When you travel, you are constantly exposed to new and interesting people. Most of the time you have great interactions. You meet a new friend with shared hobbies traveling from Egypt or connect with a family from India on a family trip. All the connections have the ability to change your travel experience for the better.
But what do you do when you meet someone that you just don’t like?
What do you do when you start talking with someone who has drastically different views about the world from you?
The Power of Compassion
My advice is to turn to compassion. Compassion is the ability to be in the uncomfortable in order to support someone else. For the people we love it may seem fairly easy to be compassionate.
For ourselves it can feel a little harder, which I will talk about in a future article.
But for the people we don’t like it can often times feel close to impossible to feel any sort of compassion towards them.
For me, this comes up alot with the people who have hurt me in the past. Part of my recovery was learning how to set boundaries: with people who were not really good friends, with family members that were no longer supporting me but instead pulling me down, and with myself. Through recovery, I learned how to set boundaries that have allowed me to foster and encourage the growth of positive relationships instead of using all my energy up on destructive ones.
Travel and Compassion
But travel has taught me how to see people as people. How to see people as human beings who are just trying to get through the day and live their lives. When we travel, the differences between cultures, languages and ways of life make the world a fascinating and diverse place. But those differences often lead to disagreement and conflict. By holding compassion for those who we disagree with or even dislike we open ourselves to the possibility of learning something new. Maybe we don’t agree with someone and never will but leaving space for even the possibility allows us to create relationships that are more than just surface level relationships.
Tangible Practices
So what are some tangible skills that you can cultivate to practice holding compassion for people you don’t like and or disagree with?
1.People are people.
Don’t forget that the person you are arguing with also has a family, their own dreams and their own worries. They, like you, also just want to be happy and or get through their day safely. Yes, they might view the world in a drastically different way but they are also human.
2.Recognize difference.
While looking for common humanity is a great way to connect with people we also have recognize that people and cultures are different. By recognizing difference we acknowledge the strength in diversity. Ignoring difference leads to disempowerment of cultures and ethnicities that are seen as different from the norm or socially accepted culture.
3.Just breath.
Ultimately, you don’t have to all of a sudden love the person that just a minute ago you hated. That’s not the point. The point is to practice the ability to have compassion towards them. To acknowledge that they are allowed to believe what they believe and try to see the situation from their point of view. But at the end of the day, they do not control your happiness. You do! And only you can decide if what they are saying will impact you. Holding some compassion for the people who have or are hurting you allows you to take back your power and recognize that their actions/words do not have to be your detriment.
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