Hey,
It's Cyrus,
And welcome to this opportunity to become another person.
Today,
If you're ready,
We're going to select somebody that you want to deepen your empathy for,
But we're not going to intellectualize it.
We're going to use our embodiment and sense of imagination to actually inhabit the other person's experience as fully as possible.
And of course,
We know that we can't actually be in another person's experience,
And we are using our imagination,
And we can acknowledge that that has its limits.
But if we approach this in a spirit of wonder and openness,
It might prove to be an interesting experience,
Perhaps unlike anything you've done before.
So if you're ready,
Go ahead and eliminate any distractions.
Set up your body so that you're either sitting upright,
Relaxed and alert,
Or lying down in a comfortable position.
And when you feel ready,
Go ahead and close your eyes.
And take a slow,
Deep breath in through the nose,
All the way down to the toes.
And let it roll out slow,
All the way back up through the mouth,
Relaxing as you exhale at your own pace.
I invite you to take a slower,
Fuller breath now,
All the way down,
Feeling the fullness of the body and the aliveness as you let it roll back out at your rhythm.
And really let this last breath be the one that settles you into the practice as you breathe in slow,
Methodically,
Deeply,
And then allow your muscles and system to relax as you release the breath.
Okay,
Time to get a little bit Freaky Friday.
If you're ready,
Go ahead and notice your own body.
Feel the aliveness head to toe.
And if it feels safe and you feel ready,
Just tune in to the simplicity of the aliveness in your inner body.
And the simplicity of the awareness,
The witnessing presence that's formlessly aware of this moment and everything in it.
And if it feels safe and you feel ready,
Just imagine your separate individual sense of self temporarily fading away.
You can pick it back up on the way out the door,
But for now,
If you're ready,
Just allow the edges of your individual self to melt and soften away.
Enough so that you can start to feel your essence as a human being as you are.
And to whatever extent it feels safe,
Feel yourself temporarily letting go of the contours and definitions of your identity,
Your beliefs and opinions.
Just feel them relaxing enough to start to enter a space of openness and curiosity.
Feel the quietly electric aliveness of that space and just enjoy it for a moment without needing to get anywhere.
And now notice the individual,
The person that's floating up that you wish or feel called to empathize with more deeply.
I invite you to let go of any preconceptions or any versions of them that your mind might know.
And just see them emerging in your consciousness as they are.
And see them with a fresh set of eyes,
As if you're experiencing them for the first time.
And just allow yourself to float closer to them and play around with them.
Noticing if it feels intuitively safe for you and for them to embody their experience more closely,
To literally practice inhabiting their experience as an exercise in deepening empathy.
And if it does and you feel ready,
Just imagine your consciousness within their body,
And notice what you notice as you initially step into that space.
Notice any physical abilities or limitations with a sense of curiosity and compassion.
Notice any perspectives,
Opinions,
Experiences that they have that are known to you.
That might inform the way they see the world.
Just be curious about what it's like to be within that experience.
If it feels safe,
You might notice any fears the person has or any desires or longings that they possess.
Noticing what it's like to imagine being within their emotional experience,
To the extent that it feels safe to notice that.
And I invite you to notice how others and the world relates to you within this experience,
And how you feel compelled to relate to the world.
If it feels safe,
You might even imagine yourself walking through the world or through your day in this body,
In this space,
Getting a more embodied sense of what it's like to exist within this consciousness as you imagine it.
And I invite you to notice any spontaneous sense of love,
Affection,
Empathy,
Or any other qualities you might naturally feel for this individual as you connect more deeply with their experience as you imagine it.
And embrace those feelings and those qualities.
If it feels good.
And I invite you to notice,
Is there anything you've learned by being within this experience that you might not have already known or at least sensed on this deep of a level?
And when you're ready,
I invite you to gradually let go of this experience,
Of this exercise,
And gradually move back into the space of pure aliveness and awareness.
And when you feel ready,
Gently step back into your own body,
Your own experience,
And notice what you notice.
Notice any empathy that you might have for yourself as you re-inhabit your experience from a place of having explored other perspectives directly.
And now you might observe how you wish to relate to that individual differently,
If at all,
If they're in your life.
How your empathy might affect your relationship to them in a positive way.
And if you enjoyed this,
You might want to practice it again with somebody else to continue to broaden your perspective and deepen your empathy.
I would love to hear about your experience if you want to share.
And I thank you for taking this time for yourself today.
I hope you have a beautiful day.
