What is compassion? It is the feeling you get when you see someone suffering and are moved to help them. Somehow though, the idea of self-compassion has become tarnished as selfishness. However, to show yourself compassion is far from selfish because, if you can, you won’t drain other people by expecting them to make you feel good or, when you’re beating yourself up, blame them for your bad feelings. Learning to throw yourself a bone of self-compassion increases your resilience and stability. When you have that security blanket of self-compassion, you feel as if you can take more risks.

A selfish reason to exercise compassion is that it makes you feel good. When you respond to your own or someone else’s distress, you automatically go into caring mode, which promotes the release of opiates and oxytocin, the bonding hormone, in your brain. Great friendships and relationships are the result of the exchange of these hormones, which create trust, rapport and closeness. Your heart rate goes down, as does your blood pressure and cortisol, leaving you much healthier.

The great thing about humans is that we can learn to cook up those feelings. If you get caught up in the habits of anger and fear, it’s reflected in your neural wiring and you become trapped. In that negative state, it’s impossible to pass or receive oxytocin. Your mirror neurons shut down and you can no longer interpret whether someone is trying to be helpful or critical, cruel or kind, leaving you feeling defensive, paranoid and unsafe.

There’s an expression: “If you’re shot with an arrow, you just pull it out.” It doesn’t help to worry about who shot it, why they shot it or whether they’ll shoot it again. Just take it out.

Many of us, when we feel we’ve been treated unfairly, get an insatiable desire to wreak revenge, hard and fast. Unfortunately, what comes with this urge to let rip is also an insatiable desire to keep churning the story to friends, family and possibly the law courts. Each time we repeat it, we’re increasing the release of toxic chemicals into our bodies that can seriously damage our health. The effect is more damage to you than anyone else. The antidote is compassion.

Compassion comes from the Latin word compati – to suffer with. It doesn’t just mean sending someone a Hallmark card with a baby pig wiping away a tear on the front and, inside, a message saying how sorry you are. That would be filed under “pity” or “patronising”. With compassion, the first step is to feel the pain of another; the second big step is to be motivated to relieve it. It’s the will to act more than just feeling someone else’s pain - to actually do something about it.

If I’m in pain and you just feel my pain, it’s not going to help my situation. How can you possibly help me if you’re in so much pain from my pain? Now I’ll need to help you to cope with my problem. Also, we sometimes jump at the chance to feel someone else’s pain for the wrong reasons; we don’t want to feel our own so we distract ourselves with theirs.

But when being compassionate, there are no rules. Any time you’re moved to do something to help, that’s enough. Even if you don’t do anything but are by someone’s side and stay present in the midst of their agony, that’s enough.

Yet if we don’t learn to be compassionate to ourselves first, we can’t feel compassion for others. A mother has to teach her child to soothe themselves, but she can only do that if she can soothe herself; otherwise, there will be two people drowning. Most people wince when someone talks about self-compassion. We’re so used to whipping ourselves with our own critical thoughts – “I should have … I didn’t…I’m a loser” – that we’re the last people we would throw a bone of kindness to. Some of us treat our pets better than we treat ourselves.

Once we feel unsafe, there’s no more Mr Nice Guy. We become terrified that, if we show any kindness, we’ll be taken advantage of. That’s why, in our culture, being nice isn’t highly rated. Toughness is in vogue and has been for a very long time. This could be why we have a fascination with other people’s misfortunes, why the videos that get a billion hits on YouTube are usually of a baby falling into a chocolate cake or “kitty gets pushed” (my favourite). In truth, we’ve always loved watching other people’s pain, from gladiatorial contests at the Colosseum to the humiliation and shame we see on The X Factor – which isn’t a million miles from a lion eating a slave. At least the slaves didn’t have to sing.

TV reality shows are based on slinging out the loser and cheering as they endure the walk of shame – out of the building, never to be heard of again. (Unless they humiliate themselves in some new way, such as eating a cockroach on reality TV – that usually guarantees a sure-fire come-back.) Compassion doesn’t win many viewers.

We need to learn how to do compassion. It won’t grow by itself in our “every man/woman for himself/herself” world. If we don’t learn it, we’ll go straight back to our more savage, animalistic behaviours. Don’t forget that millions of years ago we evolved from reptiles. ( I’m sorry if there are Mormons reading this, but it’s true.)

I was in Cape Town recently to teach mindfulness to young girls from townships who had been badly abused. As soon as I started, I sensed that they were uneasy and the last thing they wanted to do was observe their thoughts. Mindfulness, in my opinion, isn’t appropriate for severe trauma. When the trauma is resolved, or has eased off, you can try it. Otherwise, it can reopen the wound.

I decided to change tack and asked if any of them had ever had a makeover. They hadn’t, but excitement ricocheted through the room. I came back the next day with my makeup. There they all were, lined up and totally focused, any sign of agitation gone. Here was something that made them feel important, as if they mattered. When I did their lipstick, I’m sure that touching their lips would have normally flipped them out. This was probably the first time someone had touched them without taking advantage of their innocence. They all took selfies and I could tell they didn’t just look but felt beautiful, maybe for the first time. I don’t do a lot of compassion in my life, but this really gave me a hit of happiness. I didn’t realise it was so easy.

How to be Human: The Manual by Ruby Wax is published by Penguin Life. To order a copy for £11.24 (RRP £14.99) go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.