"Empathy is about acknowledging that we are all separate, but also interconnected."
"One of my students, a waitress, has told me how impossible some of her customers can be. She described one customer, a very well dressed business woman who would come to her restaurant for lunch almost every day. she usually dined alone, reading business reports and annoying ohers by chatting loudly on a cell phone. Everyone in the restaurant called her "Mrs. Cranky," because the woman was always returning food, complaining that a draft was blowing on her, and often seemed to take it personally if the restaurant had run out of a particular item. She htought nothing of berating the waitress for things that were clearly not her fault. My student dreaded waiting on her, but the woman kept coming back.
One day Mrs. Cranky came to the restaurant, accompanied by an ancient woman in a wheelchair who was obviously her mother. On that particular day, the persnickety customer was very quiet. All her usual complaining behavior was being taken over by her even more persnikty mother. the mother was more impossible than the daughter had ever been, and berated the entire wait staff. Her own daughter seemed to becomel ike a shy, insecure five year old, completely powerless to stand up for herself. She hunched over in her chair, almost as though she were cowering from someone who was about to hit her.
the student saw all thsi, and began to have empathy for Mrs. Cranky. Seeing how she had been treated all her life made it obvious why she felt the need to treat others so abusviely. She decided that she would commit to ending the cycle of abuse. From that day forward, she treated this annoying customer of hers with love, kindness, and understanding.
the ending of the story is not waht you would expect. The customer did not soften under the constant barrage of kindness that emanated from the student. Instead, she seemed distrustful and annoyed. It as almost as if she felt htat the kindness hse was reeiving was a trick. Mrs. Cranky was putting out hostility and by God, She expected hostility to come right back. That is how she had been raised. As unpleasent a life as it was, it was clearly the only way of being she could understand.
Eventually, Mrs. Cranky stopped coming to the restaurant altogether. The student says that although the customer didn't respond to her kindness, she herself got an enormous benefit from altering her behavior. She said, "I just felt lighter. I have always dreaded waiting on that customer, and suddenly i found myself looking forward to it. It made me feel so good about myself that it didn't really matter what the response was. I didn't care if she liked me. I liked me" that was the real gift that came from putting compassion into action.
the waitress saw another human being as the frightened and confused child she once was. When you find yourself reacting to someone's behavior, the first hting you can do is to imagine that person as a seven-year old. the man waving his fists at you in traffic is really nothing more than a little boy whose father doesn't have time for him anymore. The rude clerk at the DMV is really nothing more than an ashamed little girl who's been told over and over again that she is ugly and stupid. If you the time to see the hurt and sorrow, it becomes easier to have compassion and move on with the rest of your day."
- Gurmukh { 8 Human Talents}
" to live without compassion is to take on a physical burden. Poison seeps into every cell of your body."
