Stop Tearing Others Down
When someone is going through a difficult time you can criticize them or you can ask how you can support them, and which you choose shows where you are in your own evolvement as a soul.
Dandapani looks at the choice you have when someone you know shares that they are struggling, privately or in a post online. He describes the pull toward criticism and cancel culture, then traces the alternative sequence: understanding gives rise to empathy, empathy to compassion, compassion to love. He asks you to build this every day, even toward strangers you will never speak to.
What this talk covers
- We have a choice in how we react and respond to life situations, including when someone shares a difficulty.
- One response is to kick them and say you knew all along; the other is to ask how can I help you and how can I support you.
- We live in a world that loves to tear one another down, and cancel culture lacks the willingness to understand what a person is going through.
- Through understanding is born empathy, out of empathy compassion, and out of compassion love, so understanding has to come first.
- Build it daily, so that when you see a stranger having a difficult day on a bus or a subway you wish them well instead of attacking them mentally or verbally.
Through understanding is born empathy, and out of empathy is born compassion, and out of compassion is born love.Dandapani
Questions
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Ask how you can help or support them, and give empathy. He says how you choose to respond to someone in difficulty shows where you are in your unfoldment as a soul.
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Start by seeking to understand. Through understanding is born empathy, out of empathy compassion, and out of compassion love. Understanding that we are all souls evolving, and that none of us is removed from difficulty, makes empathy much easier.
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You can still choose empathy. Acknowledge that they are having a difficult day, hope their day improves, and send them good energy rather than criticizing them mentally or verbally.
Transcript
473 words · 3:17
We have a choice how we react and respond to live situations. If you see someone you know going through a difficult time and they share this with you, or they share it somewhat publicly maybe in a post online, then you have the choice of how you react.
You can choose to kick them, to criticize them, to go like, Oh, I always knew he was like that. Now I'm so glad he's admitting to this. And look what has happened to him.
I just knew this all along. And you go ahead and you just criticize the person. That's one way to respond. The other way to respond, if it's someone you care about, someone you know,
is to ask, how can I help you? How can I support you through what you're going? Give empathy. Be compassionate.
We live in a world where we love to tear one another down. Social media is full of it. Someone does something wrong, everyone jumps and attacks. An amazing cancel culture is building.
A culture that lacks empathy, that lacks the need to understand what the person is going through. And through understanding is born empathy, and out of empathy is born compassion, and out of compassion is born love. But we need to seek to understand first.
So how you choose to respond to someone going through a difficult time shows where you are in your unfoldment, in your evolvement as a soul. So choose empathy, choose compassion. Ask, how can I support you rather than to criticize that person that's going through a difficult time?
Nurture empathy inside of you. Nurture compassion. We all go through difficulties in life, every single one of it. None of us is removed from this. So we can help each other along our journey instead of criticizing someone when they're going through difficulty.
So choose to help. Choose to express empathy. Choose to express compassion. Build this in you every day. So as you go out into the world when you're riding a bus to work or on a subway or driving and you see someone going through a difficult time, Don't criticize them. You can express empathy and say,
I'm so sorry he is having a difficult day. I hope his day improves. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to offer some help to this person. But, you know, I'm just sending him some good energy and hope his day gets better.
That's a better way to respond than to mentally or even verbally attack that person who is having a difficult time. So choose empathy, choose compassion, but start with trying to understand that we are all souls that are evolving and we all go through difficult times. And once you have that understanding, it's so much easier to express empathy and compassion.