How One Road Rage Moment Inspired a Journey Into Compassion with Connie Warden

And one of the most important things that you talk about in this book is observing yourself and others more compassionately.

So I guess in a way you were still, you know, being that fly on the wall, observing yourself though, other than others.

So tell us about what that means, and can you give us an example of what it looks like when somebody...

You know, when, when you feel that way?

When, um-

Like, observing-

...

when I feel-

... yourself and others more compassionately.

That's one of the, a big theme in your book, right?

Sure.

And you know, whenever I start to get upset about what somebody's done or is doing, I can almost inevitably go, "And I did that at one point too." I, uh, I was, uh, really relaxed and wasn't going the speed limit, 'cause gosh, uh, you know, go the speed limit at least, right? And, um, so- That's really helpful, to know that I, I, I've done almost, almost everything out there [laughs] that I can complain about to, about somebody else.

Right, right.

Makes sense.

Yeah, kind of, so kind of be like, well, have you done it before yourself, and think like, okay, what's, you know, what am I doing differently that I could be changing, adapting? Um, and I guess that kind of goes into the other line I have written down here, the idea of changing and discarding the stories we tell ourselves, because you realize that, hey, I'm doing the same exact thing.

What can I be doing differently? What do you think is the most common story other people tell themselves that you think needs to be changed?

About the stories that we tell ourselves?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and this is, this goes on in, in life all the time, and not just in a car, you know? And because most of the time we don't have all the information to make a decision or a judgment on somebody.

We're making it up, and a lot of it is...

And I give the example in the book, um, so for me, uh, being a selfish person, my mom was very adamant that we weren't gonna be selfish kids.

And, um, and so sometimes I'll say some story like, "What a selfish guy," you know? "Oh, it's all about him," on the road.

And then it's like, wait a minute, I don't have enough information to make that judgment call, to make that story up about somebody being selfish and, uh, and, uh, you know, 'cause you know what, we zipper in when we've got to merge, and it, it appears some people only care about themselves.

And again, we don't know.