Episode 038: The Complexity of Empathy
Something we hear a lot is that we need to be more empathetic. Empathy is not usually our first reaction. Today I dive into the complexity of empathy and why it is such an important part of living happier.
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Today's topic is going to be empathy. We hear a lot about empathy, Renée Brown talks about it a lot, a lot of self-help stuff talks about the power of empathy and listening. It's one of those topics, as are a lot of topics around psychology, that gets a lot of wordplay. But now a lot of, "Wow, that's hard to be empathetic." To go a little deeper into how hard it is to show up for someone in an empathetic way. For me, this has become a personal mission because, as many of you know, my father has dementia with Parkinson's. Which is extremely challenging, and talking about it is challenging for me.
They always say when you're grieving or going through something hard, the responses you get from well-meaning people are just mind-blowing how off the mark they are. That is so true. I found that to be very true for me, that people really mean to be comforting, kind, and try to help, but their responses are so far off the mark of empathy. I could be sharing how hard it is to watch my dad doing these things that he does that are totally out of character for him, and someone will say, "Well, that's just his dementia, though, that's not him as a person." Yeah, I get that, but it's still my dad. This is still really personal to me. As if I'm going to be like, "Thank you so much, you're right; it is just dementia." That's the problem with those trite statements.
This is a personal example to me. Dealing with the grieving of a loss or anything like that is an extreme example of having empathy. Still, we do it every day in the little empathy statements of, "I've had a hard day," and then we reach in to try to fix it, or, "This person's driving me crazy," and we jump it to try to make it better. Struggling, losing weight, "Let me give you the latest diet I'm trying." Every day things are coming at us where we could practice empathy. But, nine times out of 10, we jump into problem-solving, or we jump into advice-giving, trying to normalize it and make it better.
There's a Brené Brown video, which, if you haven't seen it, is amazing. It's a little cartoon; I'm going to put it on the podcast page, where the show notes are. But, even if you have seen it, I highly recommend you watch it again; I think I've seen it 50 times, and every time I get something new out of it. In the video, she talks about our desire to try to fix it. When you think about a problem you've had and when you're going to a friend, and you need some empathy, and you need some understanding, them coming back with, "You should try this," or, "When I did it, this happened to me," that isn't helpful.
What's helpful is someone saying, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing. That must be hard," or, "I'm so sorry that's happening to you," or, "I can't imagine going through this. That must be a struggle." Those ideas of, we're going to fix it by giving advice, it doesn't work. The only thing that tends to work is being present for people. The question is then, why is this so hard? empathy, it sounds so easy, the idea of just saying, "Thanks so much for sharing that," or, "This must be hard," or, "I'm so sorry." Those statements are very easy to say, but the idea doesn't pop into our heads.
This is deprogramming a little bit. It's first thought wrong, that our first reaction is to, "Let me fix this. Let me make this better. Let me give some little advice that can make it better," because we as the listener do not want to go into that pain. We don't want to go there with the other person. That self-protection that steps in is what gets us out of empathy. If I go back to the example of my dad, when I say to someone, "It's hard, I'm struggling," that other person most likely is going to go into their head about their father or their parents or death in their family or someone that they know that has dementia. They're going to get into their world, and that's going to be painful, and that's going to suck, so they don't want to go there.
They're going to try to immediately make me feel better so we can move on from the conversation. It's not a character flaw; it's just a human reaction that I don't want to go into the pain. So I hear the push-back on that, but I'm not perfect when it comes to empathy, and I have my hits and misses. The thing that has helped us to recognize, this isn't about me. Someone shares about their divorce and their struggle in their relationship; even if I've gone through a divorce or been in a crappy relationship, this story isn't about me; it's about them.
I need to be present to what they need, what they're thinking, what they're feeling at the time. So that reminder to myself of, "This is about them," lets me drop down and be present to them without getting stuck in my stuff. Because it's really hard to drop down and be with someone in their pain when we're all wrapped up in our pain, it's next to impossible. So the common humanity that comes up is, I know what pain feels like, and I may know what going through a divorce feels like, but I don't know what going through a divorce is like for you. I don't know what going through a divorce is like for your situation and your background and everything you bring to it. I know what going through a divorce is like for me, but my job here in this relationship is to be present for you, not share my stuff, not get all caught up in what I'm doing but to get present for you.
When you think about it, we do a few things in response to someone sharing something challenging with us, something emotional, something they're struggling with. We try to give them advice, to make it better, usually unsolicited advice, which is never good. We give them unsolicited advice. We say, "At least," which is in that Brené Brown video as well. "Well, at least this isn't happening," or, "At least that isn't happening." For a long time, people would say to me, "At least your dad knows who you are," and that felt so crappy because do you know how much other stuff is happening? Yeah, I am thankful that he knows who I am, but that doesn't mean the other stuff doesn't matter.
When we say to someone, "At least," then all their feelings are discounted because that one thing isn't happening, or they have that one thing to be grateful for. We give advice, we say, "At least." We tell them something they should be grateful for; that drives me crazy. "You should be grateful you have this time to spend with your dad." Yeah, I am grateful, but it's also really hard, people. This is really hard. Telling someone to be grateful or think positive or flip it around is not helpful.
The fourth thing we do is we end up relating. We'll say, "I went through a divorce too, and this is what happened," or, "I can relate because this happened with my divorce." We get caught up in our stories rather than listening to what's happening with them. When we're caught up in our stuff, it's not empathetic. It's not helpful. It's not there for them. The reason I think that the power of dropping your stuff and being able to be, "This is about them," is really powerful. Because please hear me, and my biggest message is compassion, compassion, compassion. We have to be bringing self-compassion into our own lives if we're going to make any changes at all. The more I work with self-compassion, the more I realize this is the holy grail, not that I believe in the holy grail, but the practice of self-compassion is life-changing.
If we cannot be empathetic to other people, we cannot have self-compassion for ourselves. They go hand in hand. That's why I wanted to talk about empathy today because empathy and being there for other people is a great practice in showing how we can be there for ourselves. Because when we find ourselves judging other people or saying, "Look at her over there whining again about her freaking divorce, like who cares? I went through a divorce, and I didn't whine all the time." Eek, that's yucky empathy and yucky self-compassion. That judgment pulls us out of both of those, and we can't be empathetic, and we can be self-compassionate if we're in judgment.
The idea of empathy and self-compassion go together. So when we can show up for other people and be present to them, we start flexing that muscle that allows us to show up for ourselves and be present for ourselves. So I think those go hand in hand, so start practicing more of that empathy, more of that showing up for other people and finding out what's going on with them.
One quick caveat that I did want to say is that a lot of times, we get stuck. For those of us who excel at empathy, the key to empathy is that there's a boundary there. If you're telling me about your divorce, I don't have to pick that up and carry that divorce emotion with me. I can listen to you and be present to you, but that doesn't mean I've got to pick it up and run with it, and then all day long, I'm carrying around your pain. That doesn't mean that I have to fix your pain. That's the beauty of empathy. That I can sit and be present for your pain without having to fix it or change it, make it better, pick it up, carry it. It's on you that pain, and that's what sucks about it. The more I can recognize, there is nothing we can do here to help this person other than really be present and listen. That's where the change is; that's the life-changing juice.
The people that sit with me and say, "This must suck. It is miserable to watch your dad going through this, and there's nothing we can do," yeah, that's right, there's nothing we can do. We just have to sit here in this and implement things, yes, and try our best, but at the end of the day, it's a crappy situation. These crappy situations happen all the time in life. In empathy, I'm not saying pick it up, run with it, or carry the other person's burden. I'm saying, put that boundary there so then you really can be present to what they're carrying around.
+ Weekly Ritual Challenge
One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.
This week's ritual: Notice how often you jump in to fix a friend's pain
Pay attention this week and notice how often you jump in to fix things. For example, pick a conversation that you know will be intimate and notice how often you jump in to fix, or how often you say, "At least," or how often you try to have them spin to be on a more positive note.
Be cognizant and intentional when you walk into a conversation to see how much you jump to fix. Then you can always rewind, you can always circle back and say, "I said, 'at least,' and I didn't mean to," or, "That was crappy that I said you should be grateful about this when I just want to thank you for sharing that with me because that had to be hard." The key with empathy is that you always have permission to circle back and say, "I did that wrong. Can I do it again?" It's fair, and that's how we learn.