Hey, how are you feeling in your shoes?

Photo by taylor hernandez on Unsplash

Recently I have engaged with many up and coming people from all continents. One thing I heard mentioned a lot nowadays was “empathy”.

 

What is empathy? I used to imagine that empathy is the ability to understand and share the feeling of another.

 

Recently I found another very useful way to put it. “To walk in another’s shoes” and to see through someone else’s eyes.

 

I especially liked “to walk in another’s shoes”.I think this goes a long way to helping one get closer to another being.

 

What I have discovered though is that it’s not enough to “walk in another’s shoes”. Because for many people, their problem is not only that others don’t see them, or don’t walk in their shoes. The problem is also that they are not comfortable walking in their own shoes. And until they can accept that their own shoes were custom made for them and that their inner peace can only come when they fully accept and are comfortable in their own shoes.

 

So the real growth is in them realising that their shoes are already perfect. They can shift into the view of accepting and embracing their own shoes and be really comfortable in them.

 

They don’t need anyone’s approval for them to feel totally happy in their own shoes.

 

Once they are comfortable in their own shoes, they will automatically feel their own beauty, their own attractiveness and their own uniqueness. They will love what they do and they will no longer have the craving for others’ permission or approval.

 

They will no longer need someone else to be in their shoes.

 

I wonder if instead of looking outside ourselves to check if our shoes fit, whether it would not be more effective to find the tools and practices to help us look inside ourselves to find the right view to love the shoes we have already got?