Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Miscara, and in today's episode, we're talking about a reflection that will help you develop more empathy.

More to come on that in a moment. First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells. Okay. So a lot of the issues I'm seeing stem from an inability to associate into another person's

experience. And because of that, we tend to other people.

We see what someone is doing.

We say, how dare they?

We associate into our own experience and go, I believe this, I believe that.

I would never do this.

And it creates more division, separation, rather than an opportunity to move closer to understanding.

Now, I'm not saying that we have to accept everything everyone is doing

and not have opinions, nor am I saying that we don't need to have judgments.

I think all of that is a part of being a collective and learning to live in harmony with one another.

But when we don't make some effort to understand and we just adhere to our own opinions, our own beliefs and mental constructs,

it can keep us feeling strong in our individuality and our own ego, and that can create more

division and subsequently less harmony, more issues.

So one of the reflections I've been playing with lately is if I see someone acting in a way that I

disagree with or condemn or don't believe in, I reflect on the fact that if I were this person with the same birth into this world,

the same experiences as a child, the same genetic disposition, the same experiences through young adulthood, adulthood

all the way up to this moment, if I experienced all of that, then I would be thinking,

believing, and behaving in the same way.

Now we could push back and go, no, not me, not me.

If I went through all of that, I would think differently.

...