Guided practice: Transforming empathic distress

- [Instructor] Let's begin with a few breaths of breathing in and out of the heart. Imagine that you could breathe directly into your heart, and then breathe out of your heart, noticing the sensation of expansion as you breathe in, and that expansion dissolving as you breathe out. As we go through this practice, you might want to return to that sensation or image of breathing in and out of your heart anytime that feels right. Now I invite you to remember a time when a loved one was suffering or when you felt any kind of empathic distress for someone else's emotional or physical pain, and when you can recall a time, let yourself connect to those feelings of the stress. What did it feel like in your body? What emotions were present? See if you can breathe with any of those feelings, any of those sensations, and at the same time, bring some attention to your physical body, perhaps sensing your left foot, and sensing…