Thankyou for asking kgal.
My perspective comes largely from knowing myself deeply, from years of hard introspection after personal tragedy, and also my career as a nurse. An example of a typical day at work is, I'll care for a very needy nip tuck typle woman, (I'll call her Ms. P) in for a breast augmentation, for example, who puts on a histrionic display over whatever ails her, no matter how small her concerns seem to others. Only to, on the other side of the curtain, have the quiet young mother (I'll call her ms.
) going through her second mastectomy, with poor prognosis for life beyond five years. Her children waiting by her side, wondering when mommy will be better. The feelings of the plastics lady, are real. I'm torn with extreme empathy for the mother with cancer, and yet, Ms. P, is complaining because she doesn't want the IV in her hand to leave a mark, or something like that. Fighting back the tears for Ms.
, disturbed by the contrast in the two women,
I exercise my zen muscles, and put myself in the shoes of Ms. P, and genlty advise her how best to avoid a scar, albeit my interaction with her very quiet, fluid and gentle to encourage a more reserved display of her emotions. The empathetic flip needed to respond with compassion, takes practice. In younger years, I would have ignored her, or made a friendly joke about how the sky was falling, and vent to my friends about the injustice of it all, but that would only have been to pacify my own annoyance with her, and I'd limit by own growth toward a global perspective of loving kindness, and positive evolution.