2013 Wellness Challenge Week 8 Recap: Compassion Practice
When I was at Wisdom 2.0 last weekend in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to hear Meng Tan, also known as the Jolly Good Fellow at Google’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t anticipating listening to what Meng Tan had to say because I was interested in something else going on at the same time. Somehow, I ended up catching the end of his short presentation, and it ended up inspiring me so much I wanted to add it to my weekly wellness challenge right away.
Essentially, Meng was trained as a software engineer for many years until Google hired him to spread peace and happiness throughout the office. Seriously. His success at this job landed him a book deal and a Ted Talk.
The point of Meng’s talk on the Wisdom 2.0 stage was to encourage everyone in the audience (hundreds if not thousands) to engage in one simple practice just two times every day. You don’t even have to open your mouth and speak a word – it works by just saying a simple phrase to yourself in your head.
The phrase?
“I wish for you to be happy.”
That’s it. If you can walk around and wish for two complete strangers to be happy each day, you will have kickstarted your own compassion practice.
I tried this for myself and found it heartwarming to wish others happiness, especially complete strangers. It takes no effort at all and I found myself wishing it upon those who I thought were in unfortunate situations and circumstances. I even used it on close friends and family when they were in an angry space.
In fact, wishing others happiness reminds yourself to access happiness within you. I found there to be a distinct difference between wishing others to have happiness as opposed to being happy. Having happiness is something you must acquire by default; for most of us, acquisitions happen externally. On the other hand, being happy is an inside job.
Research is showing that engaging in a compassion practice over time will help you reduce stress and fear-induced reactivity while increasing a sense of calm and self-compassion at the same time. Thus, the benefits of wishing others to be happy helps you be happier yourself!
So try it out. You’ve got nothing to lose. Let me know how it goes in the comments below!
Image credit: artofdharma.org
