Open Hearted Life Exercises

Compassionate Intention

As you go through your day, try to be creative in bringing a compassionate intention to the situations you face.  For example, when washing dishes, consider that you are doing so that others may eat without contracting diseases.  When interacting with others, do so with the intention to make their day a bit brighter.  Pick a few situations you regularly encounter during a day, and experiment with how you could bring a compassionate intention to the situation and see how if affects your experience of the situation.

Take a few deep breaths and notice the feelings and thoughts you're experiencing.  Now say to yourself 'hungry child.' Notice any feelings that arise when you say those words and allow them to sink in.   

Happy and Free From Suffering

As you go through your day and encounter different people, remind yourself that like you, one of their deepest, innermost wishes is to be happy and not suffer.  When you're at a red light, on the train, walking down the street or waiting in a queue, look at the people around you and reflect, "This person, like me, wants to be happy and avoid suffering." Let this knowledge enter your heart.

Then take it a step further and extend kind wish to them, "May you be happy and free from suffering." Similarly, we can extend this kind wish to ourselves. Repeatedly extending compassionate wishes can transform our minds as we gradually build compassionate habits, they replace our habits to judge, criticize and shaem that keep us caught up in anger, anxiety and negativity.

Compassion and Emotions

Think of a time when you were behaving aggressively or when you completely shut down and refused to communicate with another person. What emotions did you feel at that time? Now think of a time when you were behaving kindly and compassionately. How did you feel then? You'll find that as you move from feeling threatened to feeling safe in a situation, your ability to experience and act with compassion increases. 

Noticing Our Self-Talk

Try to notice the different ways you talk to yourself. Is your internal voice harsh and critical, or kind, validating and encouraging?  When you observe that your self-talk is serving no purpose other than to keep you locked into negative emotions, come back to observing your breath and let your mind settle. Then shift your thoughts to an internal voice that is more reality-based, helpful and encouraging. Recognize that you have good qualities and talents. Rejoice in them and aspire to use those qualities and talents to benefit all living beings. 

How We Feed Our Minds

Think about the diet you've been feeding your mind. What things have you watched, listened to and thought about that have helped you become more like the person you want to be? Have you exposed yourself to things that have served little purpose but to distress or to reinforce unhealthy or unwanted habits, thoughts or emotions? Think about how you could fill your mind with more nutritious substances.

Identifying and Taking Responsibility for Emotional Habits

During the process of growing up, most of us will have picked up emotional habits that may not help u in the present.  See if you can identify things that you do or way that you react that get in the way of your happiness. Try to understand where you learned these habits and responses. Taking responsibility for these habits and responses try to commit to figuring out ways to replace these tricky reactions with strategies that work better and to learn to cope with the emotions that accompany them.

Using Imagery

Start by considering one of these compassionate qualities that you'd like to develop: warmth, kindness, nonjudgment, confidence, courage, patience, humility, distress tolerance, humor, generosity, loving-kindness

Imagine how it feels to have these qualities. What would if feel like to have patience, deep kindness, confidence, or generosity? Having these compassionate qualities, what would you be motivated to do? What desires and intentions would arise in you? What thoughts would you think? Being kind and patient, how would you understand your own struggles or those of others? How would you spend your time, and what sorts of things would you? How would this perspective change the way you engage in your everyday activities? 

 Equalizing Self and Others

Take a few moments in a public place to become aware of the people around you. Shifting your attention away from your own concerns, allow yourself to connect with the understanding that these beings around you have life stories that run every bit as deep as your does, filled with hopes, dreams and aspirations, and with their own struggles and challenges. Recall that, just like you, they wish to be happy and to avoid suffering. Allow yourself to experience a sincere wish that they have happiness and that they be free from suffering.

 A Compassionate "Homework Assignment"

Come up with some ways to bring compassion, kindness, and generosity into your daily life. Create a list of compassionate actions you could do. Then each day, pick one and do it. As you do so, bring to mind the wish to become deeply compassionate and see this action as a way to move towards this goal. As you complete your "homework," take note of how it feels to behave in this kind, compassionate way. Notice the emotions that arise in you as you purposefully take actions to benefit others.

Noticing the Positives

As you interact with others throughout the day, make an effort to notice their positive qualities. Almost everyone that we encounter has strengths that are worthy of our admiration, even if we have a difficult relationship with that person. Se if you can discover their positive qualities, and and when you find one that you particularly admire, let them know: "I was really impressed with the way you handled that situation. You did not get angry or back down when your neighbor raised his voice, but kept trying to communicate with him." "The project you were working on was completed on time, was laid out in a logical manner and covered all the necessary topics." Be sincere -- false flattery is neither kind nor compassionate. Observe how this practice of searching for the good in others impacts how you see them, how you feel about yourself and your relationship with them.