If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
— THE DALAI LAMA
I have been a member of the Social Venture Network (SVN), a nonprofit organization that was an early pioneer in the field of socially responsible business, for more than twenty years, ever since I was CEO of Brush Dance. SVN has more than five hundred members, and it hosts two annual conferences, one on the West Coast each fall and one on the East Coast each spring.
I distinctly remember one of the first SVN conferences I attended just outside of New York City. Several hundred business leaders and CEOs of for-profit and not-for-profit companies were seated in large concentric circles. Ram Dass, an early SVN member, was standing in the middle of the circles, speaking to the group, and facilitating a discussion among the community. When Ram Dass paused, a CEO of a large, successful manufacturing company raised his hand and was handed the microphone. He expressed that he felt like an outsider, even something of an impostor, and that he did not feel as though he belonged in this group. He did not feel as successful nor had his business had enough social impact compared to others for him to be sitting in the circle. Then another longtime member of the group was handed the microphone and expressed that she felt the same way and for similar reasons. As the microphone was passed around, several other prominent members of the group each expressed sharing this feeling of not belonging.
Being new to this community, I was surprised. From my perspective, everyone who spoke was both a successful businessperson and a prominent long-term SVN member. If these people felt like outsiders, then perhaps I and my company — Brush Dance was then a modest fledgling business with revenues under a million dollars — also didn’t belong.
When Ram Dass was handed the microphone back, he thanked everyone for their openness and vulnerability. Certainly, he had not asked for nor expected people to voice these doubts, but he listened to them and acknowledged the pain and longing that was so beautifully expressed. Then he suggested we use our pain and vulnerability as the starting point for developing trust and for finding real solutions to the pressing issues of our communities and the wider world.
On some level, I think everyone in the room could relate to the pain of not belonging. I believe it’s a universal human desire to want to belong to a group, a cause, a community, to something larger than our individual self. This is what the empathic ape seeks — connection — and we experience pain when we are excluded or when we feel like we don’t quite fit, like we don’t quite belong. We suffer when we feel disconnected, whether one on one or as part of a group, and this sense of loss might also be universal. At some point, everyone feels alone, separate, an outsider.
At this SVN conference, the group’s shared expression of pain, isolation, and longing, this feeling that something was lacking, actually brought everyone together. We felt connected by our common human desire for connection. The remainder of the day and for the following days of the conference, the community felt close and intimate — we shared the intimacy of fellow misfits, of those who become connected if only through the feeling of not belonging. This was an unexpected and paradoxical result: Everyone felt more connected through the group’s shared vulnerability and need to belong.
TRY THIS: Write about your own feelings of belonging and not belonging.
What groups do you belong to?
When do you feel as though you don’t belong?
What undercuts your feelings of belonging?
What supports your feelings of belonging?
LEADERSHIP MEANS FOSTERING COMMUNITY AND CONNECTION
The fifth practice in this book may be one of the most important competencies in the art of stellar leadership as well as in creating a more peaceful world. I’ve experienced often the transformation that can occur in a short amount of time when people deeply see one another and open to our shared humanity: to the universal desire to be happy and connected and to the universal experience of pain when we are not. The potent practice “Connect to the pain of others” is key for leaders as they cultivate a group’s sense of purpose and as they foster the personal development and inner strength of each member.
Like practice 4, the “pain” referred to in this practice is really the universal human experience of discomfort and loss. While it includes physical pain and each person’s individual circumstances, the deeper focus is recognizing the type of emotional pain everyone shares: of impermanence, of change, of disconnection, and of the awareness of impending loss, old age, sickness, and death. And it includes the pain that is particular to our sense of self — feeling like a separate individual and yet aspiring to be connected within a community.
As descendants of the empathic ape, we evolved and are built to feel the emotions of others. This is the definition of empathy, and it includes all feeling states, both physical and emotional. Indeed, we are connected to others beyond what we usually realize or imagine, which a host of scientific research has shown. We are influenced by the hormones and body chemistry of others, to the extent that women who live together tend to have synchronized menstrual cycles. It’s proven that positive and negative emotions can be contagious. These things reflect our common, shared experience so much that it almost goes without saying that our feelings and emotions are powerfully interconnected.
A mistake we can make is thinking we don’t have to share the pain of others. This is particularly true for leaders, and there is some evidence that greater leadership authority is correlated with a decrease in empathy. Somehow, though humans are built to recognize emotion in one another, we sometimes think we can remain separate from it. Why do we do this? I’m not sure, but there are several likely reasons. One is that separation can seem to free us from obligation: If you are separate from me, and your pain is not my pain, then I don’t have to do anything about it. Another common reason is probably that we don’t want to feel our own pain. We may go to great lengths not to experience or share someone else’s pain, such as their loneliness or grief, since that means admitting to our own. This is why being an empathic ape is easier when others are happy and much harder when they are not.
Yet empathy is a core competency of leadership, a vital part of being human, and part of our common humanity. As I hope you’ll find, learning to skillfully connect with the pain of others actually, and paradoxically, supports and increases our ability to feel a deep sense of safety and satisfaction; it fosters a profound feeling of belonging. It ultimately enables our freedom to express our deepest truths and help others express theirs. This practice is aimed at training your mind and heart to connect more deeply with others by acknowledging and experiencing other people’s experience and perspectives, to see and feel our human similarities, and to cultivate compassion, or the practice of offering kindness.
RECOGNIZE THE FOUR HORSEMEN
Dr. John Gottman studies the factors that lead married couples either to remain together or to divorce, and he has demonstrated that after observing couples for five minutes, he has a greater than 90 percent chance of predicting which couples will stay together and which will split apart. Dr. Gottman names four behaviors as key indicators for predicting which marriages will not survive: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stone-walling. He calls these the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
These are very familiar behaviors that can show up at any time in any relationship. These four behaviors name ways that we actively avoid connecting to another person’s pain. They are effective strategies and behaviors for shutting us off from others. In order to develop your capacity for connecting to the pain of others, it’s useful to learn to recognize these horsemen, so that you uncover your methods of avoidance.
Even though nearly everyone engages in these negative behaviors at some time, I think it’s worth defining them to clarify the strategies they employ.
CRITICISM — Making disapproving judgments. Often this is a way to show that the other person’s pain is their fault, which relieves us of an obligation to help.
CONTEMPT — To despise or dishonor; to question someone’s honesty or integrity. This is usually used to deny the pain or undermine its validity. We don’t have to share what doesn’t exist.
DEFENSIVENESS — Putting up barriers to avoid a challenge or criticism; disagreeing over circumstances or facts. Like criticism, this is usually used to deny fault or personal responsibility and thus our obligation to help.
STONEWALLING — Delaying or blocking by refusing to answer questions or by giving evasive replies. In other words, when all else fails, we simply ignore what we don’t want to see or deal with.
TRY THIS: How do you usually avoid someone else’s pain? Take a moment to consider the “Four Horsemen” — criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling — and see if one or two name your preferred strategy. Mine is stonewalling. When I’m feeling vulnerable and connecting with my own pain, my first tendency is to close down. I want to run away or disappear, so I retreat, stonewalling, until I feel safe enough to engage. For the rest of the week, or whenever you think of it, be on the lookout for these horsemen, both in yourself and others. Sometimes their appearance is subtle, sometimes obvious. Then, when you notice one showing up in your life, experiment with doing the opposite: Feel someone else’s pain and focus on connection, not exclusion or difference.
A MORE PEACEFUL WORLD: SEEING SIMILARITIES, OFFERING KINDNESS
As the cofounder and former CEO of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, I helped craft SIYLI’s vision and mission statement, which is: “All leaders in the world are wise and compassionate, thus creating the conditions for world peace.”
When creating this statement, the SIYLI board felt that it was important to aim high (very high!) and to articulate an audacious vision and mission that might even appear impossible. That seems fitting for the audacious and impossible times we live in and for teaching practices of mindfulness and emotional intelligence. However, I’ve sometimes seen people roll their eyes and dismiss such an impossibly naive, aspirational statement. Indeed, given the track record of human civilization as well as the existing state of violence, conflict, and wars around our planet, can you blame them? Where are these wise, compassionate leaders? How can any individual ever foster conditions for world peace?
Yet this practice in particular, connecting to the pain of others, is what gives me hope.
For instance, a highlight of the Search Inside Yourself two-day mindfulness and emotional intelligence program takes place at the end of the morning of the second day. In many ways, the first day and a half of the program are preparation for this moment: creating a safe environment, teaching participants to sit with more stillness and focus, and practicing listening without interrupting. By now, three emotional intelligence competencies have been introduced: self-awareness, self-management, and motivation. At this point participants are ready to take a deep dive into the practice of connecting to the pain of others. In particular, we practice two core skills: seeing similarities and offering kindness.
Here is the exercise we use, which has been modified for this book. The exercise has two parts: Part 1 focuses on seeing similarities, and part 2 on offering kindness. In workshops, people are paired up and do this exercise while sitting and facing each other. If you decide to do that, I recommend asking someone you trust and are close to, and to have them read this chapter so they understand the context and goals of the exercise. However, this exercise can also be done virtually with another person (such as over the phone or via video conference), and it can be practiced alone: Simply imagine sitting across from whoever you choose, whether a real or imaginary person, and imagine them speaking the script below.
Part 1: Seeing Similarities
Begin with a few minutes of settling, or mindfulness meditation. Bring attention to your body and breath, and let go of the busyness and activities of the day.
Then become aware of the person sitting in front of you. Take a moment to look at this person. They are a human being . . . just like you. Notice your connection as human beings, and notice whether you feel comfortable with this thought or whether it raises some discomfort. Feel free to maintain eye contact or not.
Then read each of the following sentences, either speaking them out loud or saying them silently in your head. Take your time and consider each statement as it’s spoken.
• This person in front of me has a body and a mind . . . just like me.
• This person in front of me has feelings and thoughts. . . just like me.
• This person in front of me has experienced pain, sadness, has been angry, hurt, and confused . . . just like me.
• This person in front of me has experienced physical and emotional pain and suffering . . . just like me.
• This person in front of me wishes to be free from pain and suffering . . . just like me.
• This person in front of me has experienced many joys and times of happiness. . . just like me.
• This person in front of me wishes to be healthy, loved, and have fulfilling relationships. . . just like me.
• This person in front of me wishes to be happy. . . just like me.
Part 2: Offering Kindness
Now practice offering kindness. Allow good wishes to arise. Before you begin, take a moment to look at this person again. They are a human being . . . just like you.
Then, either speaking out loud or silently in your head, read the following statements, taking a pause between each one.
• I wish for this person in front of me to have the strength and the resources to navigate the difficulties in life.
• I wish for this person in front of me to be free from pain and suffering.
• I wish for this person in front of me to be happy.
• Because this person is a fellow human being . . . just like me.
Next, extend your wishes to others, to all others you can think of, being as bold in your generosity as you can be. If you want, name specific people in these statements, or name other communities you want to include.
• May everyone in this room, building, or house be happy; may they be free from suffering, may they be at peace.
• May my family and friends be happy; may they be free from suffering, may they be at peace.
• May my coworkers and colleagues and all the people I work with be happy; may they be free from suffering, may they be at peace.
• May all beings in the world be happy; may they be free from suffering, may they be at peace.
• Finally, I remember to include myself. May I be happy; may I be free from suffering, may I be at peace.
When you finish speaking, bring your attention to your body and breath. Let go of any thoughts and feelings. Notice that you are breathing in and breathing out. When you both are done and ready, allow a few minutes to bring your attention back to the room.
This exercise can build understanding and create bridges, even between those who are meeting for the first time or who misunderstand or may be in conflict with each other. I believe that one way to create a more peaceful world would be to create a safe space and then do this exercise with the people who feel disconnected and separate from one another.
These two practices, seeing similarities and offering kindness, are incredibly rich in terms of building inner resources and incredibly valuable for loosening our fears and biases and allowing us to see that we are all one tribe, one family — the human family.
LOOKING UNDER THE HOOD
Often our conversations go like this: How are you? Fine. How are you feeling? Fine. How is work, school, your relationships? Fine. A psychologist friend has suggested that FINE could be an acronym standing for “feelings inside not expressed.”
In other words, fine is a socially acceptable form of stonewalling or being defensive. We don’t have to accept fine as an answer, though. We can recognize this gentle form of avoidance and do what I sometimes call looking under the hood: Rather than just skim the surface of feelings, we can encourage people to be real and share their transitions, challenges, and pain. We can be curious about and face, rather than avoid, fears and doubts, including our own. Without prying, and with respect, we might explore the myriad difficulties and challenges of life, including the feeling that we don’t belong and that we often feel safer hiding what hurts. It can be surprising and powerful to uncover the pains and concerns of others, which live just under the surface of daily life. This pain is the glue that connects us, the emotional resonance of what every human being shares — our struggles, failures, vulnerability, and suffering; our common humanity.
For instance, with Norman Fischer, I have been co-leading Company Time one-day workshops for businesspeople at Green Gulch Farm for more than twenty years. We usually meet three or four times per year, and each time, about half the people have attended previous Company Time workshops and half are attending for the first time. Early in the morning, everyone introduces themselves, and people’s titles and work biographies are often very impressive: They are CEOs, scientists, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and other high-profile professionals. Then, after we practice meditation and mindful listening and everyone begins to feel more safe and vulnerable, we check in again later in the day. This time, nearly everyone volunteers their struggles; nearly everyone is in some kind of transition at work or in their personal life. In the morning, there is a sense that people want to appear impressive, which results in comparisons and a lack of connection. In the afternoon, people become much more vulnerable and open about their struggles and pains, which results in connection, trust, and empathy. I’ve found this same pattern is equally true in business and nonbusiness environments.
As another example, several years ago I led a one-day mindfulness and emotional intelligence training for a group of one hundred top salespeople for a major software company just outside of Austin, Texas. It was a two-day meeting: Day one was meant to provide strategies for working in a stressful environment and to increase trust and collaboration among this group, and the second day would focus on company strategy and goals.
As I stood onstage and looked around at the participants, everyone appeared successful and self-assured. The group was quite diverse, with men and women from many different countries in Asia and North and South America. The men were mostly wearing suits and ties, and women were dressed in semiformal business attire. The room exuded an air of confidence and success.
By the middle of the morning — after exploring several of the mindfulness and listening exercises from the first four practices of this book — everyone began to let go of their game faces. People dropped their roles and expertise and revealed their vulnerabilities as people.
They asked more questions, and their questions became more personal. Many asked how to work with stress in the midst of high demands and about the challenges of working virtually with teams around the world, while others asked about managing lots of travel with family life, how to handle anxiety attacks, and how to be emotionally present with their families after a stress-filled workday. A few asked for help with behavior and drug-related issues that their children were confronting. One woman shared with me that she had been grieving since her youngest daughter died in a car accident.
By the end of the day, the energy in the room had changed palpably. The group felt open, connected, and trusting. They were becoming wise, compassionate leaders creating the conditions of peace.
As Plato said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
TRY THIS: Look for opportunities to look under the hood of other people. When meeting someone at a party or business gathering, instead of talking about the weather or other small talk, try asking: Please tell me your story. Politely but sincerely ask: What are some of your biggest challenges? How did you get to be doing what you are doing? What obstacles did you overcome?
Then just listen, while seeing similarities and offering kindness.
TONGLEN: GIVING AND RECEIVING
Tonglen is an ancient Buddhist practice that is translated as “giving and receiving.” Like the exercise above, this practice has two parts. The first part is relatively easy: We send our wishes of peace, freedom, and healing to our family and loved ones, our closest friends, and those we work with. To stretch this muscle of generosity, this practice generally also includes sending these wishes to those we find challenging, people we are in conflict with, and even our most difficult relationships or enemies. Wishing others well is a powerful way of calming the nervous ape.
The second part of tonglen practice can be more challenging. This is the practice of bringing to mind pain and difficulty and touching it, breathing it in, and holding it in our heart. We feel both the pain we are aware of as well as the pain that we can only sense or imagine. This can include times we or others were hurt, let down, or disappointed — from small disappointments, such as not being accepted to a sports team or being treated badly by a friend — to the death of a relative or someone else close.
Thus, this two-part practice begins with the imaginative ape and then engages the empathic ape. It is a way to connect to and transform our relationship with the pain of others, and it is a way to help open our hearts. Doing it provides the experience, both physically and mentally, that our heart, our ability to feel other people’s pain, is much larger and more receptive than we generally realize or admit. This practice allows us to be more open and attuned to the challenges and pain of others.
Giving and Receiving Meditation
First, find a way to sit where you can be both relaxed and alert. Take a few minutes to settle your body and mind; check in with your body, your breath, your thoughts and feelings. Then bring your attention to your breath.
Begin by sending good wishes to others. Bring to mind those closest to you, your family, partner, closest friends. Say to yourself: May they be happy, may they be free from suffering, may they be at peace.
Now bring to mind your acquaintances and people you work with, and send them good wishes in the same way.
Next, bring to mind people you come into contact with but have little or no relationship with, and do the same.
Finally, bring to mind someone you are in conflict with, and send them good wishes.
When you are finished, shift to the second part of the meditation: Allow yourself to feel the pain of others and the pain of the world. Imagine doing this in whatever way that works for you, whether by bringing specific situations to mind or just allowing all of the losses, grief, inequalities, and difficulties of people you know (and don’t know) to arise.
As you do, breathe gently. With each inhale, breathe in the pain and suffering of others and the world, and feel your heart opening and widening. Then, as you exhale, let go of your feelings and bring your attention to your breath. Continue for as long as you wish.
When you are finished, allow a few moments to bring your awareness back to your breath and body, letting go of any thoughts, images, and emotions. Then gently bring your attention back to the room.
LEADING WITH COMPASSION
Not just as leaders but as human beings, fostering empathy is important because it inspires one of the most powerful motivations we have: compassion, or acting with the intention to help reduce the pain of others. Empathy is a potent way to develop inner strength. If we don’t see the pain of others, or we refuse to acknowledge it, we won’t act to help them. This squanders our power, or our ability to transform the world. With compassion, we can do the opposite. We can use our power for good works, but that first requires this book’s fifth practice, connecting to the pain of others.
One question I’m regularly asked is to clarify the difference between empathy and compassion. Empathy is feeling another’s feelings and distinguishing their feelings from our own. The second portion of the definition, distinguishing their feelings, is important. Without this distinction, the result is emotional contagion. We go beyond feeling and instead identify with another’s feelings.
Compassion has three components: (1) empathy, or feeling another’s feelings; (2) understanding, or the aspiration to understand another’s feelings and experience; and (3) motivation, or the aspiration to relieve the other person’s suffering.
During the Search Inside Yourself two-day training program, we sometimes show a video to give participants the experience of compassion. The video features a young woman singing the “Star-Spangled Banner,” the U.S. national anthem, before an NBA basketball game. During the early part of the song, the woman forgets the words and freezes in embarrassment. One of the basketball team’s coaches, Maurice Cheeks, steps forward and joins her, so she is no longer standing there alone. He seems to barely know the words, and singing is clearly not his forte, but his support helps to jog her memory, allowing her to continue and complete the song, which ends in celebratory cheers throughout the arena.
Each time I watch this video — and I’ve now seen this clip more than twenty times — I still feel the woman’s terror and embarrassment, and I also feel moved by experiencing the compassion of another person boldly stepping in to help her during her vulnerability and distress.
TRY THIS: In a journal, write about the ways you help others, or could or might help others, in all areas of your life. What supports you and what gets in the way of compassionate actions?
PAIN AND ACCEPTANCE
When I was twenty-six years old and a Zen student living at Green Gulch Farm in Northern California, I learned that my father was hospitalized and quite ill with cancer. I immediately flew to New Jersey to see him. When I arrived at the hospital, I discovered that he was literally tied to his bed. A doctor told me that he was walking around the hospital hallways at night, and they therefore needed to both medicate him and restrain him.
Fortunately, I had an excellent support system. Two of my closest friends from the San Francisco Zen Center were helping me to navigate this difficult and complicated time along with the hospital system. They suggested that I was in charge, not the doctors. With their support, I spoke with my father’s doctors, I untied my father from his bed, and I instructed the doctors to stop the medication. Once the drugs wore off and my father became more conscious, I was able to have a real heart-to-heart conversation with him. I let him know the doctor’s full prognosis: that his body was filled with cancer and that he most likely did not have long to live. At the same time, I told him that I held out hope, the possibility that anything could happen. I was connecting to my father’s pain as fully as I could, and I felt him connecting to how painful it was for me to be having this conversation.
My father had been very disappointed and angry with me ever since I had chosen to live at the Zen Center because I had dropped out of college to do so. In that moment, as I was laying out to my father what was happening, he looked at me and said, “I don’t understand what you are doing. But whatever it is, keep doing it.”
This was one of the most powerful and meaningful meetings in my life — meeting my father, in our mutual pain, and experiencing how connecting to each other’s pain created new understanding and a deep feeling of acceptance and love.
KEY PRACTICES
• Remember that a leader’s job, by definition, is to cultivate community and connection.
• Recognize the “Four Horsemen” that seek to avoid connecting to the pain of others: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
• Practice seeing similarities and offering kindness.
• In conversation, look under the hood of others by asking about difficulties and challenges.
• Practice tonglen, or giving and receiving meditation.
• Foster empathy in order to inspire, and lead with, acts of compassion.