Righteousness Vs Empathy
On what serves better
Happy Sunday!
And welcome to today's edition of 'Conscious living with Purnima'. In today's post we will look at drawing our awareness to how empathetic we are in our daily lives.
It's easy to be righteous because of our preconceived ideas of what is right, what is wrong, how something should be done and how something should not be done. And we unconsciously parrot these ideas to others when we see them veering away from these with the hope of improving their lives. Sometimes this works and oftentimes it does not.
The reason it doesn't work is because of our lack of understanding of other people's life- where they are, what they need, how they learn and perceive things, what they are going through & feeling, their own beliefs and values etc.
Over time I have learnt that to be a good coach, a good parent, a good spouse, a good friend, or just a good human, what is most required is empathy. And that comes with a conscious practice of taking a pause, sealing the mouth from blurting out solutions or guidance and just listening. And also asking the right questions so we can discover the real issues.
We need to get into the habit of asking ourselves what we may be missing from what appears obvious.
I feel there is too much righteousness in the world today and very little empathy. Maybe we can start to pay attention to this aspect just a tad more and see what results come out of such attention.
As a new week starts tomorrow, notice the following:
A. How often you jump to instructing others as a way of problem solving. This would show up with the usage of: Do this, or don't do this. And how frequently you make conclusions about why people are the way they are without probing.
B. How often you show curiosity about how a person may be behaving and use empathetic listening & understanding before offering your opinions/guidance/ instructions.
Notice the results of the 2 different approaches. What builds better relationships and truly solves problems? Make notes in your journal based on your experiences and see what comes up for you as a learning. Concluding this post with a quote by Stephen Covey for your reflection.
“When you show deep empathy towards others, their defensive energy comes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems.” - Stephen Covey
It's such a beautiful message. We fail to understand that righteousness is also personal. It cannot and should not be imposed. If we practice empathy in our relationships, there would be so much to learn and experience. Your words are magical, thanks Purnima 🙂
True to your writing, what we miss today is empathy and forgiveness. We relentlessly allow the mind to defend and share our views, and force them too.
Well written Puri.