As you end this practice session, know that you can access this growing supply of compassion anytime you wish.
Try This Micro-moment Practice:
Create Compassion in Daily Life
You can also practice compassion informally. Opportunities to do so are plentiful in the full buzz of daily life, as you walk from your car to your office, as you stand in the checkout line, or sit in a meeting. Why not replace random mind-wandering with simple mental activities that build your capacity to connect with others compassionately? The only investment you make is in the currency of emotional energy, not time or money. All it takes is a willingness to retrain your heart and mind to see others differently.
Here’s how to dive in: In these “found” moments, take in the faces and body postures of others. These need not be people with whom you are currently interacting. Mere passersby are great targets for informal practice. Think of it as harmless people-watching, albeit with respectful distance and loving intent. Consider your commute. On the train, in the car, or in the parking lot, instead of staying wrapped up in your own thoughts, take time to notice the people around you. Imagine the ways—small or large—that they might be suffering right now. It can be helpful to remember that no situation is 100 percent good (or bad). Each moment, for each person walking this earth, contains some unique blend of good and bad fortune. As Armistead Maupin writes, describing Mona’s Law in the book series Tales of the City: You can have a great job, a great apartment, and a great relationship, but never all three at the same time.
With this awareness in mind, take a close look at those others with whom you cross paths. Look for nonverbal signs, however small, of their suffering—a grimace, a furrowed brow, a heavy sigh, or slumped posture—any clue that this other person is carrying some burden on his or her shoulders or in his or her heart. Witness this suffering with your whole body, not just with your eyes and your mind. See if you can feel in your own body and your own heart the heavy load that this person endures. All people suffer. At some level, whatever flavor of difficulty another faces will feel somewhat familiar to you. Lightly let your heart and mind reflect on that source of shared pain for a moment. Next, into this moment of empathy, extend a simple wish for the person’s release from pain and suffering. Try saying one or more of the following classic phrases, silently, in your own mind and heart, directing your good wishes to this particular person:
May your difficulties [misfortune, pain] fade away.
May you find peace [ease, strength].
May your burdens be lifted.
As with all phrase-based practices, it’s not the words you choose that matter, but rather the feelings these words evoke. Experiment: Try new phrasings until you find a phrase or two that truly moves you, or leads to a subtle shift in the physical sensations of your heart.
Remember, you’re not engaging any sort of magical thinking by doing this. Shifting your stream of consciousness toward compassion is no metaphysical trick that instantly whisks away all suffering from this other person’s experience. Your aim with this informal practice is far more humble and realistic. It is simply to condition your own heart to be more open and concerned about the pains and predicaments others inevitably face. Put differently, although your focus is completely on other people in this practice, the person who is most changed by it is you.
Celebration: Meeting Another’s Good Fortune with Love
At times it can seem all but overwhelming to truly open to the suffering of others. Standing beside and becoming one with those who suffer takes courage, which can, over time, become depleted. But it can also be replenished, for courage is a forever renewable resource. Fortunately, opportunities to recharge your resources for compassion abound. The secret is to be ready for chances to forge yet another variant of love: celebratory love. This lets you connect with others who are experiencing good fortune.
Moments of bad fortune, with attendant opportunities to suffer, seem plentiful in this world. Yet, statistically speaking, moments of good fortune, with attendant opportunities for positive emotions, outnumber them by a wide margin. One rigorous examination of people’s day-to-day lives concludes that good events outnumber bad events by margins of about 3 to 1. Put differently, for every episode of bad fortune that you encounter, odds are you also encounter three or more episodes of good fortune to balance it out. Plus, it’s the frequency, not the magnitude of good events, that predicts your overall well-being. The key, of course, is to notice and be open to the good events just as much as you take in the bad. Set aside the mental time travel of worry and rumination. Awaken to the present moment. If you do, you’ll discover that most moments in life offer at least some good fortune to be relished, whether it’s fresh air, a welcomed meal, or the opportunity for companionship.
The discovery that good events in people’s lives are more plentiful than bad events can be especially comforting. You might even say that the world conspires to offer up just the right ratio of positivity to negativity for you to thrive. My earlier research identifies 3 to 1 as a key tipping point in people’s emotional experiences. It’s the ratio of positive to negative emotions that marks the divide between languishing and flourishing, or between just getting by and becoming ripe with abundant energy, connections, and contributions.
It can be tempting to think that good events, almost by definition, translate into good feelings. Yet that’s not always the case. Whether or not good events create moments of joy, gratitude, serenity, or love hinges on whether people recognize and lean in to such events, or instead brush them off or even fail to notice them altogether. Back in chapter 1, I mentioned that variation in the extent to which people seek out good events is what my graduate student Lahnna Catalino and I call prioritizing positivity. The more you prioritize your own positivity, the more readily you convert good events into good feelings. Indeed, Lahnna and I have discovered that people who score higher on our measure of this tendency even receive more emotional uplift from a hug.
Just as you can be tempted to turn away from others’ suffering in an attempt to limit your own, you may also be tempted to pull away from others’ good fortune, believing that—in some way—their good fortune subtracts from your own. This distancing may come in one of three flavors. One is resentment or envy, characterized by obsessive counterfactual thinking, “Why them, and not me?” You ask yourself, over and again, “Why did they get accepted, and not me?” Of course, you can replace “accepted” in that internal rant with other forms of good fortune, like “a raise,” “that praise,” “that lover,” “that car,” or any other social or material good. Implicit in this reaction are the intertwined and erroneous beliefs that “they are not worthy” of their good fortune, but instead “I am”—a narcissistic self-aggrandizement that squelches loving connections of all sorts. Another flavor of distancing is self-diminishment, seeing yourself as somehow perennially unlucky, or unworthy of the good fortune that others enjoy, a self-deprecating preoccupation that, like envy, prevents positive connection with fortunate others. Yet a third flavor of distancing is utter indifference, seeing other people’s good (or bad) fortune as completely irrelevant to one’s own self-absorbed circle of concern. In this mode of being, you’re emotionally disconnected from what’s going on in other people’s lives.
By contrast, when you awaken to the insight that everybody, just like you, yearns to be happy, and that for each person, suffering and good fortune inevitably come and go, you can learn to take others’ good fortunes as events to cherish and celebrate. These moments create abundant opportunities to reduce social distance and be open, to forge positivity resonance.
Several randomized controlled trials in positive psychology have confirmed that learning to cherish your own good fortune—for instance, by counting up at least three blessings each day—can boost your gratitude, which in turn strengthens your social bonds and creates abiding happiness, even physical health. Think of celebratory love as gratitude’s more generous cousin. It leverages the known
benefits of gratitude across a far wider range of gifts—encompassing not just those bestowed on you but also those bestowed on everyone else. The math is simple: If you cherish the good fortunes of others as dearly as you cherish your own, you vastly multiply your opportunities for love and happiness. Just as “Happy Hour” forever begins anew because it’s always five o’clock somewhere, you can be nearly continually uplifted through shared joy, love, and connection because good fortune is always happening somewhere. You need only open your eyes and heart to it.
People everywhere need others to lean on. Social support is a lifeline. My guess, though, is that when you visualize offering social support to someone, you imagine another person as weak or suffering in some manner. In your mind’s eye, you might visualize your friend in the hospital, your neighbor’s child having just fallen off his bicycle, or your coworker near tears under the strain of crushing demands. Yet the latest research documents that offering social support when things go right is a more efficient way to build relationships than offering it when things go wrong. In fact, it’s precisely those moments in which you celebrate another’s good fortune that let him or her know you truly care and instill faith that you’ll lend a hand during tougher times ahead.
It can take practice, however, to recognize and respond to others’ good fortune in this healthy, life-giving and relationship-strengthening way. You may need, after all, to break long-standing habits of resentment, self-diminishment, or indifference. Try the next activity to open your heart to celebratory love.
Try This Meditation Practice:
Celebratory Love
Find a location where you can sit undisturbed. Place your feet flat on the floor and adjust your position and posture until your body feels both alert and open. Lengthen your spine as if it were an antenna. Lift your heart as if you were offering it up as a gift.
Take a few slow and deep breaths, bringing your awareness to each as it rises and falls. Then bring your awareness to your intention for this practice session. Perhaps it’s to learn to be an even better friend, or to reduce pernicious envy and instead learn to celebrate others’ successes. Know that good events—both seemingly minor and major—are abundant in other people’s lives. Sometimes, all it takes is to awaken from the trance of self-absorption to see this abundance pouring forth.
Throughout the session, bring your awareness to your heart region from time to time. Take time to notice how your practice is affecting your body, even your face. As ever, the sentiments and bodily sensations you create are more important than the particular phrases you repeat to yourself.
Now, gently call forth the visual image of someone for whom you know something good has happened. This good event may be big or small. Perhaps this person’s family has been expanded to include a healthy newborn child. Or maybe he or she got a raise or had an important project at work meet with success. Or maybe this person is simply feeling healthy and strong, and enjoying a sense of ease in daily life. No matter the circumstances, let your mind slowly absorb the scope of this person’s good fortune, knowing that, like all events—good and bad—this, too, shall fade with time. Then, lightly remind yourself of how people worldwide yearn to be happy, and that—at this particular moment, for this particular person—this universal wish is coming true. Into this context, say the following classic phrase, or your own version of it, speaking from your heart:
May your happiness and good fortune continue.
Repeat this ancient wish over and again, with each new breath you take. Let the phrase infuse and soften your heart and your face. Visualize yourself supporting this person, celebrating his or her unexpected good fortune, coaxing whatever goodness he or she experiences to linger just a bit longer.
As your practice deepens, try out new ways to soften and expand your heart’s capacity. Take in new people, ranging from those you know well to those you don’t know at all. Remember that your aim is not to make this or any other person’s good fortune last forever. That’s hardly possible. All things pass, and it does no good to expect otherwise. Instead, your aim is simply to condition your own heart to appreciate others’ blessings when you become aware of them, to open to them, so that you may lovingly celebrate with them.
Try This Micro-moment Practice:
Create Celebratory Love in Daily Life
Personally, I find informal practice of celebratory love to be especially powerful. As I walk to my campus office from where I park, I cross paths with many people—students, staff, faculty, and visitors alike. Likewise, when I’m able to take my lunch, or a short break, on one of the many park benches in my campus’s nearby arboretum, I like to people-watch. Instead of being indifferent to others nearby, or simply sizing them up out of idle curiosity, I purposely try to notice signs of good fortune. Is this person smiling? Is there a spring in this person’s step? Does he or she seem to be moved by a purpose or a passion? Is something going right for him or her in this moment? Even without knowing anything about what this person’s particular good fortune may be, I silently offer my wish for him or her: “May your good fortune continue.” This can be an especially moving mental exercise when I sharpen my earnestly supportive intentions. There’s no need for me to interrupt the person or intervene in any way. I simply bask in his or her blessings and wish him or her the best. Sometimes I picture myself cheering this person on or giving him or her an imaginary high five. I’m often struck by how readily this shift in perspective will put a smile on my face and awaken my feelings of connection with others.
You can even deploy silent celebration to transform any minor irritation you might feel at another’s actions into a more buoyant, lighthearted moment. Any of us, despite our generally benevolent attitudes, can grow somewhat impatient with others, even if their only crime is that they march to their own drummer. Perhaps it’s the cashier who tends the long, slow line in which you wait, who chats for a bit too long with each customer, or the restaurant patron at the next table who in her enthusiasm speaks too loudly, or the free spirits who hula hoop in your town square, obstructing your shortcut. For me, it seems like just about every day, while I’m at work in my office, I find my flow of thoughts interrupted by “the campus whistler,” an older gentleman who walks throughout campus and town enjoying music on his headphones while whistling in full force. He’s actually a fantastic whistler. Yet once you’ve heard him once or twice, it gets easy to begrudge his next arrival. I’m not the only one to react this way. My colleague shared with me that when she held her class outside one uncommonly fine day in February, for a moment their discussion was pierced by the campus whistler strolling nearby. Her students groaned and grumbled. Sometimes, when others enjoy themselves in unusual ways, your first reaction can be judgmental. Take two, however, can be more charitable. My campus whistler is joyful after all. When I allow myself to savor this unique musical moment and wish him continued enjoyment, I create my own joy as well.
Try it for yourself. See if you notice any new radiance or levity within your heart, or any additional softness or openness within your face. As you experiment with celebratory love, notice how readily you can turn these feelings of loving connection on and off just by bringing in others’ presumed good fortune into your awareness. Notice how others respond to you. Does the face and openness with which you meet the world make a difference?
Love 2.0: The View from Here
The facts are that all people face both good and bad fortune every year, if not every day. When you look out at others, even without speaking with them or knowing anything specific about them, you can be virtually certain that they are simultaneously blessed by good fortune, however small or large, and also burdened by bad fortune, again, however small or large. Each person we encounter, then, simultaneously merits both our compassionate love and our celebratory love. Love, upgraded as positivity resonance, comes in many flavors. It bends toward compassion when suffering is salient, and toward celebration when good fortune is salient. Above all, love is connection. In connection, y
ou are far more likely to recognize what other people are going through, and meet them where they are, sincerely wishing them the very best.
In the next chapter, I’ll ask you to stretch the scope of your love even wider. Beyond the special people in your life, and even beyond those with whom you interact regularly, I hope to convince you that love’s reach is virtually unbounded. Experimenting with unbridled loving is perhaps the most challenging and rewarding of all.
CHAPTER 8
Loving Without Borders
TO LOVE ONE PERSON WITH A PRIVATE LOVE IS POOR
AND MISERABLE; TO LOVE ALL IS GLORIOUS.
—Thomas Traherne
In a world replete with threats, uncertainties, and ceaseless distractions, the urge can be strong to simply look out for oneself. If you’re like most who grew up in Western culture, you’ve absorbed countless versions of this message. I know I did. The messages, both direct and indirect were clear: Be self-sufficient, independent, pay yourself first. You can’t necessarily count on anyone else to look after your needs, so you need to learn to take care of yourself. Indeed, entire economic systems are built upon this premise of self-interest. Many economists have assumed, first and foremost, that people direct all their available rationality toward maximizing their own self-interests. To be sure, a healthy dose of independence and concern for self is no doubt required for success in any culture. Even so, one unfortunate side effect of rugged individualism can be a thick cocoon of self-absorption that all but blinds you to the concerns, gifts, and welfare of others.
Becoming more aware of the inherent value of positivity resonance can help you break free from this life-limiting cocoon. Indeed, study after study suggests that positive emotions, in and of themselves, unlock your ability to really see other people. When feeling good, then, you’re far more likely to approach each new person as an opportunity for connection and growth. Love, viewed in this way, knows no borders. When love is as modest as a shared interest, a shared inspiration, or a shared hope, you have no reason to withhold it from anyone.
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