Working with Compassion & Kindness

I don’t know about you but this pandemic has me wanting to judge a lot of people. It is hard not to look at people who think differently than you and not want to call them names or judge them harshly. 

Emotions are high for all of us. What is going on in each person’s life is so very different. Some people can sit back and enjoy this time as it provides a sense of freedom and time they didn’t have before. Some people are having to find new and creative ways to balance working from home and homeschooling. Some people are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. Some people are one step away from losing everything. 

While it seems very easy to sit back and judge someone who wants to do things differently than you we have to realize we are all looking at this situation through our own lens. The individual experiences each of us has had color the lens we are looking through. While it is easy to say one person is right and the other is wrong where does that really get us? 

While we are busy arguing about who is right and who is wrong we are missing the opportunity to come together collectively to find solutions to our current problems. Instead of being able to be open enough to see things from other people’s perspective we find ourselves vehemently defending our position. We need to be right so someone else can be wrong. 

In meditation we learn that we have to begin with having compassion for ourselves. Typically, we are our own harshest critic. We judge ourselves for everything. If we cannot find a way to practice kindness and compassion toward ourselves we will not be able to practice it towards others. When we see things in others that we don’t like it is usually a reminder that the same thing lies within us. This is where our work is.

Pema Chodron says, “Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it is important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that we’re discovering. We’re discovering the universe….Everything is equally precious and whole and good, and everyone is equally precious and whole and good. When we regard thoughts and emotions with humor and openness, that’s how we perceive the universe. We’re not just talking about our individual liberation, but how to help the community we live in, how to help our families, our country, and the whole continent, not to mention the world….”

I feel like we have forgotten that at our core we are all the same. We all love, we all feel pain, we all experience fear, we all want to protect our families. I am trying everyday to remember this. When I see someone or something that brings up anger and judgement in me I am trying to remind myself to stay open. I am trying to come from a place of love and compassion rather than hate and anger. 

This may sound silly and simple but it has been helping me. It reminds me that I am far from perfect and that I still have plenty of work to do on myself. My meditation practice continues to be my guide. It helps me to cease struggling against what is and learn to relax with it. This is not an easy task but one that I am willing to commit to every day.

My meditation practice gives me clarity to see who I am each day. It allows me to see my thoughts for what they are and learn not to attach to them. 

I get to choose every day who I want to be. Today I choose to be compassionate and kind.