Three Words for the New Year

A short, simple phrase to help harness empathy and cultivate compassion in your life and work

The holidays brought me back to my home town. As I drove through the local neighborhoods, I looked for memories of my childhood, but instead found enormous political banners on tiny lawns celebrating the incoming president. By the hearth, where my mom always keeps a basket of the holiday cards she’s received, I found a card from one of our long-time family friends that read: “Merry Christmas America” with a (distorted) image showing the districts that voted red at the top, and “Happy Holidays” lightly dotted with the blue districts at the bottom. My heart tightened as I felt the cold divisiveness in our nation in a place that should be filled with my warmest memories.

When I opened the card, I found the message: “May the next four years be merry and bright.” Is it possible that this “Christmas” card contains something that we can all agree on? I hold onto this idea as a lifeline that attempts to restore a warm connection to my past. I think about the woman who sent this card, whose husband passed away last year. I know she’s trying to feel connected too. Aren’t we all? This brings me to the three words that I’ve recently incorporated into my life that I want to share with you today:

Just. Like. Me.

I learned these words during an 8-week course I recently completed called Compassion Cultivation Training. This course was created at Stanford University by Thupten Jinpa and others, including my teacher, Erika Rosenberg. Dr. Jinpa, a former Tibetan Buddhist monk and a longtime translator for the Dalai Lama, helped to bring Eastern thoughts on compassion to the West. Each week, Dr. Rosenberg showed us with theoretical teaching, meditative practice, and her warm example, the immense power of compassion to transform suffering into peace and joy. The course starts with loving-kindness meditation for our dearest loved ones and ourselves, and ripples out to people who are challenging in our life, and then people we don’t know. As the weeks unfolded, we were reminded that we all suffer in different ways. We focused our daily meditative practices on individuals in our lives, wishing them to be free from fear and suffering and to find peace and joy.

You should know that I come to just about everything with a healthy dose of skepticism. In this case, I kept wondering if “wishing” is enough. At first, it reminded me of the “thoughts and prayers” sentiments that many of us pop into social media comments after a tragedy or loss.

But, everything clicked together for me about midway through the course when Dr. Rosenberg shared these three words that were, for me, the keystone of this entire learning experience. I realized that “just like me” helps us transform our empathy for others into compassionate healing actions.

These three simple words remind us of our shared humanity. We all experience fear at times, whether that be fear of losing a job, losing a loved one, or losing ourselves. We all feel more at ease when we feel seen and heard. I’m pretty sure we all want there to be peace in the world, even if we can’t agree on how to get there. We need clean air to breathe and water to drink. We want healthy food for our families. And, we all desire love and meaningful connections in our lives.

Just this simple act of recognizing our shared humanity can bring us closer together. I’ve been trying on these words like a new pair of glasses that are showing me a clearer world. Yesterday, a woman approached us on a street in New Haven asking for money. While I may in the past have given her some spare change from my pocket and kept walking, instead I stopped and listened. She said she wasn’t homeless, but that she needed money for groceries because many of the food pantries were closed for the holidays. She even acknowledged that our taxpayer dollars should be enough, but in times like this, they just aren’t. Taking that little bit of extra time to listen with compassion and without judgment, changed the action I took. Her sincere smile of gratitude was a gift to me too.

I don’t tell you this because I think we all should empty our wallets for every person who asks. That is a personal decision with many factors. But, I do tell you this because I believe that more powerful than any New Year’s resolution is the intention to harness empathy in our life and our work and to transform it into compassionate action, recognizing that “just like me” is how we get past the divisiveness and closer to one another.

I so deeply believe in the power of the organizations within which we work to be vectors for empathy and compassion in the world. I know that the problems are so big that it’s hard to imagine any one of us can make a difference. Our workplaces and our communities can be collective forces for good. Please like this post, share a comment, or reach out to me if any of what I’ve said here resonates for you. These little gestures help to connect us.

With all of these thoughts in mind, I want to share that I’m planning a free series of Empathetic Marketer Studio Sessions in 2025 to help teams harness their empathy and make decisions from a place of compassion. If this interests you, please be sure to subscribe here so that you can be alerted when these are available.

As we enter this new year, I wish you space for self-compassion, abundant joy, love, and peace.

With warmth and gratitude,

Marissa

Compositional Study for The Hours by Edwin Austin Abbey, as seen on December 31, 2024 at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. The full-scale piece is in the House of Representatives Chamber of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.