Someone recently asked me how to handle situations when a person does or says something hurtful. I get it, believe me. When learning how to react when someone hurts you, our first unconscious, instinctual reaction is to respond with anger. But responding out of rage lacks wisdom, patience, perspective, and most importantly, efficacy. Reacting with anger simply isn't an effective way to communicate. People’s walls immediately go up, and they…
It is true that we all have Buddha and Hitler potential within us. We all have these capacities for becoming good, awakened, peaceful, loving people. And we also have tyranny, hatred, cruelty, and violence within us. But here is the good news: it took a very specific set of circumstances to create Hitler. It took very specific causes and conditions that led to his life and the consequences and outcomes…
As Ram Dass so beautifully put it, we are all just walking each other home. Ram Dass, as you may not know, was a Harvard professor who realized the height of his professional ambitions — and still discovered a deep, ever-pervading discontent and suffering. So he went on a journey to India to try to discover the true secret to happiness.And he found this spirituality over in India, and came…
Q: Dear Todd, shouldn't we respond with our true feelings to people who hurt us and not with love and kindness?TODD ANSWERS: Someone recently asked me this question about how to respond to people who hurt us. I get it, believe me. Our first (unconscious) instinctual reaction is to respond with anger. But this would be a reaction that lacks wisdom, patience, perspective, and most importantly, efficacy. It is just…
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