CAN YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE OTHER?
Photo by Sarah Hannigan
Whenever I find myself getting overly self-righteous I pull out one of my all-time most helpful practices that I call "Just Like Me." I learned it from Pema Chodron who expresses so simply the premise behind the practice:
It is a simple human truth that everyone, just like you, wants to be happy and to avoid suffering. Just like you, everyone else wants to have friends, to be accepted and loved, to be respected and valued for their unique qualities, to be healthy and to feel comfortable with themselves. Just like you, no one else wants to be friendless and alone, to be looked down upon by others, to be sick, to feel inadequate and depressed.
To make this truth into a lived practice in my everyday life, I use the phrase "Just Like Me..." when I come across someone who irritates me, someone I disagree with, someone I might even describe as my enemy. For example, I might say “Just like me this person wants to be respected,” or “Just like me, this person doesn’t want to feel inadequate.”
According to Pema, this practice
...humbles us, because it shines a spotlight on our habit of thinking that we are the center of the world. When we acknowledge our shared humanity with another person, we connect with them in a surprisingly intimate way. They become like family to us, and this helps dissolve our isolation and aloneness.
