How to Be More Compassionate

Imagine moving through a crowded area. You are holding a heavy, teetering stack of textbooks.  You are in a hurry trying to get your load to wherever you are going. As you go, you jostle others, bump into them, scowl at them as they bump into you, stumble, and grumble. And not once in your busyness did you notice that everyone else is bustling around with a heavy, teetering stack of textbooks, too.

That’s how we go through life. We all have a load to bear. And we are all just trying to make it to where we are trying to go.

There are things on your mind, you have stuff from your past, concerns about the future, deadlines, pressures, stressors. There’s a sick parent, a fender-bender, a diagnosis, a past trauma. There’s a tough phone call, a spilled coffee, an abusive relationship, a bad habit, sour milk.

We are all different, with different loads to bear, but the one thing I guarantee that we all have in common is that we are carrying a load. 

So instead of being in a hurry, bustling about, bumping into others, snapping at others, what if we slowed down and treated each other a bit more gently.

That driver cut you off because she had somewhere she needs to be. That cashier fumbled because he just got his final exam mark back and it wasn’t so good. That lazy coworker just had an argument with her husband. That man mumbling on the bus has bullet wounds.

I know you’re carrying a heavy load too, and you deserve some gentle treatment too, but sometimes you just have to give before you can get.

What heavy load are you carrying around?

Who could you treat a bit more gently? 

Where can you use gentleness to make someone else’s load lighter?

Here’s to Conquering Stress,
The Stress Experts