I am particularly delighted to welcome Carole to the blog. She is writing about such an important topic—compassion on the internet. In these polarised times it is so important to take her Netiquette guidelines to heart. Thanks for the post, Carole!
Compassion is a strength that has supported me throughout my life. I have also witnessed the development of compassion help many people in my role as a private practice psychologist.
I think we’d all agree that communicating via the internet has been one of the fastest growing evolutions of the last 20 years. These days there are endless opportunities to communicate online and it can seem like a fast-paced world, difficult to keep up with. No doubt there has to be an effect on our mental health. Our relationship with these communications and how we relate to each other has been something of a personal and professional fascination to me over the years.
Today I will be sharing an online experience that took me to some dark human depths and caused me to wonder ‘where is the compassion?’ in these places. It was hard learning. This has driven me to create some online etiquette (Netiquette) guidelines that I am sharing with you today. I’ll walk you through my story.
Stepping into the Lion’s den
Working solely in private practice has its rewards and difficulties. One of the potential pitfalls can be becoming isolated from other professionals. So, when the opportunity to connect with others became available through social media, I considered it. To be honest I mostly ‘lurked’, watching others post and felt very reticent to get involved. I didn’t think too deeply about why that might be at the time. I found myself drawn in to respond to areas I had experience and knowledge in, feeling a responsibility to share.
One fine day I noticed someone asking a question on one of these social media networks that I had some information on and experience in. I summoned up the courage to post a link on the subject in question in a desire to be helpful – I remember thinking it was a neutral thing to do as I wasn’t directly offering an opinion. Now, it is important to say here there are difficulties with having such a small space to respond in as things may look out of context, AND you do not know what has gone on before in that forum…..these are things I learnt the hard way.
The unforeseen threat
Although I had responded to one person’s information request what happened was an entirely different person responding with an angry tirade of words. They were directed to me personally, questioning my knowledge and professionalism…I had a sense of ‘who do you think you are?’. It felt very threatening and I can share with you I felt absolutely crushed. I did not know who this person was and what sort of influence they might have. Crucially, I did not know who was looking in and struggled to find a way to deal with the situation, in the moment. Nobody posted anything straight away after this – although each of us got (secret) likes. In effect I had experienced a group shaming process, and in my vulnerable state had to decide how or if to respond.
I absolutely agonized over what to do. Ultimately, I decided there was no way I could respond directly or indirectly without entering into the angry, difficult behaviour. Abstaining was hugely difficult in itself as a fragile part of me felt like I was allowing myself to be bullied. In effect I was both trapped by the situation and blocked from responding – a dangerous and compassionless feeling place. This has caused me to wonder whether the speed of our ability to communicate is bypassing the decision-making part of our brain? We could be responding straight from our threat systems. Ironically, I suspect my seemingly (from my end) innocuous posting provoked the other persons threat system.
The power of self-compassion
Now, at this point I’d like to say thank goodness I had been practicing self-compassion for many years. Fortuitously I was already on one of Maureen’s (online) self-compassion courseswhich was hugely helpful in helping gather myself, and help view things from a safer feeling mindset. From this view I applied some compassionate self-correction as opposed to shame-based self-attacking (Professor Paul Gilbert OBE) for my part in entering naively into the online domain ill-prepared.
I wondered how I might respond if this were to every happen again. This was quite a conundrum. I spent some time considering what had happened to compassion in this situation and how important to our well-being kindly, well thought out communications were likely to be. Goodness knows we can think of many examples of difficult, unhelpful and harmful online interactions that go on every day.
Salvaging something from the experience
I decided to move forward by finding a way to contribute positively to these tricky communication spaces. Previously, I had encountered Netiquette (online etiquette) guidelines but they did not cover what I wanted to convey. I really hoped it would be useful to offer an understanding of what might be going on for us as human beings in online places, and why this might be important for our well-being.
Using my experience, I wrote from the heart and a set of compassionately written guidelines emerged. My thinking was that if anyone found themselves in the same impotent situation instead of entering into the communication, they could send a link to these Netiquette Guidelines. And whilst I am not naive enough to think this might also feel inflammatory the other end it would offer an opportunity to respond compassionately and not feel blocked.
These guidelines focus on the realities of being human beings in the online space, which has some significant differences to communicating in other places. There are some very interesting phenomenon that influence these communications such as the Online Disinhibition and Black Hole effects that you can follow if you are intrigued. I bring into view the public shaming opportunities public platforms can bring, as well as the opportunity to use our powers for good. I also encourage PUSHING THE PAUSE BUTTON as we are encouraged to sacrifice sense for speed.
Importantly …I encourage us to remember there is often a human at the other end but crucially remember we are all human! Being courteous and mindful is likely to reap big rewards for our well-being.
FORGIVE OTHERS AND BE COMPASSIONATE WITH YOURSELF
– Remember you are a human too and with the best will in the world we all make mistakes. Mistakes online can feel much bigger, but if we are forgiving and compassionate with others and ourselves, perhaps that will become contagious.
REMEMBER WE ARE ALL HUMAN.
We are not all the same
You may be thinking ‘I wouldn’t be affected like that’, and this is a very interesting point. We are just in the beginnings of understanding what impact communicating via the internet might be having on us in terms of; changes in our brain, conditioning, attention etc. This evolution has potentially been the fastest in history and pushing the pause button to reflect perhaps the wisest thing we can do at this juncture. I have come to wonder how differently we react to online communications in different contexts and one interesting notion is how relevant our attachment styles might be. If you haven’t encountered attachment theory before it is really relevant in how we communicate with other people (and ourselves) and is often explored in compassion-based therapies.
Attachment and its importance in relating to others
From our early experiences we often talk about four styles; Secure, Ambivalent/Anxious, Avoidant and Disorganised (basic explanation). It’s not our fault we find ourselves subject to these styles and it can be helpful to understand how they might impact on our lives.
What is fascinating to me is how these might be acting on us in online communications that have different rules and less non-verbal communications to steer us. I have certainly noticed in my practice how some clients are drawn to continually check for approval in these 24/7 online spaces. It is also difficult to ignore the fact that we can compare ourselves to others at an alarming rate. Other factors are suggested as important such as; having a safe haven, a secure base, proximity maintenance and separation distress.
It is profoundly interesting to wonder how these ideas might be being influenced in the often boundaryless feeling online space of the world wide web.
Reflecting on the learning
My own very strong reaction to this experience has been hugely interesting and I would certainly subscribe to the idea my attachment style has a place to play. An area of concern for me is the idea that compassion might be getting eroded in some online communications. Also, the capacity for group shaming and high levels of self-critical thinking, greater than in other spaces. Perhaps we could view these communications as high challenge in terms of being without the same safety giving non-verbal cues. This in turn might mean we require high self-support to manage them. In my experience self-compassion which encourages courage, distress tolerance, and a sense of safety might well provide balance to this modern-day stress. I sincerely hope my story and subsequent reflections have resonated with you. Please feel free to share the guidelines and I send compassionate best wishes for us all going forward.
Endnote
I would like to leave you today with the words of Tim Berners-Lee (creator of the internet) in his open letter 2019, 30 years after he gifted us the Internet. His message, I believe, is of hope in we can steer the internet as we move forward – as opposed to being steered by it. I’m hoping in a more compassionate direction.
“Against the backdrop of news stories about how the web is misused, it’s understandable that many people feel afraid and unsure if the web is really a force for good. But given how much the web has changed in the past 30 years, it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the web as we know it can’t be changed for the better in the next 30. If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us, we will have failed the web.” (Direct quote)
Gilbert, P. (2010). The Compassionate Mind. Constable: London
Holmes, J. (2014). 2nd Edition. John Bowlby and Attachment Theory (Makers of Modern Psychotherapy). Routledge: Abingdon-on-Thames.
Carole is a counselling psychologist in private practice near Bristol, UK. She provides therapy, supervision, consultation and training both face-to-face and via online means. Carole often combines her research interest area of online relational aspects and compassion orientated approaches to explore some of our every day struggles. Her passion is in sharing understandable insights she hopes will be helpful to us as human beings.
Here is the second of Chris’ two guest posts on Compassion Focused Therapy. This one gives helpful guidance on how to do some of the key practices.
In the first part of this post on compassionate mind training and Compassion Focused Therapy the core concepts were considered. In this second post some of the practices I have found helpful are covered.
Compassionate exercises
The practice of Soothing rhythm breathing
This is considering breathing with a purpose – a compassionate motivation- to both soothe and act as a grounding tool, either at times of distress or in preparation for other exercises.
As part of our overall nervous system, we have a component called the autonomic nervous system (ANS) looking after many of our automatic bodily functions – heart rate, respiration, digestion – so it regulates our internal environment. It has two main branches – sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). SNS is linked to our threat system, it prepares the flight-fight response. For example, increased heart rate, reduced digestion. It is indicative of psychological arousal.
PNS is linked more to soothing and replenishment, so resting and digesting. It is indicative of psychological relaxation.
Our organs receive input from both, so activity (heart rate) is controlled by the relative levels of PNS and SNS activity.
What the science suggests is that certain behaviours or actions can help engage the PNS. These include body posture, facial expression and breathing, in terms of depth and pace. Given that in our modern lives our threat system can be highly active and so SNS is running on a high state of reactivity, it’s important to consider how we can engage PNS.
Perhaps you can see how this ties in with the idea of using the soothing system to help with threat and drive balance, and one way to facilitate that is through a practice called soothing rhythm breathing.
The practice involves a few elements –
sitting in a relaxed and comfortable manner, focused on breathing but not in an alert state
having a relaxed facial expression, with a gentle smile
focus on breathing – deep breathing, really using all the lung capacity and using a count of 5 on the in and out breath. Recent research has also suggested a pattern of count of 4 on the in and 6 on the out.
The motivation to perform a practice is two fold – one it can help on a daily basis that you take some time out to pause, to nurture your body with moments of rest and secondly its developing a practice that can be called upon at distressing times.
Aside from perhaps creating a routine time to perform the exercise each day, it can also be helpful to pause at times during the day, to take a minute or two and engage in some deeper, regular breathing as part of a commitment to looking after your emotional wellbeing.
And at times of distress or ahead of doing something challenging this practice can be very helpful to help engage the soothing system and support bringing to the fore the compassionate self.
Here are two example guided practices – one from Prof Paul Gilbert and one from Dr James Kirby
The practice of Compassionate imagery
One brilliant skill is that our brain can visualise many things and by doing so can cause us psychological and physiological reactions. This ability to visualise as lead to so many of the great innovations and developments of humans, It allows us to plan, remember and imagine. It can also allow us to ruminate and wonder “what if” which may lead to creating catastrophic events in our minds that never happen.
Compassionate imagery employs this great skill we have with a motivation to provide support and one very helpful practice is the compassionate place.
The compassionate place is an exercise to bring to mind a place which nourishes and replenishes you. This can be a place you know well, somewhere you have visited or perhaps seen on television or social media – or it could be a made up place. Mine is a made up place, although with elements of places I know, of a wooded area. As part of imagining it I use all my senses – to visualise what it looks like, to sense the movement of air, to feel the tree bark, to hear the nearby brook, to smell the wood.
The important thing is that this doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s not something to get right. It’s something to help you and the place will be personal and meaningful to you, so don’t be influenced by what you might think you “should” be imagining.
The practice of Compassionate letter writing
As well as the formal compassionate letter writing exercise , I use the techniques and approach when writing in a daily journal as well. Personally writing about emotions, depression and everyday challenges can really help to bring some clarity and engage the compassionate self,, fostering the compassionate wisdom and encouragement I may need .
The key intention behind the writing exercise is to acknowledge our suffering or distress and to help with managing that. That links into the definition of compassion from episode one.
To start it can help to foster the intention and motivation towards the writing by sitting and doing the soothing rhythm breathing exercise. It can also help to pause if something causes you a lot of distress while writing, to revisit that breathing exercise and also the soothing place exercise.
With the motivation and intention in mind, consider what the letter will be about. Its a letter to yourself , no-one else will read it, so have the motivation to be open and honest within it, as challenging as that may be. You write it as a letter, so addressed to yourself. In the first part acknowledge what the issue is, in a way that you might talk to a friend who is struggling. Supportive and understanding.
Then consider what you are feeling and validate it. Acknowledge that this is a difficult time or challenge you are facing. Validate all the feelings you have around this. This may include considering how your threat an or drive systems have played a role. It can be helpful to acknowledge that some of your reactions are part of that evolved way of thinking, so often the reactions are natural.
Really consider what you are responsible for and what you are not responsible for.
Now start to consider what thoughts and actions you could take , being guided from a place of compassion, towards yourself and to any others involved. As part of that reflect on any challenges or barriers that may come up, what could you do if they happen and is there any support you need.
Finally close off with a compassionate commitment to the changes you envisage, to help sustain the actions. So this is an encouraging, coaching commitment towards yourself – no judging or criticising.
The last part is to read, which you can do immediately or leave for a while. Bring your compassionate self to the reading – don’t judge how well you have written, any misspellings or errors. They don’t matter – recognise that you have written with honesty and openness to help address something which is causing you distress.
A free guide to this practice is available from the Compassionate Mind Foundation.
In conclusion
I hope that these posts have provided an overview of the core concepts and some of the exercises from compassionate mind training. Deepening compassion, especially around self-compassion, made a real difference to me…perhaps these posts will inspire you explore compassionate mind training for yourself. Further details about CFT can be found via the Compassionate Mind Foundation
Chris Winson is an author, blog writer and founder of #365daysofcompassion, which is an online community of people sharing thoughts, reflections and information about compassion and well-being.
During his life Chris has managed depression, often hiding it until a major period in 2016 lead him to seek help. That introduced Chris to Compassionate Focused Therapy, which has lead to his focus on how compassion and Compassionate Mind Training can play a supportive role to health and wellbeing.
Chris recently recorded a series of video talks on CFT which can be found here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX-zBQP7u2fRY-riGNGuaDw
Awareness in Action is delighted to publish the first of two blogs from Chris Winson on the subject of Compassion Focused Therapy. Thanks to Chris for this accessible and informative overview of how CFT works. Part 2 of the blog will go into some useful methods.
You can’t miss articles, talks and social media posts advocating how helpful self-compassion can be, it’s running a close second to mindfulness for coverage and promotion.
But what does compassion mean to you ? How can it can help with mental wellbeing ?
I hand’t really thought this until in a therapy room, working through what depression really meant to me. At that stage self-care meant getting through the next hour – self-compassion wasn’t in the room, it wasn’t in the same building as I was.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t a compassionate person. I was towards others, struggled to sometimes accept help from others and any self-encouragement was drowned out by self-criticism. Then I was introduced to Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and things started to change….
A definition of Compassion Focused Therapy
Compassion Focused Therapy was developed by Professor Paul Gilbert. It includes concepts which help to inform and provide insight on some of the psychological behaviours and systems which have evolved and developed to help us, but can sometimes be tricky to manage and can present problems, even though they are trying to help and protect us. It includes practices and exercises which form compassionate mind training.
Within Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) compassion is a seen as a motivation – a motivation to both acknowledge and work with distress , in self and others, with a commitment to address and alleviate if possible.
And that is far from easy.
Some concepts of Compassion Focused Therapy
Emotional systems
Within CFT a three emotional regulatory system model is defined, blending neuroscience, physiological and psychological processes into a very understandable model. The three systems are threat, drive and soothing, often presented with a colour scheme of red, blue and green. This doesn’t mean we have these three parts of our brain, its a conceptual model involving emotions and motivations which have evolved to help us. However in our modern world they sometimes cause issues while trying to look after us.
Threat, the red circle, looks after us, evolved to to be alert to predators and risks to life, with a set of predictive abilities based on a “safer than sorry” approach, which is therefore more negatively focused. However it evolved to be an immediate response for short periods of time, which is not the case often in our lives today. In a world of social comparison and competition the threat system can be on all the time. Without the opportunity to reduce levels or constantly overestimates threats,which may not be real, the threat system can be functioning at a unhealthy level.
Drive is the system that motivates us to seek resources, rewards and pleasure, represented by the colour blue. It includes feedback loops so when we achieve something we get a feeling of pleasure, which can reinforce the behaviour or activity, which an be helpful. However the system can go into overdrive, pushing ourselves too hard, often to meet the requirements of others and how we feel that we are perceived by them. As its a reward based system if we fail to meet the achievements we strive for then we can feel like a failure. This is very true within perfectionist thinking.
Additionally if the rewards are based upon external feedback then we can feel very vulnerable and hurt when somebody doesn’t respond as we expected or if they question or criticise us.
The systems do not work independently , most of the time we feel a mixture, nor are threat or drive are good or bad systems. They are both essential to us and its perhaps better to view them as in terms of having a healthy or unhealthy balance. And what helps them balance is the third system, the soothing system.
And its this green circle that for me embodies compassion.
This is the system that often needs help though, which CMT practices can help with. techniques. We are usually very good at caring for others, usually okay, but not always at receiving care back from others. We are not often great at taking proper care of ourselves. It helps to really bring awareness to what is important to you and for you to focus on, to take the best care you can, even at challenging times when the threat system is very activated.
This is a helpful representation of the three systems via Dr James Kirby
Flows of compassion in Compassion Focused Therapy
In addition to the three systems, three flows are considered – compassion to others, compassion from others and compassion to ourselves.
Showing compassion to others, through help, kindness and caring behaviour comes naturally to many, especially towards those close to us. If you see a family member or friend in distress or needing some help we are likely to offer it – sometimes whether its needed or not and sometimes at a cost to ourselves. But what about to strangers or to people who may not share our views or be different to us? Does compassion become harder towards them. Research would suggest it does. Research also shows that acting and being compassionate towards others can bring positive effects to ourselves and wellbeing.
Receiving compassion from others can sometimes be trickier. How many times do we say “I am fine” and soldier on. We can also be so wrapped up in our busy lives that we don’t notice when someone shows us kindness or interacts with us with warmth. It happens to us all. The reason that being more open to receiving compassion from others, even just a simple random of act of kindness, is important is that it fosters feelings of connection and shared experience, which are helpful to our wellbeing.
Which leaves the third flow – self-compassion. This can be seen as being “soft” on yourself; misunderstood as “oh its okay I will be nice to myself and everything will be fine” or even self-indulgent. Some people fear that without the more critical inner voice they won’t be successful. The truth is that most of us are our worst critic and harshest judge. We will use a tone and language with ourselves that we would not say to another or even say out aloud. But does that help ?
Why are the three flows important? They are important to our wellbeing and its important to consider their balance, similar to the three systems. It is often the case that we have them out of balance, so we may be offering a lot of help and care to others and neglecting our own wellbeing.
The compassionate self
The compassionate self is different to self-compassion, it’s a psychological concept that we have multiple selves – a happy self, a sad self, an anxious self, an angry self, a confident self and so on. Often one self can dominate our thinking, influence our behaviour or actions, in different contexts and on different days. That doesn’t mean we switch from one self to another – just like the three systems concept, we are a blend.
So why focus on the compassionate self ? Because it isn’t one of those that often comes to the fore, especially towards oneself. Part of compassion mind training is to spend some time considering what compassion means to you, how it’s embodied and considering ways in which it can provide deeper help.
It can help to focus onto some attributes that the compassionate self can embody, for example attention, wisdom, a commitment to caring and courage.
All these things take time to deepen and work with, its not easy and sometimes we take a step forward, to then pause and rest before the next step. And that is perfectly fine.
This first part has considered the core concepts of Compassion Focused Therapy and compassionate mind training. The second part will consider some of the exercises and practices which help deepen our compassionate self. Further details about CFT can be found via the Compassionate Mind Foundation
Chris Winson is an author, blog writer and founder of #365daysofcompassion, which is an online community of people sharing thoughts, reflections and information about compassion and well-being.
During his life Chris has managed depression, often hiding it until a major period in 2016 lead him to seek help. That introduced Chris to Compassionate Focused Therapy, which has lead to his focus on how compassion and Compassionate Mind Training can play a supportive role to health and wellbeing.
Chris recently recorded a series of video talks on CFT which can be found here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX-zBQP7u2fRY-riGNGuaDw
When you are pushing your trolley round your local supermarket doing the weekly shop, perhaps compassion is not the main thing on your mind. It’s quite likely that you are focused on finding everything on your list and getting home as soon as you can.
I can sympathise.
However, recently I have been trying to look at my supermarket trips in a different light. It’s been an inspiration to discover the extent to which my local supermarket can inspire compassion.
The abundance of goods from all over the world
I live in Amsterdam. It’s a diverse city and its supermarkets reflect this in their range of goods. I have been playing a kind of game where I choose an item on display. Then I try and trace back how it got to this shelf, in this supermarket, in this city. The results are more impressive than I expected.
Our oranges have lately been coming from Spain—not so far away, you might think. However, once you start the process—the orchard where the oranges are grown, the family who own the orchard, the workers who pick the fruit and their families, the trucks that transport the fruit—all just to get the oranges to Holland. Then there is all the activity that will happen here to get them to the supermarket. There are the advertisers, the marketing experts, the financial people and the distributors. Finally, there are the people who work in the local supermarket loading the shelves.
If you want to take the game to an even more detailed level, you can include the people who make the clothes of all the people involved, who build the vehicles that get them to work, who farm the food they have eaten for breakfast.
In fact, there is no end to the game and that is with just one item. We could move on to soy sauce, or tinned pineapples!
You may be wondering, what has this got to do with compassion?
Isolating ourselves
One of the ways we can respond to stress isby standing our ground and fighting back. When this becomes exhausting, or we have met with a few defeats we tend to withdraw to lick our wounds and if we are not careful this can turn into a kind of self-isolation. When we isolate ourselves the tendency to ruminate on our problems increases. It can be easier to get our challenges out of proportion and to feel things are against us. If we have low social connection, it can be worse for our health than smoking, high blood pressure, or obesity. It can mean we recover more slowly from illness.
Generally speaking, human beings thrive on connection.We need the interaction with other people and the insights that brings. We can learn to regulate our emotions more successfully and increase our self-esteem. In fact, social connection creates a positive feedback loop of social, emotional and physical wellbeing.
Allowing ourselves to feel our connection with others,rather than keeping ourselves separate is an important element of compassion. Using the goods in the supermarket to reach out to hundreds, if not thousands of other people helps to build an awareness of the people who impact our lives. This awareness can open our hearts more and enable us to see the importance of other people’s needs.
Connection and our local supermarket.
It’s all too easy as we hurry to get our shopping done to find people irritating, to judge their behaviour and to form negative opinions of them. Maybe you find small children running around in supermarkets a challenge, or the people who stand for ages with their trolleys parked across the aisle you are trying to negotiate. Personally, it’s easy for me to get annoyed by supermarket staff reloading shelves, with their big packages getting in the way.
I have been focusing lately on one very young man who has recently started working in our local supermarket. He is small, and young looking for his age. He can’t have left school very long ago. When he started, he was clumsy and often in my way and I found myself tutting and sighing. However, as the weeks have passed, he has shown himself to be responsible and hard-working. I see his mates drop by sometimes to tease and distract him, but he won’t have it. He sends them away. I have seen him stretch to get packages of milk for old ladies who cannot reach them and to run after a mother with a toddler in her buggy, who had dropped something and not seen it. He has real pride in what many would see as a low-skill job. It brought home to me that once you make the effort to connect with someone and not just see them as ‘the shelf-stacker’, or the ‘check-out assistant’, a whole different level of connectionopens up that is rewarding and enriching.
It turns out that supermarkets don’t just connect you to all the many people who have brought the goods near enough for you to buy but also to all the people from your neighbourhood who work there and shop there.
Taking time to smile at other people
Did you know that smiling is good for you? It turns out that even just putting your lips into the form of a smile will help to raise your level of wellbeing.
I have started consciously trying to make eye contact with other shoppers and to smile at them. Most of the time I get a great response—a friendly smile back, sometimes even a word or two.
Compassion for me grows in lots of small, accessible ways. It does not come from great aspirations and good intentions alone. It’s all too clear to me that my evolutionary history and social conditioning have helped to create habits that have more to do with protecting my self-interest than reaching out to other people. I like to think that I am chipping away at these habits on a daily basis by training myself to see differently, to be more aware of other people and to recognise the power of a smile.
We have more in common than we think
Once we start to become more aware of other people and to allow them in, it does not take long to see how interdependent we all are. Each time I watch the news and think about the stories that are trending, it comes home to me how, despite our differences, we all want the same basic things. We all want to live happy lives and avoid pain and suffering and yet again and again, we see that happiness is not so easy to find and suffering is inevitable.
In addition, events that happen in seemingly distant places can impact us strongly. Think of a lorry drivers’ strike in France and how that can have ramifications all over Europe, as roads get blocked and supermarket stocks get low. There are an historic number of misplaced people on the planet just now because of war and famine. Think of all the interwoven effects of those people trying to find safety and a new life.
The classical African concept of Ubuntuencapsulates these ideas. Archbishop Desmond Tutusays that Ubuntu refers to the fact that you cannot be human in isolation, that we are all inter-connected.
In Mahayana Buddhismthere is the idea of Indra’s net—an infinite web that holds the universe. At each place where the threads of the web cross there is a jewel, which reflects all the other jewels.
All this points out that simply seeking your own happiness, without taking other people into account is out of step with how the world works. Our own happiness is bound up with the happiness and wellbeing of everyone else. We are all in this together and can only thrive when we act with that understanding. This is how compassion works.
So, we return to our local supermarket, where we can see that, if we pay just a little more attention, we have plenty of opportunities to foster connection and inspire compassion. The people who produce the food we are buying, the staff in the store, our fellow shoppers are all like us in so many ways. Because our actions can affect each other in countless ways, compassion becomes an essential ingredient in how we are together. Developing compassion means coming to respect interdependence and what it shows us about how we live together on this planet.
For many of us, city life is crowded, busy, noisy and full of difficult emotions. We rush to work, along with all the other thousands of hurrying people. There’s traffic to negotiate, or crowded road crossings. All the time we are surrounded by adverts and billboards urging us to buy all kinds of things. There are countless pictures of glamorous models living perfect, wonderful lives that seem very distant from our daily routine. We might be aware of a vague longing for all kinds of things beyond our reach.
At the end of our working day we, have to do it all over again but now everyone is frantic to get home and in even more of a hurry. Perhaps we need to struggle through the supermarket crowds to pick up something for supper before we finally reach home. Even then, we cannot be sure of any peace and quiet. Maybe the neighbours are arguing, or someone across the road is playing loud music. One of my neighbours likes to do his washing late at night and everyone in the building can hear his ancient washing machine pounding away, as we get ready for bed. Once we are in bed, there is no guarantee things will settle down. We have a group of local teenagers who gather in the entrances of apartment buildings across the way and hang out until the small hours.
In the midst of all this our emotions can be pulled this way and that—irritations with things that go wrong, longing for things we cannot have and a vague, uncertain feeling of wanting things to be different. It’s exhausting and certainly adds to our stress.
So, what can we do? Here are three ways that I use to work with my difficult emotions as a city dweller.
1. Pay attention
When there are lots of things going on around you, it is all too easy to get pulled in all sorts of directions that have nothing to do with what you, yourself are doing at the present time. Have you ever walked along a familiar street and when you arrive at your destination, wondered how you got there? If you think about it, our lives are made up of many, many present moments—and it is important for us to notice this.
In 2010 two psychologists at Harvard University carried out some research into how we handle this moment-to-moment awareness. They discovered that for almost half of our waking hours we are thinking about something different to what we are doing, and that this does not make us happy. One of the times when they found most people’s minds were somewhere else was on their commute!
So, how do we pay attention? On a simple level—by trying to be mindful of what we are doing in each moment. If we are in a supermarket, we try to be present to walking up and down the aisles, choosing our goods and going to the checkout. If we find our minds drifting back to something else that happened in the day or anticipating what might happen later—then we just bring our attention back and let it rest.
The best way to learn how to make this part of your life is through meditation.Meditation is a reliable way of coming to know yourself and how you react. It helps us to calm our minds down and to be able to work with them more effectively.
How does this help in working with difficult emotions? It stops us from ruminating on something that might have annoyed us earlier or worrying about something challenging we need to do later. We tend to relive our upsets over and over again, which means that we draw out and exaggerate the emotions that go with them.
2. Don’t go there!
If we have been paying attention as we go through our day, there is more chance that we will notice if a difficult emotion is being triggered by something that is going on. When my neighbour’s washing machine starts up at 11.30pm, and I feel myself getting irritated I have a routine that I go through. I remember that there’s nothing that I can do about it; that he does not mean any harm (he’s actually a very nice guy), and if I get worked up then I won’t be able to sleep anyway. I call it, Don’t Go There!
You can try it anywhere for lots of different situations. You need to be familiar with the kinds of things that easily trigger your difficult emotions. Once you are aware of that, then you catch when a negative emotion is forming in your mind. Then you can look it in the eye and decide not to have anything to do with it.
Someone pushes you out of the way and instead of complaining about it, you just don’t engage. Another driver cuts you up on the dual carriageway—as you are about to curse, you just decide it is not worth it and let it go. Your boss shouts at you and instead of responding, you decide that to fight back will cost you more and get nowhere—so, you Don’t Go There!
3. Try to see things from another person’s point of view
This was brought home to me very strongly when I was out and about in Amsterdam recently. After a long bout of ‘flu, my partner and I were enjoying a trip into town for dinner and a movie. He went ahead to collect the cinema tickets and I made my way to the restaurant.
As someone who has rheumatoid arthritis, when I get tired my walking can get a bit unsteady. I came to a road junction and checked that it was all clear and began to step out into the road, when along the cycle track sped a young man on a scooter, with his girlfriend riding on the back. He saw me at the edge of the pavement and deliberating aimed his scooter towards me, making me wobble uncomfortably. He was delighted with my reaction and made a sort of ‘Ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhh!’ noise which he felt summed up my response.
He sped off laughing loudly, while I teetered on the edge of the pavement feeling a mixture of embarrassment, resentment and shame. It was too late to even think of trying, Don’t Go There! My difficult emotions had been triggered and were already too strong.
For a few moments I could only stand there but then I glanced up and just caught a glimpse of the girlfriend looking back at me. Her expression was concerned and a little embarrassed as well. It helped to bring me back. Instead of feeling abused, and sorry for myself, my attention went to the guy driving the scooter. It was a Saturday afternoon, he had a girl to impress and a chance to show his skill with the bike—after all, he never came near to hitting me.
When we are able to see things from another person’s point of view, even a little bit, it has a transformative effect. Instead of the situation being all about you and your reaction, suddenly there is room to see something about the other person. Much of the time, what we see helps us to feel more understanding. It can even touch our natural sense of warmth and kindness, so that the difficult emotions just fade away.
Awareness in Action is dedicated to building a community of people interested in living a life of meaning and purpose based on sustainable wellbeing. If you would like to join with us, you could make a start by sharing and commenting on the ideas you find in the blogs on these pages. Your story is part of our journey.
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