Errors in conversation - knowing failure when I see it

I'm not the greatest at live conversation. When people complain, when I hear people tell me all about the horrible things in their lives, I become a problem solver. Instead of building up empathy and connecting with their feelings I try to fix their issues. I do this over and over again, but recently I had an experience that was a little different.

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A few weeks ago, I was visiting my friend Gina while she had some other people over. Another friend, Sara, was in the kitchen telling a group of us all about her husband who was sick. As she spoke, her head dropped lower and lower. She seemed to be using that tone of voice I've heard when people are trying not to cry; a little choked up, overly high-pitched and false-happy sounding. She was sad, but she did seem to be getting some relief by opening up to both of us about the many fun times her and her husband had together, before the illness. She moved on, describing the very limited life they lived now; they were only travelling short distances, they hadn't seen certain close friends in many years, and they had to carry their medical equipment everywhere they went.

As Sara went on, Gina commented, "Wow, so there's nothing that can be done? Have they tried all the medicines? What about surgery, have they tried that? Which hospital did she go to?" Etc. I was noticing that Gina was doing exactly what I've done so many times - she was trying to fix her problem.

As Gina continued her medical analysis, I realized I was seeing the entire discussion as a spectator, it was like watching a play open up before me. Sara's face had gone blank, and she was numbly answering Gina's questions one after the other. It was clear to me from Sara's reaction to Gina that the 'let's fix you' language was so very wrong; because I could see Sara dropping out of the conversation. She had stopped making eye contact with any of us, and she acted like she wanted to leave the room as soon as she could.

Since I was seeing it a bit detached, I was able to react differently than I've done before. I said, "I can't imagine what that's like for you, how have you been holding up?" I gave her one of my favorite facial expressions - the Curious/Sad face. I use it on my kids sometimes when they are crying but I have no idea why.

It seemed to work - she snapped out of the blank stare, and reacted calmly. She felt her feelings and then moved on, and we were able to move on.

It was clear to me that Sara wasn't asking us to, "Please fix my husband's problem." She was expressing her feelings, saying, "I'm sad, and I want you to tell me that you hear my sadness."

What do you do if someone is complaining to you? How would you have reacted to Sara, or to Gina?

Janet

Recent reading - The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

Lately I've been doing a lot of 'empathy' reading. This isn't a formal book review, since I haven't finished the book yet.

"The Empathy Exams" by Leslie Jamison

At first, I wasn't sure if I was reading something true or made-up. By the second story, I was really confused, I thought it couldn't possibly be real.

Then I heard the author give an npr interview that made me realize that yes, this was definitely non-fiction. I wondered why I was so confused so I went back and re-read the first story and realized my mistake. The lines the author drew between herself and her subjects were very faint. In her essays she steps in so close to other people that she nearly becomes them. Perhaps it's her style, but it read like a novel to me.

The author also spent time asking herself if it was okay to feel empathy. She was an investigator; trying to find out the value of empathy both for the person feeling it, and for the subject of empathy (the person we are connecting with).

It gave me a lot to think about, and so far I'm really enjoying the book.

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One thing I found interesting was her analogy* for meeting new people. She compared it to the idea of visiting a foreign country; people, she said, want to be the owners of their feelings. There are things we consider acceptable to talk about; and other things we do not like discussing at all, and we want to control who can access what part of ourselves.

I agree that it's a fun idea; thinking of people as the dictators of their own country. Some people have open borders and are welcoming. They love visitors and will allow anyone through, happily showing you around and forgiving any mistakes you make in dealing with the customs of the land. Other people show themselves as closed off (know any people like this?). If you want in, you have to have special permission, or you must have been born (in the country) part of their family to get full access. They tell the world that they don't want to share.

The idea that people can be possessive about their emotions really rung true for me. I was thinking about experiences I've had with people who are more willing to share their feelings if you gently request permission to cross their border. It's scary to think that someone is going to come marching right in. Who are they? Do they know our customs? Will they steal or hurt? We don't know unless we let them in. This is what being open is all about; being vulnerable to being hurt.

We possess our feelings like we possess our things. To borrow our things or to gain entry to our house, our culture tells us that we must ask permission. As much as I love this list of empathy traps, I would add 'not asking permission' to the list. If I say to you, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your dead cat. I'm sure that feels bad.", I'm marching across your border. I'm assuming I already know the customs (feelings) here and I can tell you all about it. I may as well visit a foreign country and assume everyone there speaks English. On the other hand, if I say "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your dead cat. I can't imagine how that feels, do you want to talk about it?" Then I'm letting them know that it's okay if they want to share their feelings, but it's also okay if they don't. I'm asking permission to cross their border.

What do you think of this idea?

Janet

*This was her analogy, not mine, I take no credit for it. These are just my musings on her idea. If you want to see the full concept - please go pick up the book and send the author some kudos.

Building empathy with my daughter

I've got two kids, ages six and two. As much as I might try to feel what it's like to be in their shoes, it's really, really hard. As in nearly impossible. :)

Remember this article on empathy traps? The trap I fall into headfirst with my kids is "fixing them". It's one thing to try to stay away from 'fixing' my friends, or strangers I meet, because they are all adults. I can see how I shouldn't tell them how to live their lives, because they are grownups who can make their own decisions.

For my daughter though it's so much harder to try not to fix her. She's my daughter, of course I want to try to fix all of her problems. I want to help her, I want to teach her, I want to control her happiness. But when I control her I lose the parenting game.

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For example, let's take the other day when I wanted her to put away her toys. She got mad - and she showed her anger in a child's way, with pouting and stomping her foot and folding her arms. "No", she would shout, "No, no, no!" I got angry right back and her and said, "Don't be angry about that! That's not worth getting angry about!" Which is a totally silly and emotional thing to say. I say it because I'm feeling angry too - angry at her for being just like me.

I see and feel every day how much she is how I was at her age. Then I think, "Well, I finally stopped behaving that way, why won't she stop too!"

When I look at times like this in hindsight, I know that I should be listening to her anger or fear with empathy. I also see how hard it is to step out of that emotional moment. 

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So here's the issue - right there. I want to be empathetic to my daughter, but I also have my own feelings to deal with, and her feelings too.

Janet

With a little help from my friends

This past weekend was a holiday weekend, and it was full of truly fantastic moments. I had lots of time with friends and family, getting outside and enjoying the weather. I even saw a beautiful rainbow, and this is how it looked just before it disappeared. (yay!)

Also, I sliced my hand with a knife. (boo!)

I was being foolish, really. I was attempting to cut a watermelon the wrong way (note, this is not quite like carrying a watermelon) and the knife slipped a bit further than I wanted it to.

I stood at the sink, water running over my hand and trying to get my head straight over what had happened and what was I going to do and how badly was I hurt. I couldn't look at it. I've heard you are supposed to put pressure on these things, so I did. There wasn't much pain but I was very woozy. I was scared, I thought I had hurt myself very badly. I didn't know - maybe I needed to go to a hospital and get stitches. Thoughts about 'what would I do about the kids' and 'oh gosh I've not done this to myself in a long time' were running through my head.

I asked for help.

Thankfully I had friends nearby, friends who knew first-aid and could offer assistance. They were there for me, and I'm so very grateful for their help.

Physically they helped by showing me how to stop the bleeding, by moving me somewhere restful and by keeping the kids happy elsewhere while I recovered. Thankfully I didn't need an emergency room.

Mentally, my friends and family helped by gathering around and saying all sorts of wonderfully supportive things. They reassured me that I was going to be fine, they told me that I didn't need to worry about anything, that they would help. They asked me how I was feeling, and listened. They held my hand and made me feel better.

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As I was being cared for so well, I couldn't help but think about other times I was in pain, times when I was around folks who were 'less than helpful'.

For example, I've had people compare my situation to other people's. Have you had this happen to you? "Oh, look at that, your leg was hit by that hockey puck. It's swelling to the size of a baseball. My friend had that once, and he was in the hospital for three days. Yours doesn't look as bad." The author of this article calls the above kind of comment the trap of 'Even Worse'. I felt even more hurt when hearing these comments, because I felt like they were telling me that my feelings of hurt and pain were not valid.

When I'm hurt, I may cognitively understand that there are plenty of people in the world who are hurting more than I am. Emotionally on the other hand I need to get past my own hurt before I can recognize others' pain.

If I try to put myself into these people's shoes, I remember how it feels when someone I know is hurting. I want to help in any way I can. One thing I've tried to do, and perhaps this is the reason that people say these things, is to distract them from the pain. From the outside I think 'distraction is good'.  From the inside, I believe that the pain is sometimes worse when I try to ignore it. I have to look my pain right in the eye and say 'yes, I'm hurting' to move past it.

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What kinds of things do you say to people who are hurt? What do you want to hear when you are in pain?

Janet

Empathy and anger

This week I heard a few stories that struck me. First, over the weekend I had a close friend tell me about an argument she had with her mom. She had yelled at her, and said some nasty things. Then she said to me, "I'm mad. Empathize with THAT."*

A few days later I heard another story on the news, about a gang war in New York City. A boy was murdered in a drive by shooting, and one gang took the credit on a video on youtube. In the video they rapped and sang and said, "Put yourself in my shoes, wouldn't you be angry too?"

What both of these stories have in common, to me, is that they are about overreacting to anger. When I get angry, I know I react in strong ways - sometimes I hurt people. Sometimes I act stupidly and hurt myself (stubbing my own toe in anger is something I've done more than once. Ow.) Although these stories are very different, I also believe that both people were asking the listener for something, too. "I'm mad" they say, "so you should be mad too." I think they are asking me to say what they did was all-right. To me, that's going beyond empathy.

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When a person asks you to 'empathize' with them, they say that they want you to KNOW how they feel. "If you only knew how I was feeling!"

I believe that the point is to try to be in their shoes - but maybe I won't actually get there. The point is not to justify their behavior, but just to listen. Empathy helps me to remove judgments, and to learn about how others live and survive in this world. Ultimately it helps me to be there for another person. Hopefully I can help them feel like they are not alone.

If I had a chance to talk to this rapper boy in this gang, maybe I could ask him about how he felt that day. If they say they were angry, I can feel angry too and I can bring up those feelings when I talk to them. I can try to feel what they feel. I can try to not say the words, "what you did was justified."

Have you tried to listen to someone recently? Have you been there for someone in need? How did it go?

Janet

* For my friend's sake, I did try to listen to what she was saying. I commented about how it sounded like she was really mad (trying for empathy). My next sentence was something like, "yeah, well, and I see what she did and why it made you mad." In hindsight, I don't think that what I said was good - I was essentially justifying their bad behavior. Hopefully next time I can keep my mouth shut, or figure out how to say something better.. :)

Today's empathy, both the good and the bad

Today I tipped the gas station attendant who filled my car's tank. I gave him $2, he gave me a smile and a thank you. I'm not normally a tipper so this was unusual for me.

I wasn't thinking about doing it beforehand, again, this is an example of going with my gut feelings at the moment. I started with the thought,'it's really cold out there' and the next thought was 'this guy's job sucks, he's out in this horrible weather' and then 'i'd like to buy him a cup of coffee' led to pulling out my wallet to give him the tip.
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Later in the day, a coworker was sharing her troubles and I fell into trap #1 (comparing her problems with other people's) and trap #3 (trying to solve her problem) immediately. (Link to the traps article) I tried to come back to her later with an 'I'm sorry, that really sucks' comment but honestly I really think it was too little too late. It's hard to catch these things before they happen, but I'm going to keep trying.

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What I see from the above stories (and something I've noticed about myself in general) is that how easy I have empathy to others seems to be related to how well I know them. That is, if I don't have a relationship with the person to RISK, it's easier for me to put myself out there. However, if I do have a relationship with them, well, then I'm scared, my defenses come up, and I shut down empathy.

What about you? Have you tried to build empathy, what has been your experience?
Do you tip frequently?

Janet