Have a Heart: The Empathy Workout
If everyone did Martha Beck's warm-up exercises, the world would be an altogether better place. Let's start with us.
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Exercise 4: Metta-tation
World-class empathizers like my friend the meditation master (he of the continuous emotional orgasm) conduct a daily regimen of metta, or lovingkindness, meditation. This involves focusing all of one's attention on a certain individual and offering loving wishes to that person with each breath you take, for several minutes at a time.
Classic metta practice starts with your own sweet self. For five minutes, with each breath, offer yourself kind thoughts (May I be happy, may I feel joy, etc.). Taking these few minutes every day can put you on the road to complete, uncritical acceptance—the foundation on which all empathy is based. (Reaching that point, admittedly, takes years for most of us incomplete and self-critical people.)
Then switch the focus of your kind thoughts onto a friend or family member. When you feel a sense of emotional union with that person, target someone you barely know. As a final, black-belt exercise, project metta thoughts onto one of your worst enemies until you can begin to feel for them. Don't rush this process, or (God forbid) fake it. You'll only become a saccharine pseudo-empathizer, wearing the plastic smile of a fitness model from Neptune.
The thing about cardio is that once you get used to it, you can feel it making you stronger, calming you down, improving your quality of life. Regular empathy practice keeps you on the edge of your emotional fitness, but the benefits are enormous: an awareness of union that banishes loneliness, a natural ability to connect and relate to others, protection from idiot compassion, a wider, deeper life. As your empathy grows, you'll find that it's infinite and that through it, you transcend your isolation and find yourself at home in the universe. I promise, it'll do your heart good.
More Martha Beck Advice
From the March 2006 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.
World-class empathizers like my friend the meditation master (he of the continuous emotional orgasm) conduct a daily regimen of metta, or lovingkindness, meditation. This involves focusing all of one's attention on a certain individual and offering loving wishes to that person with each breath you take, for several minutes at a time.
Classic metta practice starts with your own sweet self. For five minutes, with each breath, offer yourself kind thoughts (May I be happy, may I feel joy, etc.). Taking these few minutes every day can put you on the road to complete, uncritical acceptance—the foundation on which all empathy is based. (Reaching that point, admittedly, takes years for most of us incomplete and self-critical people.)
Then switch the focus of your kind thoughts onto a friend or family member. When you feel a sense of emotional union with that person, target someone you barely know. As a final, black-belt exercise, project metta thoughts onto one of your worst enemies until you can begin to feel for them. Don't rush this process, or (God forbid) fake it. You'll only become a saccharine pseudo-empathizer, wearing the plastic smile of a fitness model from Neptune.
The Payoff
The thing about cardio is that once you get used to it, you can feel it making you stronger, calming you down, improving your quality of life. Regular empathy practice keeps you on the edge of your emotional fitness, but the benefits are enormous: an awareness of union that banishes loneliness, a natural ability to connect and relate to others, protection from idiot compassion, a wider, deeper life. As your empathy grows, you'll find that it's infinite and that through it, you transcend your isolation and find yourself at home in the universe. I promise, it'll do your heart good.
More Martha Beck Advice
- How to truly help friends in need
- 10 life lessons you should unlearn
- How to love more by caring less
From the March 2006 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.
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