neurobiology of compassion.

I created Living Compassion, LLC in 2019 to support my work in teaching and sharing compassion practices. I began as a microbusiness and choose to stay deliberately small. I don't have a social media presence; almost all of my work comes from word-of-mouth recommendations. In a world focused on influence at scale, I focus on micromoments of real connection - one class at a time, one workshop at a time, one conversation at a time, one person at a time. One of my core personal and professional values is beautifully expressed by Rachel Naomi Remen, "It’s not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It’s about healing the world that touches you, that’s around you."

My Work Now

Currently, I teach CCT a few times each year and offer workshops on request for various audiences. I mentor individuals who would like to incorporate compassion practices and perspectives into their personal and professional lives. I consult with organizations looking to create custom programs for their teams. Each conversation shapes who I am and my work. I developed one of my favorite practices, The Art of Compassion^™, at the height of the pandemic in response to the request of a friend for her online studio. As the world opened back up, the studio closed but I kept on offering and refining The Art of Compassion, and am delighted to offer it now as a free drop-in class to a global community.

What began as curiosity and observation as a child has become my life's work. I love it and look forward to seeing how it evolves over time. While life is hard and we can be a messy, violent, and tragic species, that is not the whole story. Life is also full of goodness and we are wired for compassion. It is an innate capacity and something we can deliberately cultivate and train. Each of us is descended from people who survived the unsurvivable and chose to keep living and loving. They chose to take care of others and let others take care of them, building communities of connection and care. And so can we. This reality lives inside each of us - including you. What is your compassion story?