Don’t let the world change you
Experiencing or witnessing suffering has the ability to change us in one of two ways.
It can make us more compassionate, more accepting, and more courageous versions of ourselves.
Or it can do the opposite, turning us into cynical, hardened, apathetic versions of ourselves. These behaviors are coping mechanisms used to protect ourselves from trauma, which unfortunately have long-term consequences on our health, happiness, and relationships.
When there is so much pain all around, it can feel terrifying to allow yourself to open up to it. Neuroscience studies have shown that, when we observe someone else in pain, it can lead to an empathic experience of pain within ourselves. It hurts our common humanity deeply to see another person suffer, let alone the scale at which we can see it happening around our world.
Empathy connects us, but because it activates our own pain, it can become really hard to be present for the person who is suffering. That’s why we need to use our empathy and transform it into compassion, which is the experience of being moved by another’s pain and taking action towards alleviating it. Embodying compassion gives us both the courage and the capacity to face our collective suffering, and to do something to make it a little bit better.
Here's how to make this shift:
Witness the pain of another
Acknowledge any of your own pain that comes up because of it
Set an intention that you will use this moment to embody compassion
Look for one way to help and offer it to them
With repeated practice, we can return to ourselves as we really are. Because, deep down at your core, you are not cynical, hard, or apathetic. You are loving. You are sensitive. You are connected to other people. You are good. That's who you really are. And when you see that, you can also see other people as they really are, too.
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