"How do you feel today?"

When someone asked me this instead of the usual “How are you?”, it caught my attention. It felt like this person genuinely wanted to know how I was doing.

In a world where we often ask “How are you?” without really expecting an answer, this question felt refreshing.

When it comes to my feelings, as June begins, I find myself embracing adaptability.

May was an interesting time for me. I was wrapping up a period filled with intense training and work challenges. I was ready to be playful and soften my stance.

While I did achieve this, I also encountered changes that challenged my core beliefs, forcing me to detach. Though not easy, this detachment allowed everything to flow more smoothly.

But where does compassion come into play during these experiences?

In recent years, the concepts of compassion and self-compassion have gained a lot of attention in the West. Understandably, self-compassion has become a popular personal development concept.

This isn't surprising in an age and cultural environment where we solely focus on our personal lives.

How so?

A perception has emerged that self-compassion is achieved by caring for oneself, trying to love oneself, and implementing regular practices.

“If I follow my morning routine, meditate, speak to myself in a gentle tone, and refrain from self-judgment, I am being compassionate towards myself…”

This is partly true, but there is more to it.

True compassion requires recognizing that you are suffering. You must realize that you are in pain and that pain can sometimes camouflage itself in different ways.

The hardest part is looking at yourself long enough to see that you might be addicted to your pain. Otherwise, we continue to deceive ourselves.

The objects, people, places, jobs, and experiences we cling to often show us that compassion has not yet fully entered our hearts. Realizing this requires effort, and accepting it takes courage.

This is why art has existed for humanity through the centuries.

If I can't look at my own pain, I can look at someone else's through art. Gradually, my gaze extends towards myself.

For compassion to arise in our hearts, sometimes we need to read a good novel or watch a sincere movie. This helps us view our relationship with pain from a completely different perspective.

As I come into contact with those feelings, that pain, that human condition embedded in a movie, a novel, a painting, or music, I slowly gain the courage to face my own.

Even if we look at it as artists, we can come to the same conclusion. When we connect with our emotions and express them, we capture something profound.

Although there are happy artworks, artists are often labeled as deep due to their engagement with their emotions.

Most importantly, we can look, to at least try. Our creativity blossoms when we're able to tap into our emotions.

Eventually, the idea of integrating daily practices that deepen our emotional connection into our lives as artists begins to take shape.

So Reader, how do you feel today?