You might think that the brain is compartimented.
You might think that the right brain is where all the logic and the mathematical mind is located.
You might have been taught that the left brain is where all the imagination and your creativity is located.
Guess what?
Both sides work together.
They are useful to each other.
When you are trying to remember something, part of your imagination plays a role.
When you hear something, part of your imagination is stimulated.
This results in memories being attached to desires.
Yes, part of your memories are just inventions and wishful thinking.
Ask two people to describe an event, and they will both describe something different.
They lived the events through their senses, through their personality, through their dreams and hopes.
The event is already filtered and enhanced, either made worse or better or different.
Have you ever heard the expression, "We only hear or see but what we want to hear and see"?
This is true.
Before we listen to someone, we already have a preconception about what this person is going to say or do. We filter everything this person says or do through this filter. We do not really listen or see.
Imagine what might happen if we meet people with the feeling that this person is prejudiced?
Imagine if we meet someone thinking this person knows nothing about us.
Imagine if we meet someone thinking they can never understand us or they are biased toward us?
You already have a dialogue in your head.
You will match this dialogue to whatever the person says.
You will take anything this person says and justify whatever is going on in your head.
Compassion is trying to remove those filters and try to really listen without any prejudices, without any prior assumption, with a minimum filtering.
This reminds me when my kids were little.
When I was really angry at them, I would wave my hand around over their heads or in front of their face without touching them.
They would automatically yell, "Dad, Dad, Mom hit me!"
I did not hit them, but they imagined the pain and the pain felt real to them.
When people talk to us, we feel the pain without even being touched.
We brace for impact.
We are prepared to feel the pain or we think we already know what this person is all about.
We condition ourselves to be a certain way.
We say in our head, "Oh, that kind again."
We box people.
We expect people to try to hurt us, to think a certain way, to say things even when they don't.
So try to listen, really listen.