Use Compassion to Learn How to Deal With Difficult People

‘Compassion, in Tibetan terms, is a spontaneous feeling of connection with all living things. What you feel, I feel; what I feel, you feel; there is no difference between us.’

– Mingyur Rinpoche

Have you ever encountered challenging personalities in your life? What if the key to dealing with difficult people lies in not trying to avoid them but changing how we view them? 

By practicing compassion towards people we find difficult, we change how we experience them. In this post, I share the philosophy that helps you deal with difficult personalities in your life. 

Shifting Our Perspective

Every now and then, we find someone that rubs us the wrong way. Something they might have said or done might trigger you, and if it happens more than once, you can quickly develop a mental block toward them. 

It can be easy to avoid everyone we find difficult, but often they are a family member or part of our work environment, and we have no choice but to figure out a way to get along.

When I encounter such people, I always wonder, how do these people I find difficult hold a special place in their loved ones’ lives? They could be someone else’s supportive sibling, loyal friend, and an understanding partner. This made me wonder what I am missing and how I am not seeing this loving side of them.

My meditation practice over the past few months has helped me better understand such situations. The Joy of Living meditation course I am taking teaches love and compassion meditation. Meditating on compassion has shed new light on how I look at people and has given me the tools to deal with difficult situations and personalities.

Practicing Compassion for Difficult People

Through Compassion meditation, Tibetan master Mingyur Rinpoche teaches us that all living beings want to be happy and free from suffering. 

With this concept in mind, when we find someone who does or says something we don’t like, we realize that their actions are based on their desire to be happy and that they are not intentionally trying to hurt us. But, like us, they sometimes don’t know how to control their emotions. 

To make this concept more relatable, Rinpoche shares a real-life story of a woman whose neighbor kept causing her problems by leaving trash in her yard and doing and saying things to aggravate her. When she responded with anger, it seemed to fuel her neighbor, who continued to trouble her. 

Unsure how to solve her problem, she approached Rinpoche, who advised her to practice compassion for this individual. Though skeptical initially, a year later, she was surprised to see that as she practiced compassion and reflected that an individual was just like her and wanted to be at peace deep down, his actions no longer bothered her, and she stopped reacting to them. 

Her compassion for her neighbor changed her perception of him and made her more peaceful. Eventually, he started bothering her less and less, and one day asked if she could forgive him. They soon became good friends. 

Steps to Practice Compassion Meditation

We can practice compassion for a difficult person by following the steps below:

1. You bring to mind someone who is difficult for you. It helps to start with someone who rubs you the wrong way and not someone who is most challenging. 
2. Reflect that the person is the same as you and wants to be free from suffering and problems.
3. Then use a compassionate phrase that you can recite to wish that person freedom from suffering. For instance, ‘May you be free from suffering and causes of suffering.’ 
4. We can also rely on your breath to imagine this: while breathing in, imagine that you are relieving them of their suffering; breathing out, imagine that you send them well-being and ease.

It is not easy to practice compassion for someone we find difficult. In my experience, our mind does everything in its power to distract us from practicing compassion towards difficult people. It is essential to recognize that this is normal. 

Initially, we do not want to recognize the good in the people we may find difficult, but I found that in my practice, as I practiced more, it helped me view them with kindness and compassion. 

Practice Compassion for a Peaceful Life

Through meditation, I found that people I found difficult themselves didn’t change, but how I perceived them changed, which made all the difference. With every new person I come across, I try to remember that, like me, they just want to be happy. 

Only through compassion can we learn how to deal with life more peacefully. It helped me see that when people are short with you, it is most often because of what they are going through inside of them. It is because of a lack of tools to regulate their emotions. It is rarely about us. 

With this new outlook on life, meditation has helped me see people with a colored lens of love and compassion. Although I have a long way to go, the path remains bright and hopeful. 

Find time to practice compassion meditation and see what it can do for you. It will change your perspective and outlook on situations, make you kinder and calmer, and bring you the peace you seek.