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Transcript

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Tania: I am Remembering all the times that I did not act with compassion and wholeheartedness, the exceptions to that, come sort of barreling forth in my memory. 

I am not perfected in this practice, but the times when I have fallen short of my aspirations stand out to me in a way that. At least it’s not my default, at least my default is not, uh, the, the falling short.

but I’m, but I’m very aware of those times. And so I think also, you know about all those other people who, you know, when I see their aggression, I think, well, you know, is that the way they always are?

Pema: Welcome to Ready To Be Strong,

Tania: I am Tania Israel.

Pema: And I’m Pema Rocker.

Tania: Together we’re broadening our minds, opening our hearts.

Pema: and strengthening connections in a politically charged election season and beyond.

Tania: In this episode, we’re talking about empathy, compassion, and opening our hearts.

Pema: that sounds really timely.

Tania: So in the last episode we talked about trying to understand where people are coming from, from another experience or view. Now we’re getting into that. What does it feel like to be in another person’s shoes? And what we know is that perspective taking can be a door that when we open it up, it can help us to feel into that. 

Pema: What a great bridge from mind to heart.

Tania: Yeah, there, there was this really interesting study where they had people canvassing, you know, knocking on people’s doors and there was a bill about transgender rights on the ballot, and, you know, when you knock on somebody’s door, you can just tell them all about the bill and do all of that.

But if instead what they did was to say, you know, here’s, like, listen to this experience of this person and try to think of a situation that felt similar for you. So they really did that perspective taking thing. Put yourself in this person’s position then, those people really shifted their attitudes towards transgender people, really opened their hearts and felt more into what it was like from that person’s experience. 

It seems remarkable that there can be such a big shift and a lasting one on such an entrenched issue for some folks.

Tania: I think it just speaks to the power of these tools that we’re talking about, that they really can make a difference in terms of how we view other people who we see as really different from ourselves. 

Pema: let’s get into it. So we are talking about being ready to be strong.

You know, we are learning about developing our strength and recognizing our limitations, and today we’re gonna talk about cultivating compassion. And I’m noticing that those are all great ideas and compassion is a wonderful thing I’m looking forward to having a conversation about today.

But I’m sad today because the goings on in the world feel overwhelming and I think that, um, folks who pay attention to the news, even once a day, are probably feeling overwhelmed too.

Tania: Yeah.

Pema: I’ve realized that I can’t ever lead with opening your heart when I’m doing this work with people because people say, oh, like I don’t wanna open my heart to neo-Nazis or to white supremacists. You know, they’re thinking about these very extreme examples and I’ve realized, you know, opening your heart is a chapter.

Tania: Seven in my book because there’s a lot of foundation that we need to lay before we are ready to open our hearts. We have to turn down the volume on that polarization and we need to strengthen ourselves to be able to deal with the challenges. And maybe we need to broaden our minds first before we’re ready to say, okay.

Pema: Um, there is something useful not only to the cause, but even to myself to have an open heart. That’s a way that I wanna go about being in the world. And it’s not about fairness. It’s not about, are they gonna open their hearts too? It’s because there’s something that I want to be and do in the world with an open heart. I feel that, I feel that over and over again, usually at the bottom of my well, and then realize it’s time to come up from the bottom of the well of feeling. Now, and that actually makes me think of the generative nature of compassion that you talk about. Um, it gives me hope that compassion can be cultivated, empathy can be generated.

And so if I am beat down by brutality, that is happening every day in the news, especially when it feels like setbacks. I just keep thinking, why do I wanna open my heart to that? And then I think maybe I can open my heart in smaller measures, smaller bites. Can I go talk to my nieces and just focus on the room in our, kind of as we’re relating?

Um, can I feel my heart opening with my, my pet, you know, or my neighbor’s dog. Um, so yeah, I’m, I’m feeling, um, challenged by how brutality feels like it’s increasing in the world right now. And it’s, it’s in the news constantly.and. I’m heartened by what you posit in practice and the generativity of being able to cultivate empathy and compassion.

Tania: You know, the way you describe it is exactly how we should go about it. You know, we shouldn’t start by trying to develop compassion toward people who feel abhorrent to us. We should start by opening our hearts to ourselves, to people who we already have a feeling of warmth with. And then to people who are maybe more neutral people out there in the world, we don’t have a particular, um, aversion to or attraction to.

And then we’re ready to do this with people who we have a very strong, um, reaction against. And the practice that I describe, uh, in the chapter, and actually it’s also available on my website, will make sure we include the link in the bio. The guided visualization really goes through those different steps so that. We build on a foundation that we have, and we do this in a time and space where we are practicing it when we’re not necessarily in the middle of the fire. We practice it at times when, you know, ideally we can do it on a regular basis, so that then when we find ourselves hearing something or experiencing something that makes it really hard for us to keep our hearts open, we have a foundation of practice to draw on.

Pema: You asked me, I think, something like, what’s the benefit of your heart being closed? And so I wanna ask you, what’s the benefit of my heart being opened? What’s the benefit of others’ hearts being opened or open, especially in being ready to be strong here.

Tania: Sure. That’s a great question. For me, having my heart open, uh, it, it pairs with that broadening of the mind because the broadening of the mind, the perspective taking and the intellectual humility on a cognitive level sort of puts me in a place where I can acknowledge that there’s a way of viewing things that’s different from the way I’m viewing it.

It actually, you know, in the research supports this, that, that opening the mind sort of gives a pathway. To open the heart, and if I am not only sort of acknowledging on a, on a brain level that there’s another way of viewing things, but I’m actually feeling into that, it’s a, it’s a more wholehearted experience of humanizing other people rather than demonizing them.

I know that it’s easier to do violence against other people, to dismiss other people. The brutality that you’re talking about is easier to implement when our hearts are closed. And so I don’t wanna develop that as a habit for myself, and that then means opening my heart toward people Who are causing brutality and thinking, oh my gosh, how terrible must it be to be a person who is carrying out those acts, maybe as, you know, part of their job or because they are motivated by anger or by their own vulnerability. And I think that puts me in a better position in the world to engage fully in my own life and in my own relationships and in my work, uh, taking all of the nuanced. characters and situations into account, and I think that leads me to act more wisely.

Pema: I think of self-care. When I think about your response to, to opening your heart and the benefits of it, I think, my gosh, are we so, bullied and aggressed by now that. Self care is, self care is the way to, you know, start personally, start small and then that grows into finding, caring for each other and that finds its way into policy and politics and relating on a broader scale as well as on a one-to-one scale. I think the reason that I prefer to keep my heart open is about integrity and the root of the word integrity is it’s about wholeness. It’s about being whole, and when I am harboring negative feelings toward other people, it chips away at that wholeness that I feel inside that I feel better and I prefer that way of moving through the world. I hear that and I automatically think, well, that is a no brainer. I want to experience people in their full humanity. And then I immediately remember when I’m out in a crowd, like a really big crowd, let’s say, and people are trying to get where they’re going.

People are cutting in line or people are talking really loud on the phone right in the middle of, um, other people talking all around them, I think, okay, humanity is, is present today. I’m in the middle of a lot of humanity right now. I wonder what I’m doing that’s annoying people, you know? So I remember with that, that humanity is all the slices, 

Tania: So there’s this study about empathy and they gave people, the researchers, gave people this scenario. Um, there’s a speaker on campus who says really inflammatory things about people in the other party, and the room is packed full of people. There are all these people who are attending, uh, the, the talk.

And then there’s also all these people protesting it. And the protesters were really riled up and they managed to shut down the speaker, but not before one of the protesters accidentally waxed one of the attendees in the head with a sign. So the researchers set up the scenario and then they asked the participants questions like, what do you think about the situation?

Was it good that the speaker got shut down because they’re, you know, fomenting hate? Or is it bad because it’s a violation of free speech? How do you feel about this person who got whacked in the head? Is it like, oh, they’re just one of the followers of this hateful person? Or is it like, oh no, this poor person with the head injury and. The reactions that people have depend on two things. One is sort of obviously like whether or not the speaker is on your side of the political spectrum or on the other side, but that only makes a difference in combination with empathy, with how empathic a person you are and if you are an empathic person, you feel really protective of the people on your own side.

So if that person in the audience is on your side, you’re like, oh no, we have to, you know, get them to the hospital. But if that person is on the other side, you’re like, yeah, whatevs, you know, that you just, you don’t have that, um, that caring feeling toward them. And the same thing about, you know, you actually want to censor the speaker if you feel empath and that speaker is on the other side. What this says is that in a polarized situation, empathy can be even more divisive because if you are an empathic person, you are really aware of the harm that’s being done to your people by those hostile, aggressive people, you know, as you perceive them on the other side.

And so it further divides. And when I saw this study, I thought, this is amazing because this helps me to understand. How there are all these tenderhearted people who are so, really uncaring about the people on the other side who, you know, think, oh, well if you died of Covid and but you didn’t get a vaccine, then you know you deserve it.

And I’m like, oh my gosh, how can we be feeling that way about other people? But it helps to make sense of that sort of lopsided empathy.

Pema: So, you know, it was interesting to me to imagine that I have feelings. The other side doesn’t have feelings, and you’re saying the other side has a lot of feelings. They’re just directed toward their side, and mine is directed toward my side when I’m in the full throat of it. Meanwhile, I can feel like, well,this person doesn’t care if I die or if I lose, or if I have feelings like they do. That’s happening also, as I’m hearing you talk.

Tania: Right. And you know, there’s, um, there’s a practice that, um, Pema Chödrön uh, describes, uh, in, in a book just like me and where we think, oh, this person just like me. Uh, I want to feel safe and comfortable. They get frustrated. They don’t wanna be dismissed, you know, where we can recognize the connection, the similarities between ourselves and other people.

And what I hear you saying is, yeah, but they’re not just like me because I care about, um, my own wellbeing, but I don’t think they care about my wellbeing. So they’re not just like me. So they’re, they’re in this other group. They’re my adversary in a way. Is that how you’re feeling about it?

Pema: I would say I care about their wellbeing. I care that they survive. I care that they love their family. I care that they can easily vote at the polls. I care that they can marry who they want. I care that they can take care of their health in their, um, their ways, ways they deem most appropriate. But I feel they are that great big, they don’t care if I lose out.

I translate into the, they don’t have feelings.

Tania: And what makes you assume that

Pema: There’s somebody in my community on social media who says really mean and vitriolic things. She is a churchgoing woman. She has a really tight family. Part of her family is in law enforcement. And, um, I perceive the threat in that family member’s life. I have feelings for him as he goes out into his day. I also see her posting vitriolic things about my LGBT community, about my community’s reproductive rights or my gender’s reproductive rights, like, um, and I default to thinking, wow, she just does not care. She doesn’t care about me. And so I listen and I’m learning, and I think, no, no, no. That’s just a default switch to say, well, you must not care about me.

Tania: You have feelings for your side, but you must cancel out your feelings when you think about people’s welfare on the other side. Yeah. When we see that vitriol, then it feels like, well, they don’t care about us. Um, I think sometimes what is it that they are caring about and what is it that’s making them feel like in order to care about that thing, they have to make us the enemy? Because I see a lot of people on my own side of the political spectrum.

I’ll say on our own side, ’cause you know, we, we stand in similar places there, um, who say really vitriolic things about people on the other side. But I know that they’re saying that in ways of wanting to protect, you know, like we, we always feel like we’re, we’re trying to protect people who are vulnerable.

And the way that we’re doing that is by, you know, calling out the hate on the other side. But I’m sure that if I am on the other side and I am receiving those messages, I do not feel like, uh, like that’s coming from a place of caring.

Pema: Do you think that people can feel our open hearts? So I’m thinking about this community member who I see. Usually every election season on social media and, um, how I feel like, wow, I can’t even respond because when I have, I just feel shut down and I see the, I kind of have the default, oh, you don’t care about me or anything that I have to say, no matter how open my heart is when I say it. Do you think that as I practice compassion and empathy in the ways that you’ll share with us, do you think that people feel that, like, or do you think that they receive a benefit somehow? From my open heart?

Tania: When I started practicing Buddhism, the guided imagery that I share in facing the fracture is, Based on, uh, Sharon Salzberg’s loving kindness meditation that I learned from listening to it on, uh, cassette tape that I would play over and over and over again. And then when I moved to Santa Barbara, I started attending Sunday morning practice at a dharma center at a Buddhist center.

And that practice was one of compassion. And so every Sunday morning, I would spend an hour doing a visualization and chanting a Tibetan, um, uh, where it was really about fostering a feeling of compassion toward all other beings. And I didn’t talk a lot about it at the time. I was really trying to do some internal work and trying not to, just do it all in a way that I was sharing too much and not really going deeply.

But after I had been doing this for a while, my aunt said to me, what’s going on with you? Like, there’s, there’s something different. There’s something I’m noticing. So then I shared it with her and she’s like, oh yeah, that, that makes sense that it had brought some, some quality to the way I was in the world.

That became noticeable. So perhaps other people will notice, but I don’t know that people on Facebook noticed, like, I don’t know that people on social media saw my tender heart, but you know, as we’ve talked about, social media has its limitations. It’s very one dimensional. So I think we need to, I think we need to do it not because it will necessarily show up in some way.

You know, like, I’m not gonna put like, practitioner of compassion on my cv. You know, it’s, it’s not, it’s not necessarily gonna be noticeable in that way. But I am so much happier about the choices that I make and the way I live my life when I bring this awareness and this feeling into what I do and who I am.

Pema: So often my, uh, responses or my reactions as I’m reading this material triggers my default place of constriction. Like, wait, what about they, those people, you know, like, why do I have to do this? Um, or it triggers my, um, sadness for the brutality that’s all around us in the world from the choices people are making or the identities that they’re protecting.

And then I think, and then, and I’m saying they, they, they, they, they like, what identity am I protecting? Uh, so I’m just gonna put that in parentheses as I continue on here. Um, that seed, planting that seed. When I think, why do this? I think, all right, that seed can grow me potentially a little bit of space around that constriction.

If my muscle is tight in spasm, um, then if I maybe take a breath, stretch it out, then I have less constriction and therefore I have mobility. 

And that gives me hope around my initial reactions and responses. I notice that my default is more often like, Hey, wait, what about them?

This is painful. They’re unfeeling. And then, you know, five seconds or a day later I’m realizing, okay, what’s over here on my side and what are they thinking about me or feeling about me and my misguided judgements?

Tania: Yeah, that feeling of, it’s not fair if I’m the only one who’s doing this. And I think, wow, you know, we’re all given this opportunity and what a wonderful possibility to lean into compassion. And if other people aren’t doing it, then I feel sad for them. You know? That, that, ’cause I know that it’s harder in life to go around with a closed up heart, like the Grinch.

Um, and there’s wonderful things that can come, you know, from. From having more of that open-heartedness. You know, I, I, um, talk about it as courage. Um, uh, Lama Yasha, she talks about courage. You know, it’s from the French word core meaning heart. And if we can go forward with our hearts open with that tenderness and vulnerability, even as we are moving forward with strength, that vulnerability gives us a different kind of strength in the world.

And so it’s not unfair that we are practicing this, and they are not, I mean, first of all, who knows what they’re practicing, but we can make those choices for ourselves and have a tender hearted strength that will really serve us in. All that we do and we are.

Tania, can you talk a little bit more about the guided visualization. 

Tania: Sure. It is something that’s helpful to practice when you can have your full attention on it. So, uh, not when you’re in the middle of other things necessarily, but when you can really focus and, and it involves a number of steps of bringing to mind, you know, different kinds of people, people who are, Close to you who you feel, you know, very positive feelings toward naturally people who are more neutral in your life. I always use the example of the checkout person at Trader Joe’s. and then people who feel more adversarial to you. But you work your way up through the practice and, and each, and you start before any of those with yourself and, uh, some self-compassion.

And at each of those levels, uh, you’re sending these messages. May you be free from harm, may you be healthy and happy. May you grow with ease. It’s, it’s my adaptation of the loving kindness meditation, uh, that I learned from Sharon Salzberg, and her, you know, recorded teachings. So doing that on a regular basis, you know, however regular, you know, you can, um, can help to provide a foundation so that when you’re in the moment of it, when you are in the middle of an interaction, you can bring that more to mind, but it’s very hard to bring it to mind if you haven’t been laying the foundation.

Pema: What are those three sentences again?

Tania: May you be free from harm. May you be healthy and happy. May you grow with ease.

Pema: I started out our conversation feeling sad and feeling heavy with the brutality and like disempowered from the bigness of everything going on and simply hearing you now say those three sentences makes me feel, um sad in a different way. I feel sad in a released way. And to recognize in the course of this conversation that those three sentences can help me right now in this moment of feeling, disempowered, feeling like it’s all too heavy, and understanding that the, that the seed can go bigger, that the mindfulness can grow. gives me some peace in the moment. Some hope in the moment.

Tania: Pema, thank you for bringing your tenderhearted strength to our conversation.

Pema: Thank you for bringing your practice.

Tania: I am Tania Israel, professor, psychologist, and author of Facing the Fracture. 

Pema: And I’m Pema Rocker, creative coach and author of Ash and Spirit. 

Make your choice.

Tania: Are you ready to be strong?

Ready To Be Strong was created by me, Tania Israel.

Pema: And me, Pema Rocker.

Tania: And edited by Haley Gray. Our theme music is by Jeff Mercel at Premium Beat.