Antidotes to the poison of painful circumstances

- [Instructor] My fellow compassion cultivation teacher, Margaret Collin, told me a story that was shared by one of her students that I think really illustrates how this kind of compassionate reappraisal can work in real life. A woman in one of her compassion courses had been struggling with anger toward her husband, who had a tendency to lose his temper when he got angry. But he never hurt her or anyone else, but he did like to break things and yell. And when he lost his temper, she got angry at him for not controlling himself. Her strategy to deal with her anger was to suppress it. So he would vent, and she would repress, and the entire pattern felt toxic and draining. She never had any doubt that she loved him, and she never felt unsafe around him, but she felt profoundly disconnected from him in these moments of anger. The situation was even more complex because she was now in the role of caring for her husband, his…