“There are practices you can do to help you develop more empathy and compassion. One is called, ‘Just Like Me’, which helps you see that you and others are the same. Say you’re in a traffic jam. You look around at all the other drivers and think, ‘Just like me they don’t like to be in this traffic jam. Just like me they’re fuming and fussing.’
Or you’re wal
king along the street and there’s someone sitting on a sidewalk who is very distressed. You think, ‘Just like me they want to be happy. Just like me, they want to have some comfort in their life.’ You see your sameness.
For me, the main thing is experiencing what you experience fully and completely—not running away, not trying to avoid it. Let’s use the example of feeling ashamed of yourself. (Just in little bites, so it’s not too traumatizing)…
Experience the horribleness of feeling there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. Then when you see somebody else doing something they’re ashamed of, you can really empathize with them because you’ve been there.
When things are happy and comfortable in your own life, think of others and wish for them to have the same positive experiences.
And when things are painful or sorrowful for you, also think of others and wish for them to be free of those negative things.
Let everything that happens to you connect you with other people. With both joy and difficulty, we usually tend to go inward.
This is the opposite—we go out.”
Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, LionsRoar.com.
