Finding space when encountering people I find difficult through mindfulness practice
Christmas is about working within a budget, not just financially but emotionally.
Compassion is Not Just for Christmas
Suddenly Christmas is on the horizon again! Is it really a year since the last one?
Interestingly, I’ve noticed a pattern of contrasting thoughts and emotions wrapped in this winter celebration.
Yes, the darkness of winter will be punctured with light, love and celebration.
But I’m also more aware of just how hard Christmas can be – with unachievable expectations and spending time with difficult people.
I’ve noticed how these challenges often generate slow-burning, repetitive storylines in my head that can grow into full emotional hijackings.
Thankfully, I’m reminded of Week 7 of the Mindfulness Association’s Compassion Based Living Course (CBLC). Reflecting on these teachings, I felt a small shift in awareness and attitude.
Perhaps it will resonate with you.
I wanted to share my experience with you as it might be helpful in your preparation for Christmas. Let me explain.
The Joy and the Difficulty
On the one hand, for me Christmas had been about taking joy in watching the excitement and exultation of my children. As they have grown older and more independent, I return to my love of cooking and socialising. I take great pleasure in preparing tasty food for family and friends.
The Christmas lights brighten up a Scottish winter. There can be a lot of cuddling, playing and sharing with the people I love. So yeah, there’s a lot of joy, love, light and connection to be experienced.
On the other hand, I feel Christmas brings great expectations and the inescapable meeting of difficulty and difficult people.
Advertising depicts a successful and complete family in a beautiful, big home with perfect decorations, scrumptious food, sending and receiving the ideal gifts, and sitting in harmony. Sometimes I can feel the weight of an expectation to deliver all of this.
I can feel that there’s something wrong with me if I cannot provide or be all of the things of a Marks & Spencers Christmas advert.
Yes Christmas is about working within a budget, not just financially but emotionally.
What I really want to speak about is how Christmas confronts me with spending time with people that I find difficult – or even dislike. How to meet these difficult human relationships is really important. I’ve noticed how difficult relationships become immersed in repetitive stories of past or projected future, which can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Compassion
Thankfully, Week 7 of the CBLC and the teachings of the Bodhisattva remind me of the very real tools I have to work with the difficulties I’ve just described. Learning to develop and direct compassion to myself is a central teaching and practice, but so too is relating this compassion to all sentient beings – even the ones I find difficult.
I find these teachings and practice humbling, heart-warming and connecting. They enable me to see the possibility of choice. The teachings empower me to acknowledge that how I reacted in the past is not set in stone and does not define me.
Rather, with practice, the patterns and habits underlying my unhelpful reactiveness can be interrupted with a pause, grounding to the earth and breathing slowly. In that pause difficulties don’t seem so solid and defining. In that pause, I can choose to apply a different attitude.
“Just Like Me”
The CBLC reminds me that all human beings are “just like me”. They don’t want to feel pain, guilt, shame, loneliness or separation. “Just like me” they would rather experience happiness, acceptance, appreciation, kindness and the support of being connected to others through compassion.
I’m also aware of the way a person’s behaviour is very often a reflection of their own suffering. A person’s anxiety or dislike of themselves is often habitually spat out at the people they come into contact with.
In this way, a difficult person’s behaviour is really not about me – and very often they’re ignorant of this suffering and the related behaviour. Just like me, if I’m truthful.
I don’t need to condone their actions. I don’t have to get rid of my likes and dislikes. Rather, by working with these practices I can feel that there’s more that connects me to this difficult person than separates us.
Why? Because we all feel pain and wish we didn’t. Nobody escapes the experience of the human condition. Even after 15 years of mindfulness practice, I can still get hijacked and old patterns will display themselves. The difference is I can pause, ground and breath. Yes, I still have strong boundaries but pausing enables me to see that I don’t need to add to suffering and I can be a little more understanding of myself and others.
Starting Again
“Just like me” will be my mantra for this Christmas. I’m really curious about what applying an attitude to my relationship with myself and with difficulty. I like this not knowing. It’s exciting to start again. Perhaps a different kind of Christmas is possible. Why not try it too?
Finally, for many of us Christmas is a time of celebrating the joy of a common humanity. I think the CBLC also encourages us to celebrate both the individual and collective joy of being human. It ignites my innate warmth, kindness and compassion. It reminds me that there’s a choice about how I meet the blocks to my contentment and happiness. I’m invigorated by the energy from connecting with everyone through simple acts of kindness.
The difference, I think, is that the CBLC celebrates the joy of a common humanity all year round, not just at Christmas.
Compassion is not just for Christmas.