Goal

Learning to be present with the person in an authentic loving way

 

Why?

When you have negative thoughts about the behavior of a person, for instance when you lose your patience because a person isn’t listening to you, these thoughts and emotions block your loving feelings towards the person.

 

Practice

  • Sit in a place where you can see the person you want to ‘use’ in this practice; he doesn’t have to know. If the person is not around, you can imagine in your mind that he is with you and sitting in front of you.
  • Try to imagine a situation that is very troublesome for the person and where he doesn’t feel happy and needs your support. Use all your empathy to feel how he might feel.
  • Now imagine that you want to help the person and speak out the wish that by your help, he will feel better and happy. Keep this thought for a while.
  • End this practice by going with your attention to yourself and honor yourself that it was good to help this person, and that you can be proud of doing so.

Note: this practice is a short version of a compassion-practice from Buddhism. If you follow this link, you can do the whole practice.

 

Application in daily life

You can frequently do the essence of this practice throughout the day. Every time when you see that somebody has a hard time, you can intentionally try to feel how he feels and (if you are not able to really help him) in your mind offer your help and hope that this will make him feel better.

Contactform

contact