Finding compassion for people who you feel are contributing to your suffering is really hard. Unless we are very enlightened, all of us have that person, or maybe several persons, whose behavior makes us grind our teeth, and our deepest wish for them is a lifetime of having their vanilla pudding turn to mayonnaise on the spoon. I’ve had many such people in my life, just like you, and I can sometimes enjoy my visions of their comeuppance as I shake my tiny fist and curse their shriveled black heart.

You’ll never believe it, but my self-righteous anger doesn’t make me feel better. I keep trying, but it never does. I seethe with resentment, but my hostility never seems to make the other person suffer like I want them to suffer. But the good news is, there is one-and-only-one person whose suffering I have complete control over: Me. This anger makes me suffer, and I can choose to do something other than suffer. I can extend loving kindness to the people upending my world. I don’t have to find something special in them to do it. I can feel compassion for them because they are beings in the world, and because they are in the world they are experiencing suffering of some kind, and I would like there to be less suffering in the world. 

The form of meditation called metta cultivates a sense of connection and loving kindness for all beings. One of its most vigorous proponents in the West is Sharon Salzberg, who has written a mountain of books on bringing loving kindness into aspects of human life ranging from work to relationships to divisive politics. Loving kindness is “the mindful practice of love, empathy, understanding, and being kind to others without judgment.” It’s what Jesus and Buddha would want you to do. And you know what? It’s even good for you. 

If you sit down to meditate, and recurring thoughts of how annoyed or angry you are surface again and again, that’s a cue – call to mind the people involved in your irritation, and metta on them immediately. You might want to hold onto your delicious sense of resentment and moral superiority. I know, it’s hard to let go when you are clearly deserving of better treatment than you are experiencing. But chances are, these individuals are suffering terribly – from having been unskillfully parented, from being crushed by unimaginable pressures, from experiencing their own losses. As suffering beings, your compassion for them is your way of forgiving them for distributing their suffering to people around them. 

I think metta is supposed to be good for lots of things beyond helping me feel better about difficult people. I think it’s supposed to make me feel compassion and connection for all living beings, or something? That’s great, but I’m also selfish (hey, I’m an alcoholic, that’s how we roll), and what I’ve seen is that it’s good for ME. I feel better after metta. ME. Did you forget? We’re talking about ME. 

I have brought metta to my most difficult people again and again, and it works every time. Oh, and there’s other great news – now my sense of superiority includes my huge compassionate heart full of forgiveness, like the Southern Baptist church ladies who say, “Bless your heart!” when you’ve done something awkward. They do it because it feels good to wish someone well instead of picking a fight. 

And when you bring that sense of compassion into interactions with your difficult people, you might even treat them differently. You might be less reactive to their barbs, less enraged at their stubborn refusal to understand, feel less victimized by their power plays. You might end up interacting with them like you want to reduce their suffering. They might even appreciate that a little bit. They might even, dare I say, treat you a little differently. Even if they don’t, your heart will be joyful and unburdened. 

In the world of “treat people the way you want to be treated,” think of how you would want someone to react if YOU were the antagonist in their world. And indeed, maybe the object of your irritation thinks of you as the enemy. Would you want that person poking needles into a voodoo doll with every memory of your transgressions? Or would you want them searching the metaphysical universe for a sense of compassion for you and your shortcomings? In a more beautiful world, we would all be doing this with everyone we’re in conflict with. 

So metta is both a selfish practice and a generous practice – what fabulous news. It makes me feel compassion instead of anger – great! AND it makes me feel connected to the vast web of life – even better! It’s good for the universe and good for me. And it’s not fake or forced, but just acknowledging what is true: We are here sharing this world together, we are sometimes suffering, and less suffering for everyone would be great. And in the words of AA, loving kindness lets you let that sh!t go. That means less suffering for you, too.