These days, we can so easily tune out the realness, the piercing, tenderness of what it's like to be another person.

And so much of what we're advocating for is just start with one human heart at a time.

If compassion is a kind of superpower, it enabled our species to survive.

Let's tap into that superpower and be willing to be brave enough to make room enough for other people to land in your heart.

So what if there was a game-changing relationship practice or tool or set of strategies that was capable of not only transforming your personal relationships, even the really tense ones, by the way.

But also your relationship with yourself and even the way you respond to others, even complete strangers, and embrace shaping the world around you to be a better place.

Well, it turns out there just might be.

And this is where we're headed today with my guest, Rick Hansen.

So Rick is a psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, a New York Times bestselling author of seven books published in 31 languages, including his latest making great relationships.

He's the founder of the Global Compassion Coalition and the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, as well as a co-host of the Being Well Podcast.

And Rick has lectured everywhere from NASA on Google to Oxford and Harvard. He's an expert on positive neuroplasticity.

And his work has been featured everywhere from CBS to NPR, BBC and so many other outlets.

He actually began meditating in 1974 and has taught in meditation centers worldwide for nearly five decades.

And today we're diving into the world of relationships, starting with how we relate to ourselves and to those around us, with a focus on the role of compassion and self-reliability.

We explore how difficult it is for many people to have self-compassion and really loyalty towards themselves, which can prevent us from being able to offer compassion to others, or how self-compassion makes people stronger and more resilient, and is actually a way to stand up against our inner critics.

We also touch on the importance of recognizing suffering in others and not tuning it out and how empathy alone can lead to burnout and depletion, while compassion activates reward centers in the brain that help really replenish the energy needed to be present and helpful to others in need.

And we explore the importance of cultivating deep and meaningful relationships with others, and something he calls warming the heart, which is the practice of connecting with oneself and others on really a deeper level,

which leads to more compassion and empathy. And we talk about the importance of seeing the person behind the eyes and putting no one out of your heart, even if you need to change the form or nature of your relationship with them, and how anger can actually be useful if we observe a two-stage process of getting angry and then learn to use anger without letting it use us.

And finally, we discuss the importance of setting boundaries, standing up for yourself, and taking care of yourself while still really retaining an open-heartedness and benevolence towards others.

I am so excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

For the seventh year on the Code Switch Podcast, conversations about race and identity go way beyond the day's headlines.

Because we know what's part of every person is part of every story. We're bringing that perspective with new episodes every week.

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