Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. Let's pretend you have a friend named Carrie.

She is gentle, loving, peaceful, responsible, quiet, kind, and sweet.

Now imagine getting a phone call from her in the middle of the night asking you to bail her out of jail because she got caught with a knife and a baseball bat arrested for

destruction of property and possible charges for attempted assault with a

deadly weapon. This is obviously surprising and confusing so you

immediately wonder what was she thinking and if

Carrie was your daughter you might even shout on the phone what were you thinking?

There's a song by Carrie Underwood in which she out, I dug my key into the side of his pretty little

souped up four-wheel drive, and I carved my name into his leather seats.

I took a Louisville sluggard to both headlights and had slashed a hole in all four tires.

Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.

Now we have a little more context, so we no longer wonder what Carey was thinking,

we understand what Carrie was feeling.

Instead of trying to wrap our heads around other people's thought process or trying to understand

their logic, we can open our hearts to compassionately relate to their feelings and emotions,

irrational as they may be. It doesn't mean that what this man did to Carrie wasn't wrong

and it doesn't make it right for Carrie to have reacted the way she did. But the moment we relate to her pain from the betrayal, heartache and disappointment, we understand why she behaved like that. We may not like it or agree with it, but we understand that Carrie wasn't doing a lot of thinking in that parking lot.

She was acting out her feelings, and we have all been there done that.

Getting that call from jail in the middle of the night, your response wouldn't be judgment and condemnation, perhaps especially if this was your child, it would be empathy, patience, and unconditional love.

It would be a shift from, oh Carrie to oh, Carrie. If I'm not making any sense, don't worry. It's not your

inability to understand. I'm just having a difficult time articulating what I mean.

And I warn you, it's about to get stranger from here because I'm inviting you to take a

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