Be the Compassionate Jedi: 5 Practical Tips for Transforming Your Life and the World Around You

Ep 95. In the wake of recent elections, we've witnessed the growing divide in society, with contrasting views and beliefs often fueling hostility—not only between political factions but also among neighbors and citizens around the globe. This polarization has become more evident, leaving us questioning how we can bridge the gap and promote unity. What has become clear is that we need more compassion, understanding, and altruism in our daily lives to break the cycle of division.

In this episode, we explore 5 practical ways to cultivate compassion, kindness, and self-love in your everyday life, even in the midst of challenges. These methods are not about retreating into quiet meditation; they are actionable tools that anyone can use, no matter how busy or stressful life may get. By incorporating these simple, yet powerful practices, you can transform your interactions, foster positive energy, and create a ripple effect of empathy, patience, and understanding—whether in your home, workplace, or community.

It's time to step away from divisiveness and embrace the power of love, patience, and altruism. Become a beacon of positive change and be the compassionate Jedi we need in this world. Transform your life and the lives of others by implementing these 5 powerful methods today.

 Remember: compassion is the key to a better, more connected world. Take care and walk well. 

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 95 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And what we're going to be discussing today is something that on the heels of a lot of upset and anger towards each other within not only our country, but even between countries.

We need to probably see more of and that's altruism now I have done a podcast prior to I believe that was episode 61 Discussing the principle of altruism, but what I want to do today with that version of that is going to be showing you for little practices in mindset, but also practices Indicating that you have to kind of repeat and get skilled at this that will actually make a difference in

how you feel that actually has a lot of transfer into the area of skills called self-regulation and how we not only manage what goes on in our life but how we interact with those that we interact with those people out there in situations but how we can do it at a higher level of consciousness, mindfulness and compassion whenever we do interact with people especially those that might make us upset irritated or

that might trigger those things inside of us that maybe we need to work on. Remember, they're our mirror, correct? So once again, what we're going to do, we're going to cover today four methods, four practices, four techniques, four ways of encouraging more altruism, compassion, kindness, and appreciation, nonjudgmental mindfulness as we go about our day, extended to others.

What we're going to start off with is kind of pointing in direction of what just recently occurred. Not only a change of government in our United States here, but also change of government that's going to impact how other countries see us, but also how we see ourselves within our country and how we interact with those that weren't really so happy with the outcome of this election, and that's okay. We have to realize that things are changing and they are changing for the better in many ways.

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but not all changes are going to be seen that way. And over time, we still need to learn how to get along and keep going because when the shoe was on the other foot, people had to learn to get along and just make do. And here is the idea that I'm going to proffer today. And that is that if we extend kindness, compassion, patience, understanding, and we do this,

on a daily basis, we become more skilled because just as much as we can extend upset, lack of trust, irritation, lack of patience and judgmental-ness, we get very skilled at those things too. Now up until now in this podcast, have been discussing how two podcasts ago, feeling proceeds, what it is that we call belief, but also belief and how that can exacerbate feelings after the fact, depending on how compelling

the environment is and what those triggers are to that feeling belief continuum and the inverse of it. So we keep in mind too that much of what we process whenever we interact is intellectual. It is a cognition process. We are thinking and we're judging and weighing things. But it's also what we call calibration. That's what we're taking facts, generally speaking, if we're of reasonable mind and body at that time.

and a reasonable level of stress, we're able to engage our prefrontal cortex and reason and way and make sense of things and label and name and categorize and then go about our day in a very efficient way. whenever we are not and our arousal level is up and our assumption of safety is not met, whenever we have an unmet assumption of safety, we have the inverse of that. We have an assumption of lack of safety, lack of security, and impending I don't know what.

that je ne sais quoi isn't always a quality of interesting and novel, but rather one of je sais quoi is like, oh crap factor, we don't know what's going to happen next. And that comes with a large measure of stress sometimes. Now these two being the paradigms, we still have a cognitive process. We also have emotions that may arise as a result that will color how we see things and our emotions are our lenses from which our

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world is experienced and judged by. If we were to use the visual analogy, whenever somebody walks around with rose-colored glasses, that means we tend to interpret things a little more positively, but also we tend to interpret all things generally a little more on the positive side, not just the immediate sense, but also whenever we have the darker lens. I'm going tell you what my friend calls those glasses, but I think you get the idea.

It's like looking through our nether eye and whatever product may come from there and calling those the lenses and whenever we have that we have the proverbial poop magnet so to speak and part of it has to do with how we believe and also how we expect and predict the world to be. So this is a dynamic that occurs whether it be more positive or negative the question is am I using it to benefit myself or am I using it to hamstring myself to shorten my line?

to lessen my capacity for positive experience or the other way around. instance, we could be encouraging our life to be a little more positive and not seek the negatives in particular. Now, whenever we're moving into the idea of altruism, this is where sometimes we have to look at the fact that we have a choice in the matter. And the choice in the matter that we have is how we react to an incident or how we respond.

That means we're more mindful in the matter. And what I'm going to proffer now are going to be four methods, actually four and a half, because one is so simple. I could actually call it five, but we're going to say four methods of practical application of altruism to encourage one, kindness, loving kindness and compassion, and also do this in a regular everyday life. And no, this doesn't turn you into some new age.

gushy marshmallow and if you like that idea, cool, not a problem. I like you guys. But at the same time, it doesn't necessarily take away from the capacity to protect and defend if you must. you're of the warrior ethos, and that's for men and women both, we have to understand that what it is that we're doing as a warrior, a protector, is that we protect those that we love and sometimes those are people. And if we can only express compassion to them but not to anyone else, then we have something wrong. But if you cannot express...

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of compassion to the least among us outside of ourselves, even those that we find to be the most beloved in our lives. But yet we still can't extend that to a stranger, then we have a weakness in our game. That means that maybe even how we love our beloved may not be quite as good as we think it is. So the compassionate perspective is required. That's the second person perspective, first person being

I can see my hands in front of me and doing the first person player if you're a gamer and a lot of y'all are out there. And then second person means I have walked a mile in your moccasins and that is considered also the compassionate perspective in term. But also the third perspective is from the outside. No investment, no involvement, no emotion and just the facts for the most part, seeing things as they are. And that's a very useful perspective, but to be helpful of another.

and to have what is often considered a compassionate idea as to what's going on. And it doesn't necessarily mean I'm feeling sorry for somebody, even though you may, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're looking down upon them. It's just sometimes we feel bad because we can see the pain that they're in. And that's an empathy that we experience, and that is quite a good thing whenever we live amongst people to have empathy towards another. Now, the techniques, the methods.

The first one I'm going to start off with is one that I learned many, many years ago. I had learned martial arts with my teacher when I was stationed in Hawaii. And after I'd left Hawaii, whenever my duty was over, I was officially discharged. And I continued to, at the time, before email snail mail him, I would send him letters through the mail for several years. And I refer back to those. learned some very deep messages and lessons in those to continue my martial practice.

but also my meditation practice. And verse is just a power of meditation where I gain energy and power to get stronger and more powerful as a martial artist, those were really important at the time. And they still are for learning how to ward off a blow or absorb a blow with little or no damage, that sort of thing, and be able to continue the fight as it were. But he also sent me one to balance it and looking back and he seeded something within his student at the time.

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And he took me on as a private disciple. And that was just not a student, but he took me on as a student that he wanted to develop fully as a human being. And as a martial artist, good. But even beyond that, even if I couldn't practice, he wanted me just to become a better human being. And you know what? That is amazing stuff. But the practice that he gave me was very simple. I remember reading in the letter, so this is circa 1988. I'd gotten out in 87, about 87, 88.

whenever I'd gotten the letter. And basically he said whenever you're sitting in silliness, he said what you do is you inhale and then you exhale and with the exhale you say my shalom I give to you, my peace I give to you. Now you don't have to use the term shalom if Hebrew is not your thing but if you speak it in your language, my peace I give to you. And you send it out with the breath and the visualization of it isn't necessary. It's just

Speaking it as your breath goes out and if you see it going out like a wave, that's okay, too Doesn't hurt anything but the first meditation practice a compassionate meditation practice I learned from him and that is my peace I give to you I send that out with my breath and just do this continuously you inhale and exhale and You send out the shalom and the shalom is my shalom not just a shalom saying like saying hello But rather more so my peace I give to you from

You're in the most self going out in all directions and that's giving peace, gifting peace, not in a transactional way I give you peace and I get back Bitcoin or something like this. Rather it is just merely sending love in all directions and then we take into consideration the quantum perspective. If we're all connected, what are we sending? Good stuff. Now, not gonna get all esoteric on you even though these things do hinge upon that.

but it is one that is a very practical, mindful practice even if you don't believe in a hereafter or an afterlife, that's okay. I've known a lot of atheists that practice methods like this and they get great benefit from that and it doesn't limit. You don't have to do something first to allow this to be effective, in other words. You don't have to be converted from a religion to practice this and...

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Strangely enough, some of the monastic friars within the monasteries would practice such methods that weren't so different. Actually, they're incredibly similar or identical to the methods that we get from yoga and Far East and we tend to call those bad or evil and that's just limited thinking of anything and most of the time the methods were not taught to the masses and

That's ignorance of anything and that's a real shame. But I'm happy to share this because it is one of the methods that I use with great effect and I still do. And I don't necessarily have to sit on the cushion and meditate deeply to do this. I can do things while I'm walking, while I'm working, when I'm exercising and send that out. As an intention, it's a practice. It's something that is not a sit on the cushion and practice method, but meditation and then hopefully gain benefit and use it in your real life.

This is very useful in that sense. can do it anywhere as you go, even when you're driving, and it doesn't distract. So, cool stuff. And you can do it with your eyes open, you. You don't want to drive with your eyes closed if you do this when you're driving. If you do that, you're a Jedi, but don't tell nobody. So the next thing that I'm going to tell you is another method, and this is one that is where we send not only like tranquility, and this is something that comes out of the...

Tibetan Buddhist ethic and this is not something that once again you have to be Buddhist to practice but the mindset of it is not unlike Isha-lom, my peace I give to you. You can use the term my tranquility I give to you. You can do this and if you want to call it a mantra you can but just a statement of my peace I give to you is a good one. That's method one. Method two is sending out loving kindness but also acting in loving kindness having the intention to act in a love.

and kind kind of way loving kindness and when you extend that that does not necessarily make you a doormat but rather just setting the intention to practice altruism versus meditating on altruism and just extending generously and in a non-transactional manner in the sense of expecting payback or expected somebody to patch back and many people will say thank you and it doesn't make it a transaction by default it's just gifting

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and loving and loving kindness doesn't hurt anyone. Now, doesn't mean to go up to people all starry-eyed and get all goofy and make them feel weird and then they call the cops on you. Sometimes just the lightest of most gentle ways of interacting and being just like the dust humble, but it doesn't mean putting on the act of humility, but rather just being authentic and just extending generosity. So method two is extension of loving kindness in action.

as often as you can and setting the intent to be that when you interact. Now the challenge to these methods is the fact that we're going to see people that are irritated and may become irritated when people are more calm because internally they may want relief. They may don't want that discomfort to go away, but they don't know how. And there are things that we can't control in many senses, medical pain, chronic pain, injury, and people are irritated because of that.

It is those times that we need the most kindness and compassion. There are some people that get irritated and upset, defensive and self-protective when they hear somebody yelling, when they hear somebody groaning, because maybe they remember their own pain. Maybe they remember hearing stuff like that. It reminds them of traumatic events or those things that were traumatic to other people, shocking. And people have a hard time walking into situation like that if they must.

if it's part of their job or you have to deal with family in such a situation. Some people don't deal well with stress. I think we should all learn how to learn better methods of dealing with stress by being aware of what it is that stresses me. Not just avoid those things, but learn how to overcome versus shelling ourselves up and medicating ourselves necessarily because that's hard in quotes. So some things to think about. Now the next practice, method number three,

This is one that I do not share lightly, but I share and give to you all lovingly and willingly because it's a very effective method. And I remember many years ago, I was unloading trucks for living at a certain retail establishment and I worked for them for about 16 years while I was going through undergrad and grad school and raising a family. And I had several jobs, many jobs, but this was my steady job for the most part, but I was unloading trucks and I was the...

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the crew chief of the folks that were unloading trucks and I was in the truck putting boxes on the rollers and rolling them down and all the other workers were pulling them up, them pallets, pulling them to the store front and the floor and stuff like that. We were all in a hurry and it was a great deal of work. It was very strenuous and stressful on people. Now, I remember some of these people would get into the little cliques and start picking on people and...

One of the things in that sort of environment is that most of the people that work in that, they're a different sort. They're a little edgier and they tend to like and play and they play rough, but not meant to hurt people. But if you can't take it and they notice a weakness, they tend to exacerbate the situation and attack further just to see before not necessarily trying to make somebody break, but just to see what happens. So not always the kind of situation you want to work in given the option, but

There we all were because we needed jobs and needed money and sometimes our company wasn't of the highest sort so to speak. And yes, is judgmental, mind you. So what happened was I saw them giving this one individual a hard time and I saw him in my eyes physically, while I watching this occur. And then I saw a flash in my mind and it wasn't anything particularly mystical or vision, but it was a thought, a very...

clear visual thought and this person, I saw him frustrated like he was at that point but as a baby. Frustrated child. He was unloved. He was left to cry until he stopped crying for the most part and the feel was terribly frustrating but also heartbreaking and this man was about 30 years old and not a lot of friends and his social responses were a little subdued and he was a loner for the most part.

not a bad person, but a loner. But yet I saw this and it broke my heart. And I did say a prayer for him. And I did send him some reflecting energy, so to speak. And after that, I realized that it wasn't just by mistake, but it was a method. And I had researched and I realized that this method is something that is not new to me. And it was new to me at that point. I'd never seen it or heard it, but it was an elevation of understanding of compassion, having compassion for all people.

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And all people in the sense that we all start in a very humble, a very helpless sense. And often we don't all get what we need, our support as much as we need for physical survival. We might get our basic, somebody wipes our butt and gives us food and keeps us warm, but we may not get the warmth and the nurturing and the kindness to help us neurologically develop more fully as a human being.

And that sometimes leaves us in deficit and makes us more apt to be taken advantage of by those that tend to be like a shark tank if anything whenever they're out and about and not so guided by the social norm so to speak. So what I'm going to do is share this technique with you, this method. And it is a very helpful method and this is one that you can actually do as you practice and this is one you can also do as a seated.

cushion meditation, but sometimes if you see somebody struggling, and if you see them even whenever they're joyful and mirthful, and you see them as a happy baby or a child, even about two or three years old, or one that is sitting like in a diaper, this sort of thing, and see them in that way, it helps us extend compassion toward its individual that may be a terrible cuss, may be upsetting, may be irritating, and flipping fingers at people, this sort of thing, and understanding that.

whatever got them there, one, had to have been painful and uncomfortable, irritating, and they may be embarrassed. They may not care. They may have lost trust in other individuals and humans as a result of being hurt or maybe starting their journey that was hurtful, growing up in a hurtful environment or one that was abusive, neglectful, or worse, and trauma part of it possibly. But if we can see these individuals as a baby,

or as a child, even if we see them crying, understanding that they deserve our compassion just as much as anyone else does. Not those that are just clean and bathed and smell really good that we feel safe with, but even those that might make us feel a little uncomfortable know that all of them are human, just as we are. And being able to see them that way allows us even to extend a prayer at a distance for them whenever I'm praying for all or whenever I'm sending.

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uplifting energy to self understand that sometimes these people don't get that they don't get the fair shake or the understanding and we all deserve the opportunity to be treated with dignity with kindness compassion understanding and patience now in the immediate sense if they are acting out you want to be safe and don't put yourself at risk unnecessarily by all means keep yourself safe and take care of yourself

But as a general practice, whenever you arrive and you do this, you become more of your authentic self by virtue of just intending to be more kind, by intending to do this. And that is a suggestion at the back of your mind. And not only do you arrive in a better way, but they receive you in a better way. And whatever subtleties, micro expressions may change over time, they will see it. They'll be less apt.

to become irritating and irritable around you, especially if before they were. Things will change. This is something I can tell you just by my own experience. And yes, I am an inner one, but I'm not the only one that practices these type of methods. So the next one is one that I was very fortunate to be inculcated in. And this is also a Buddhist method, but it is not necessarily one that requires you to convert.

but it comes from that lineage, but I will tell you it exists within the Christian ethic as well, and also the European, Russian religion, as well as others, wherever we have compassion for other people. But one of the things about this is that it is the practice of the golden rule in the truest sense. And this one does require a little visualization. It is something that the Dalai Lama has taught.

and his sanction, but also this doesn't make it better because of that. He is a man, a very special person. But also there are many that practice this with the ideation of improving the whole by improving the self. And how do you improve the whole? By improving the self who we're connected and when I get better, when else gets better. But sometimes it requires that we learn not to be so egotistical and allowing

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the other to be equally as important as us because we realize the golden rule is that if that person out there is my mirror, they're a reflection of me, that means I am theirs and we're always connected. So what we do is we inhale and assume their suffering, the concept of their suffering. And you can see it coming into your body as a mist through your nose into the area of your heart. And then all of a sudden being transmuted into light.

and love and change from a negative to a positive and you inhale count of one, exhale count of two at least and more if you can but you give it back that shalom or my peace I give to you in all directions. So you inhale one and you transmute the negative and the dark and the pain the suffering of others and then you send it out. But the first thing you must do is start with yourself. I assume my own suffering and I transmute it.

at my heart level and then sending out as a breath as a visualization of light going out in all directions. So that is an embodied practice of my peace I give to you, my kindness I give to you, my tranquility I give to you, my abundance I give to you, my health I give to you, my love I give to you in all directions. Now this sounds really esoteric but is really a cognitive practice and it's one that

creates change in the body because there's visualization. therefore it impacts by virtue of belief, by virtue of using our visual signal. And what is really cool is that we talked about the cephalic phase of eating and how we see a food and then we salivate. Well, not only this, we're using that versus seeing the negative in the dark and then getting scared and having a post-traumatic stress reaction. We're using this to encourage alleviation and health.

and help in extending loving kindness, compassion and understanding. Now these methods, once again, these aren't just sitting on the seat cushion and meditating when you're safe. Sometimes these ideas are things that we practice as we're walking, as we're running, as we're driving, as we're interacting with people in the little interim spaces in between. We learn how to intend to do this and then compassion becomes part of our makeup, part of our internal human matrix as we are.

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By doing this, we improve ourselves, but we also improve everyone else at the same time. And I was really wanting to share these methods because something motivated me to do this today. And this is about self-regulatory skill too, because by doing this, we're learning how to choose to love and how to act in a way that's compassionate versus allowing ourselves to react in a physiological reactive sense, but rather a more mindful, responsive way.

where we think and choose and we decide. And therefore our past and our reactivity does not define who we are. We define who we are moment to moment in the here and now. So that is it for today. That was a lot and a little bit extended with lots of love and understanding that some of you will receive this and I hope you'll pass this on and share it with people. It's all very useful stuff. Now, what I want to tell you is that this podcast is available on all platforms, iTunes, Spotify,

Amazon music, iHeartRadio and many others and also on YouTube and if you have an opportunity on YouTube to like, subscribe and share, please do. I would certainly appreciate that and just know that I enjoyed this Saturday morning talk with you guys and I want to tell you thank you for your listenership. I've had some good feedback coming back. Keep giving me feedback. Some things are coming down the pipes. I'll share with you as they develop and take care.

Be your best self. Walk well.