There are many people in my life who I love that hold entirely different views, opinions and beliefs than me, some of which have felt hurtful and difficult in the past.  I sometimes wonder how it is I have ended up able to be myself around people who, a few years ago, it looked impossible to be so.

Most of us have relationships like this, professional or personal. We therefore live with the choice of cutting them out of our life completely (harsh and not always possible), suffering every interaction with gritted teeth and anxiety or seeing that there's more to relationships than two sets of thinking. The first two are pretty restrictive ways of living life, the last feels like a miracle when it happens.

This two-way street of thought covers up our natural capacity to be at ease around other people, no matter who they are.

If we have our own judgement of someone else's beliefs it's hard for us to see the other parts of their personality that exist. The noise of our thinking about them doesn't even give them a chance of us experiencing them as anything but our image of them. It's as if we have a checklist of all of the things we don't approve or like in them, and we're only ever looking for those behaviours. We miss their moments of kindness, vulnerability or creativity or misinterpret them.

Equally, their thinking in the moment is not who they are. Whether they know it or not, true identity is beyond views, likes and behaviours. They are instead, like all humans, doing the best that they can with the thinking that they have got. And underneath that is the potential for fresh thought, insight and for them to see the world differently. If we can see that people are more than a conglomeration of their thoughts we give them room to show up differently to themselves and therefore, to us.

In seeing that thinking for what it is, we are freed to let go of our thinking about ourselves and them. We get to see their human-ness, and often we feel compassion, notice parts of them we hadn't spotted before and find ease in our interactions with them. And there's a chance that in doing so, they will feel more inclined to let go of their thinking and be more open and flexible with us.

It happens all the time, when we're not paying attention: with our friends when we're just shooting the breeze, on a long walk up a big hill, with a stranger on a train or plane, or just watching tv. It's natural for us to put down our suit of armour and be connected to others, it's just sometimes we don't realise we've put it on!

Anne Lamott says it best...

"Empathy says: You and I are made of the same lovely, heartbroken, and screwed-up stuff. You are not an object to me right now. (Maybe I'm not, either! Let me get back to you on this.) Empathy, a moment's compassion, seeing that everyone has equal value, even people who have behaved badly, is as magnetic a force as gratitude. It draws people to us, thus giving us the capacity to practice receiving love, the scariest thing of all, and to experience the curiosity of a child.