Foster
Understanding And Kindness
I want you to do a
simple exercise: close your eyes and think about an issue affecting you that
few people know about. Consider the situation carefully and feel the emotions
associated with it. Perhaps you feel sadness, anger or anxiety? Let's take it a
step further: think of someone close to you experiencing something similar. It
might be a parent, a sibling, a relative or close friend. Try to get a sense of
their pain and suffering. As you do this, move into your heart and feel
compassion for them. Now, open your eyes and sit with the feelings you
experienced. How do you feel? Did you experience a sense of oneness with the
other person? A shared humility for life? The aim of this exercise is to
understand that your suffering is the same as many other people endure.
We all face battles
few people know little or nothing about. We all carrying a heavy burden in some
form or another. Some carry it in the form of psychological pain while others
carry emotional and physical pain. Some wounds are visible, while other are
less noticeable. However, this does not subtract from the burden they endure
daily. Therefore, we ought to be more compassionate with one another instead of
giving people a piece of our mind. Life is not always smooth sailing and there
are times when we are not our best. Someone may ignite our pain and we admonish
them to remind them of our hurt. But let me say: that person too also carries a
hurt of a different kind. Therefore, retaliating when you are in pain does
little to heal each other and the world by and large.
Does this makes
sense? I hope it is clear people seldom aim to hurt us maliciously. There is
often a deep wound they are responding to, so we ought to be compassionate with
them before responding in anger or haste. I'm not suggesting you become a door
mat for others to walk over. But fighting fire with fire does little to foster
understanding and kindness. It seems people are kinder to their pet animals
than they are with themselves. I've coached hundreds of people over the years
with inner conflicts who hold high expectations of themselves. When they fall
short, they chastise themselves because they did not live up to the image of
who they ought to be. When asked whether they treat their pet animals in the
same way, they are loathed to contemplate it. Yet they treat themselves as
second-rate citizens. Can you see the folly in this way of thinking?
We Are All Fragile
In Those Tender Places
If we are unkind to
ourselves because of a volatile inner critic, it is likely to show up in our
interaction with others. But going to war with ourselves does little to heal
our emotional wounds and we become that person that finds faults in others. Do
you know these types of people I'm referring to? It seems nothing is good
enough for them and they believe the world is a dangerous and unpredictable
place. They like to tune in to news events and remind you how harsh the world
is. But this only a perception based on their subjective reality. Because for
every bad news event there are people who are living passionate lives. There
are people waking up grateful to be alive and surrounded by loved ones. There
are people in third world countries happy to earn a basic living and serve
their family and community.
The opposite of
everything we believe is wrong with the world exists out there. We just haven't
attuned our awareness to it. If you were to travel the world for twelve months
in search of positive experiences, it would change your life. What we give our
attention to becomes our perception and model of reality. The reason we
experience conflict with others, is because they have a different model of
reality to ours. Therefore, we try to convince them our model is superior to
theirs and conflict ensues. What if we were to agree there are multiple
realities coexisting, based on our level of awareness? That is to say: the more
you grow and develop, the greater your perception becomes. It is why people
with an enhanced self-esteem rarely find fault in others because they know we
are all fragile in those tender places. Highlighting another person's
weaknesses does little to strengthen our own character.
Are you beginning
to get a sense that your perception creates the canvas of your life and
interaction with others? Can you see that being in conflict with yourself means
finding something to disagree with in another person? Can you also see that
healing and transforming your wounds foremost is the basis for purposeful living?
Knowing that everyone carries a heavy burden, reminds us to tend to our own
needs first before we castigate them. With that in mind, I'd like you to give
some thought to how you can be more compassionate in your interactions with
those who offend you? You needn't agree with everyone and those who are
disagreeable can teach us something about ourselves. It doesn't mean we need to
go to war with them. We can still be civil and disagree on our outlook because
we recognise our shared humanity. It is when we learn to heal and transform our
pain that we view every interaction as a sacred space of healing and
self-transformation.
