An Allyship Meditation You Can Use Right Now
It’s hard to take in people’s pain. We, as in human beings, often cannot bear to witness the pain of others so we usually avoid it or reject it. Maybe we don’t make eye contact with someone who is experiencing homelessness as we pass by them on the street, maybe we tell our friend that everything is going to be ok and they shouldn’t be worried. Both of these are forms of not being able to sit with and take in someone else’s pain.
Personally, when I’m hurting, I don’t respond well to optimistic perspectives from my loved ones. It feels like a rejection of my pain and an inability to sit with it, or rather me. A needing to package it up all nice with a bow. A need to have a lesson from every hurt. While it is true that there is in fact a lesson in every hurt (as the great Mary Oliver says, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift”), only I decide what that lesson is and when I’m ready to take it in. The same thing is true when we’re thinking about how to be allies. How can we create the space and take in the pain without turning away from it or trying to turn it into a lesson or needing to make sense of it? The answer is compassion.
Although compassion has been conceptualized in many ways, it generally entails witnessing another’s suffering, feeling an emotion in response to that witnessing, and a motivation or responsiveness to help or relieve that suffering. This latter portion is what differentiates empathy from compassion. Compassion includes a call to action.
But, as we’ve pointed out, compassion is harder than it seems and that’s mostly because sitting in the pain of another inevitably reminds us of our own pain. And if you go even deeper, it reminds us of our undeniable interconnectedness and sameness, which can feel simultaneously vitalizing and overwhelmingly unbearable. After all, how are we to take in the suffering of the world and live to talk about it? Thus, in order to have compassion for others, we must also have compassion for ourselves.
Perhaps counterintuitively, our liberation comes exactly from this moving towards pain, not from moving away from it. Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön often refers to this desire to move away from pain as, “an armor that becomes a prison,” making our lives smaller and smaller, perpetually focused on the illusion of safety. Therefore, to be allies, we need to move towards the pain of others. But we also need compassion for ourselves to do that effectively and that’s where meditation comes in.
There are several types of compassion meditations, but one type, known as Tonglen, may be particularly helpful as we think about how to show up as allies for those experiencing brutality and inequity because of their identities. Tonglen meditation is the opposite of how we are used to operating. The literal translation is “giving and taking.” With this type of meditation, we practice taking in the suffering of a person who we know is hurting and who we wish to help. So, instead of trying to avoid pain, we intentionally breathe in all the pain we wish to take away from another so they may be well. On the out breath, we send an offering to that person that would bring them relief. For example, on the inhale, we can take in the pain of a close friend who is struggling with job insecurity, and on the exhale, we can wish them a sense of groundedness and security. It is this taking in of another’s suffering that connects us to our own generous heart (referred to as bodhicitta in Buddhism) and interconnectedness. In turn, when we connect to our true nature, or as Buddhist monk Trungpa Rinpoche calls our “primordial basic goodness,” we experience a sense of relief. This is not relief from pain, but rather from the suffering that comes with constantly trying to flee it. The relief of being authentically present.
In this meditation, you can start with a close or known person in your life that is suffering and broaden that out to include others who might be suffering similarly. In this way, we can bring to mind an entire marginalized group and take in their suffering. We can have them place their suffering in our heart space to hold, to help share in the weight of that burden. This is allyship. To create space within oneself to truly take in the pain of those who are suffering because of the privilege we get to have. On the out breath, we exhale sending validation, safety, and equity for this group.
Overview: These are instructions for a guided meditation. But this exercise can be done at any moment. It can even be done in the middle of a conversation, with your eyes open within just one series of breathing in and out.
What You’ll Need: 5–20 minutes, your choice. Take notice of whether you’re feeling up for this. Taking in someone else’s pain can at first seem like a lot, but quite a bit of ease comes with it as you stay with it. So first and foremost, assess whether you’re feeling open or closed right now. Some signs you might be closed at the moment include feeling resistant or willful, irritable, tired, bored, or judgmental. If you’re closed, that’s ok and you can come back to this at a later time when you feel more up for it. If you’re feeling that you have the bandwidth, you’ll need a quiet, private place for the duration you’ve chosen and the ability to find a comfortable seated or lying down position.
Instructions: Read through these instructions so you know what to do then practice on your own. First, once you find a posture that is comfortable to you, take three deep breaths with either your eyes closed or with a focused downward gaze. If it’s helpful, count to 3 on the inhale and 4 on the exhale, helping yourself land and settle into the current moment. This also helps activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which tells your body you are safe.
Then, begin to bring to mind someone that you know (either closely or distally) that is hurting and you want to help. Imagine them in as much detail as you can. Sometimes words or colors or just a sense of someone is what shows up instead of an image. Just work with whatever shows up that helps you hold that person in your mind. Imagine what they are struggling with or the pains they are feeling right now. As you inhale, as best you can, breathe in that pain. If you’re a visual person, you can imagine them placing those pains into your heart space or just imagine the pain filling up your chest, or perhaps taking in a light of a certain color. You are breathing in their pain to release them from it. On the exhale, breathe out what you wish for them to feel (e.g., relief, safety, calm or ease, love, validation, hope). Imagine them receiving this wish for well-being, or imagining a light of a different color moving towards them. *Note that you do not need to make the exchange on every single breath cycle, feel free to create a little space between exchanges if that feels better.
Complete several rounds of this and then see if you can broaden out to a larger group of people who are suffering similarly. Breathing in the hurt because you want to help, and breathing out love because you know this is what all beings deserve.
If you struggle to bring any images to mind or you find yourself getting overwhelmed, try shifting to either just offering yourself some compassion in the moment, or including yourself with the group. Breathing in your own pain, maybe saying, “This is suffering,” and breathing out whatever you feel you would relieve your pain, perhaps saying, “May we all be free from suffering” or “May I know that I’m doing the best that I can.”
To close out, take three deep breaths, and again if it’s helpful, counting to 3 on the inhale and 4 on the exhale. When you’re ready, opening your eyes or taking a look around the room to reorient.
You may want to journal about what came up for you, or you may not. Regardless, before you go back to your day, take note of how you feel in the current moment as compared to how you felt before you started. Notice if there’s more openness there, either towards others or yourself, or both.
Again, this exercise is available to you whenever, wherever. Through this meditation, we can tap into our large, open heart and use that space to move us towards other wise action in the service of allyship. For example, I have also found this to be helpful when trying to have important conversations with those who have differing views than myself. I breathe in acknowledging this group too has pain, and offering relief to them on my out breath. It is through this that I can open to a wider space of compassion, which allows me to better hear them and myself.
Remember, we free ourselves and others when we open to and move towards pain, not away from it. As LSD researcher-turned-spiritual leader Ram Dass eloquently states, “An enlightened heart is openness to continuously having our heart break each and every moment, and it’s beautiful.”
Take care during this time, fellow human, and remember that you are not alone.
