Importance of practicing empathy in life

Our Indian philosophy is very rich in terms of the deep knowledge that it provides. It talks about the “Advaita” which means to identify and understand the self-worth with the ground reality of life. Even though it talks about Advaita that is self-worth but it gladly offers us the importance of practicing empathy in life.  We Indians are strong followers of empathy.

   

What is the difference between empathy and sympathy? Sympathy is something which we show to another person when he or she is going through any difficult situation. It is the way to make that person understand that he or she is not alone and we all are there for him or her and feel bad for his or her situation.

  

But empathy is totally a different thing and we should know what it is exactly before practicing it in life. Empathy is to feel, to understand and to know the situation of another person by stepping into their shoes.  Empathy is truly an amazing ability to understand the feelings of another person.

Do you know that there are three kinds of empathy in Psychology? So, when we talk about empathy we actually talk about three things at the same time.

1. Cognitive empathy

2. Social empathy

3. Empathetic concern

These three areas are really important and each one of them has something to offer to a sensitive mind.

   

Empathy has the power to heal another person’s wound. Empathy is a tender way to deal with the people who are at their worse stage of life. When you try this therapy, you would realize that you are working as a healer for that person. It is very soothing feeling to know that you are the source of healing for someone. For this, you don’t need to have money or asset, you just have to have a caring heart and pure soul, which everyone has and just needs to improve this ability by allowing themselves to be genuine in life. After all, the one who can heal the world has the power to change it.

Impediment to the action advances action

                                         

Many a times we hear that ups and downs are part of professional as well as personal life. Even if the ECG is in a straight line then you are dead. All these things are true and have been attracting many people since many years. But what attracted the most successful people is Stoic Philosophy.  It is the Philosophy which was coined or founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3^rd Century. There are a lot of things which can be achieved by following this Philosophy. Today we will talk about the first terminology of this Philosophy and that says, “Impediment to the action advances action.”

      In the journey of our professional life, we face many twists and turns. Many of us quit, while many of us fight in such situations. But if you concentrate on minute things, you will realize that whichever twists and turns have arose while achieving something, you have always tried a lot to find a way out. Even if you quit, you tried a whole lot of things before quitting. Those impediments in the way of your career have taught you actually how to act rather we can say; these impediments initiated another action which led you to the point of success, where you are today.

    Many a times you must have felt like everything has stopped working, the world around you has just stopped moving and you have nothing left in your hands. You must have felt sometime in your life that everything was wonderful yesterday and today everything has just changed a lot. That time just take a deep breath and make yourself understand that this is the warm up session for next big achievement in your life.

   When something goes wrong believe that, this situation is going to benefit you in a long run. The moment of impediments teaches you many things like, patience, focus and determination. When you have trust in the efforts you are taking, nothing can stop you. When you feed your subconscious mind with such optimism, what stands in your way becomes the way. You just have to keep moving forward, though you are moving slowly. Your speed doesn’t matter, but the action does! Have the determination of achieving goals in life. Start your journey towards success slowly but surely!

Keep the wicked feelings away

 मना सांग पां रावणा काय जाले।

अकस्मात ते राज्य सर्वै बुडाले॥

म्हणोनी कुडी वासना सांड वेगीं।

बळे लागला काळ हा पाठिलागी ॥१३॥

As we have accepted that our mind is like a child, hence we need to know that we should teach our mind by giving it examples to make it understand the concepts we are trying to teach it. Samarth knew it that our mind is a speedy child and we need to make it understand how to be on the right track. 

    Here’s in his 13^thShloka, Samarth Ramdas Swami asks mind to stay away from the wicked feelings and nasty thoughts. The reason behind giving this suggestion is very clear that these feelings or thought process can destroy us. These things first destroy our mental peace and then destroy our happiness.

     To describe this concept, Samarth Ramdas Swami gives us an example of Ravana. He describes Ravana’s life in one shloka. Ravana was a great knowledgeable king of Lanka. He worshiped Shiva and gained some powers. Due to this, he used to behave wickedly and used to use his powers for destroying people’s lives. He made use of his powers for invalid reasons. Samarth warns mind by saying that look at Ravana, he misused his powers and you see what happened with him. Everything what he had was suddenly vanished.

    To avoid this type of incidences in your life, keep those wicked feelings away. Make your mind pure to accept the fact. Make yourself ready to accept the good. For that you need to keep your mind free for good things. When you open the doors of your mind, open them for welcoming positivity, happiness and gratitude. This is what Ramdas Swami says in this Shloka.

Encourage the individuality of your child

We all have some or the other dream which we want to fulfill in our life. If due to some reason, we fail to do it, we naturally want our child to fulfill it for us. Many of us have found ourselves doing this and not admitting it in public. Or many of us found people saying that, “My son/daughter pursued which I couldn’t due to my financial conditions.” While doing so, do we really think once that, everyone including our child is different as an individual?

If no, then we should travel in the direction of achieving that stage in our life. We should be acceptable enough to accept our child’s individuality. We should understand the fact that one needs to be given their own space and needs to be treated as an independent individual. Parenting is the biggest responsibility. As one needs to give their 100% in order to make their child a better individual. When we give children their own space, we give them chance to learn about their abilities, strengths and weaknesses. It makes them independent in truest possible way.

To know their personality, you need to know their views first. You need to understand keenly what your child is thinking and doing. I am not saying that you need to keep the watch on the things but you need to be alert always. But if you find your child doing something good and something which contributes in developing his/her personality, you should support it. When you see something interesting is on its way to happen due to his or her efforts, you should help him or her to do it.  

He or she may have different thoughts about doing it, but that’s how it should be. That’s what making him or her grow as a person. Exploring the unknown areas and trying to do something beyond imagination is the true adventure and you should let your child do it. It will give him or her an idea of being authentic about his or her choices and make him or her believe in her strengths.

Inculcate mindfulness in your kids

We as grown-ups fail to identify the need of inculcating mindfulness in our kids. When we try to do it after seeing the negative sides of their personalities, we realize that we missed out the right time. Many of us would ask this question that what really the mindfulness is all about? Mindfulness is nothing but the sound mind with a lot of creativity. It is the state of mind where an individual feels no need to prove his or her point as they have got the insight of right and wrong already. It is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

    

Mindfulness comes with the greater sense of self awareness. What is self awareness? Self awareness is the state of mind where an individual sees everything related to him or her inside out. Can one be really firm about the opinions they have for themselves? Yes, if they possess the sense of mindfulness, then they can be that strong.

    

Mindfulness is the state of mind where an individual has a clear focus about what to do and when to do. It’s a matter of having focus in life. When you try to deal with difficult situations in life which causes stress, mindfulness helps you there to survive. But it cannot be achieved easily; one needs to have strong mind and long practice to do it. Early starters would achieve the state of mindfulness early in their life. It is very simple and easy to practice so that one gets the fruitful results of it.

You should practice mindfulness to make your child able to follow it. There are some steps to practice mindfulness in life. There are some steps to understand its value. Mindfulness can better be understood by experiencing the process of achieving it.

- Make peace through your behavior

- Be ready for the changes

- Increase the level of acceptance

- Be grateful for whatever you have

You are here to give

We live our life to achieve something. We feel that we are here for some or the other purpose but do we really find the purpose behind our living? Do we really try to achieve the goal in our life? Don’t connect the word ‘gain’ to the materialistic gain. Goal is purely associated with the meaning of life. What is the purpose of our life? Why the God almighty gave us the chance to live this beautiful life as a human being on this earth? The answer is he has given each one of us something very precious gift and he wants us to use that as an opportunity to fill this world with happiness.

  Many of us think that we are here to achieve what we want in life, but the fact is we are here to give whatever we are blessed with. May be some of us are blessed with the talent of writing, talent of singing or the talent of teaching. We need to pass on that to everyone we come across with. Teaching and learning is a two way process. We need to accept the fact that whatever we have; we should pass it on to make it more accessible and powerful medium for the people, to grow as a person.

  Using our blessings to make someone’s life journey beautiful is the purpose of life. Greed, regret, envy and hate are the most poisonous weapons which have an ability to vanish the happiness of our own! While the love, gratefulness, care are the feelings which help us to make this world beautiful.

  You are here to give happiness, love and care that you have within you, to make the difference in this world with your kindness. Your purpose of living this divine life is to give the world whatever you have!