The following parable is attributed to the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama:
“A young woman’s only child had died. Consumed by grief, she carried the child’s body through the village, begging for a cure to bring him back to life.
The villagers were scared – she was inconsolable!
She cried out to them, “Isn’t there anyone who can help me?”
They sent the woman to the Buddha.
The Buddha said, “Yes. I’ve got medicine for you.”
He continued, “To make this medicine work, however, you must bring me a mustard seed from a home that has never experienced death.”
So the woman went door to door talking to everyone in the village and asking for a mustard seed – a common item. At each home, she found a mustard seed, but she also learned that they had each confronted loss – a parent, a sibling, a child, a friend.
In time, she understood the Buddha’s lesson: grief isolates us, but it can connect us. Compassion and wisdom come from a shared human experience.
When we face a challenging time, we often feel isolated, overwhelmed, and resigned to navigating the situation on our own.
But we’re not alone – we’re relational beings. Who we are in the world is deeply tied to our relationship with others.
As author and psychotherapist Mark Epstein explains, “We know ourselves through the reflection [of others.] We are constantly in relationship to our world. We’re not separate from the world.”
In our mentoring programs, I’ve observed that Mentees typically respond to unexpected challenges in one of two ways:
- Some Mentees quickly disengage from the program, abruptly ending the relationship with their Mentor, citing overwhelm.
- Others choose to lean into the mentoring relationship, actively seeking advice, support, and guidance as they manage their new circumstances.
Just like the woman in the village, those who lean in for support quickly discover that they are not alone – grappling with unexpected change is a shared human experience.
By engaging with their Mentor, they find much-needed compassion and wisdom as they work through their situation. And in the process, their frustrations, uncertainty, self-doubt, and fears are normalized and validated.
Epstein reflects, “We need each other to make sense out of our experiences.”
According to the African philosophy, Ubuntu, a person becomes a person through other people. Personal growth is not developed in isolation but nurtured through communal relationships.
“I am because we are.”
~ Ubuntu expression
© 2025. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.