When I envisioned this article, I imagined that I’d be able to have frequent feelings of kindness towards a particular person in power. My goal wasn’t to have feelings of liking them, but had aimed to eliminate inner fear of and hate towards people in power making decisions that don’t align with my values.
The Desire.
My goal of compassion was driven by my desire to not add to “othering”, hate, and fear in our country. I’ve been finding it challenging because some people in power are doing exactly what I don’t want to do – labeling people as “other” and not honoring their humanity.
Not Perfect But Intentional.
I have come to accept that full and constant compassion might not be achievable, since the nervous system is designed to react to events. So a more realistic goal has become moving towards compassion (away from fear and hate) – and that is going to be good enough for me. I am human, with a nervous system that reacts to difficult events happening in our world.
Some Tools.
To point myself in the direction of transforming a reaction into bringing more love, kindness, and compassion into our world I am using various tools to refocus to my intended way of being.
Some examples are:
Having compassion for my self (see the 1/16/25 article)
Using the Just Like Me technique (see the 11/13/24 article)
Reading Pema Chödrön, Welcoming the Unwelcome, 2019
Listening to Brene Brown, Rising Strong As A Spiritual Practice, 2017
Loving Kindness Meditation
Tara Brach’s podcast
Navigating Today 