Toxic Compassion: When “Kindness” Isn’t Kind

There’s a version of kindness that isn’t really kindness at all. It looks like empathy. It feels like support. But it’s actually just avoidance dressed up as virtue.

It’s called toxic compassion. This happens when being “nice” means enabling bad behavior, avoiding hard truths, or draining yourself dry in the name of helping others.

This isn’t the good kind of compassion. It’s the kind that keeps people stuck, creates resentment, and wears you down.

When Helping Hurts

Real kindness isn’t about making people feel better in the moment. It’s about doing what actually helps them long-term, even when that means being honest, setting a boundary, or letting them struggle a little.

Toxic compassion, on the other hand, looks like:

• Covering for someone else’s bad behavior. Making excuses for a friend who always flakes. Letting a teammate under-deliver because “they have a lot going on.” Constantly bailing someone out instead of letting them face the consequences.
• Avoiding hard conversations. Not giving feedback because it might sting. Saying “it’s fine” when it isn’t. Pretending everything’s okay to keep the peace.
• Taking on too much. Picking up the slack for an underperforming coworker. Absorbing everyone’s emotions. Always being the one to fix things.

These things feel like kindness. They feel like support. But they’re not. They’re just a way to avoid discomfort, both yours and theirs.

Nice Isn’t the Same as Kind

Nice is about making people feel good. Kind is about doing what’s good for them.

Sometimes, doing what’s good for someone means telling them something they don’t want to hear.

It means:

• Saying no, even when it feels uncomfortable.
• Letting someone sit with the consequences of their actions.
• Telling a friend they’re self-sabotaging, even if they don’t like it.
• Holding someone accountable instead of lowering the bar for them.

None of that feels nice in the moment. But it’s kind. Because it’s honest. Because it helps. Because it’s what you’d want someone to do for you.

Toxic Compassion Will Burn You Out

Toxic compassion doesn’t just hurt the person you’re trying to help. It hurts you too.

If you keep putting other people’s needs first, ignoring your own boundaries, and absorbing everyone’s problems, guess what happens? You burn out. You get resentful. You start to feel like people take advantage of you.

And that’s not their fault. It’s yours.

You taught them that you’d always be there to fix things. That they didn’t have to take responsibility because you would. That your time and energy didn’t matter as much as theirs.

If you feel exhausted from constantly helping others, ask yourself: Am I actually helping them? Or am I just shielding them (and myself) from short-term discomfort?

Healthy Compassion Has Boundaries

Real compassion means caring without carrying. It means being supportive without enabling. It means helping someone in a way that actually helps them without losing yourself in the process.

Here’s what that looks like:

• Tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. If someone is making a mess of things, pretending otherwise isn’t helping them. Give feedback. Be direct. Trust that they can handle it.
• Let people experience consequences. Struggle isn’t a bad thing. It’s how people learn. Stop swooping in to save people from the results of their choices.
• Say no when you need to. Your time and energy are limited. Set boundaries. Enforce them. Protect yourself from burnout.
• Help in a way that empowers, not enables. Support should make people stronger, not more dependent on you. Ask yourself: Am I helping them grow? Or am I just making things easier for them right now?

The Kindest Thing You Can Do? Be Honest.

This week, a group of students came in for a pitchathon. When they told me their ideas, I responded with either "I don't care" or "So what?" Harsh? Yep. Blunt? Yep. But better than telling them I really liked it and letting them carry on. I knew there was a seed of a great idea, but they had to make people care about it. You have to connect the dots for people because they don’t know what you know.

Toxic compassion would have been nodding along, pretending every idea was amazing, and sending them off thinking they had nailed it. But real kindness means pushing people to do better. It means challenging them to make their ideas stronger. That’s what they needed. That’s what they got.

Toxic compassion is rooted in fear. Fear of conflict. Fear of not being liked. Fear of being the bad person.

But real kindness is rooted in courage.

Courage to be honest. Courage to set boundaries. Courage to let people face hard things instead of rescuing them.

Because in the end, kindness isn’t about making people feel good. It’s about doing what’s good for them.

And that starts with doing what’s good for you too.