When I started back at counseling last spring (with my new counselor), and she asked me what I wanted out of her, I told her that my life seemed to run on guilt, shame and grief. I wanted it to run on joy, peace, and hope (and other good things). I do wholly understand that all our lives will have both, but mine has seemed to take on the first three as its propulsion forward. Yeah, not good. So, all spring we've been working on different things, and when I went to her last week with some difficulties I was having trouble navigating, she said, "I think you need to learn more about empathy". What, me?! The one who cares about far more people than she should? The one who has bent over backwards trying to meet everyone's needs, while neglecting my own for decades? Me?! Yup, codependent me. Ouch. But, after I wrapped my head around that, I realized she was right. I had been already studying the Biblical way to comfort others on my own time and had realized that they are kind of the same thing, and I could learn a bunch. Just go sit with someone with a chronic illness (but not unto death yet) and see how the conversation goes. And then do it again. And again. And don't try to save, fix, or solve a thing; just love on them and listen to them. It's harder than you might think. That's where empathy jumps in. So, I'm going to delve into it here (to sort it out in my own brain) on what empathy is and isn't, and how we can get better at it. I say in the title "take 1" because I'm sure I'm barely scratching the surface, and this could take another decade to parse out.
For starters, it begins when we can't/won't (each situation is different) express our feelings and emotions about a situation that we're trying to process. This would typically be a negative experience such as a conflict, awkwardness, hurt, grief or pain. Instead of knowing or saying how we actually feel (I'm sad because...), we instead tell the (often dramatic) story of how things went. The "he said/she said" of it all, which comes from our brain (not our heart) because it's safer (less vulnerable) that way. So, we (person A) find a willing listener (person B) and tell them our story. We often ending up blaming the "meany" (person C) for how things went, because we want our captive audience (B) to really see that we're hurting (although we don't actually say this, because that would show weakness). So, we instead *imply* that we're the victim (A) and the other person (C) is the meany , and the listener (B) is just supposed to know what we're feeling by the details of the story. Understand how this is getting complicated?!
So then the listener (B) is stuck in a hard place. Often they know the "meany" (C) themselves in person, and know this is likely overexaggerated and blown out of proportion due to the underlying hurt, but they can't really say that, because that would be discrediting their friend (A) who is telling the story. If they agree with the speaker (A), then they feel like they are taking sides on a situation they really don't have the facts on. If they disagree then they are being disloyal to their friend (and it is often assumed that they are taking the meany's side (C)), when it is neither. They are just stuck in a hard place of having to choose who they think is telling the truth. Then the person who is hurting (A) is still hurting and also feeling misunderstood, and the listener (B) is stuck wondering what should be done to remedy the situation as well. Got all that?!
Enter empathy. Empathy requires just 'holding space' (I know that's a weird phrase for me too!) by being there, listening and asking more questions to seek to understand the feelings behind the story. The story itself is hardly relevant, it's the perception that is the valuable part. Whether true or untrue, whether we agree or disagree; that's not our job to decide. Ugh. Yep. Let all that go. We are just entering into their pain with them and letting them know they are not alone. That's all. Some of us have never/rarely had this done to us, and have never learned how to do this for others. Note: this is far harder with longtime friends and family than with strangers. It's easy to offer it to strangers, but with close friends and family (with whom we have a history), to remain judgement free and unbiased seems nigh on impossible. If you haven't done this before, start on your kids. They are the easiest. No advice, no lecturing; just loving, comforting and seeking to understand them deeper when they are struggling with something.
Why do we struggle to give empathy? Here's a few thoughts. Often we don't know how to express our own feelings so we can't enter the world of another's feelings or emotions. We've never learned these skills.
The next reason is we don't know the difference between our own feelings and those of others. We lack the boundaries to know what's our responsibility and what is the other person's responsibility. If your day is ruined because of someone else's issues or problems, that's codependency and poor boundaries. A healthy state keeps your feelings separate from other people's.
I found a list below (on Pinterest, not sure original source) that was really helpful in regards to sorting this out. I admit I've done all of these things in a meager attempt to give (what I thought was) empathy. I'm really good at some of them, unfortunately. I repent of my intentions and ignorance and am trying to learn and grow from here. I don't understand why this is so complicated, but somehow it is. Us humans have been misled in our own thoughts and wayward ways since time immemorial, so what's new hey?! One book I read touted a lot of this stemming from our immigrant ancestors who left their support systems of elders in "the old country" and just fended for themselves, coping the best they could without much guidance. It also could be the "children should be seen and not heard" ramifications.
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EMPATHY
Giving your attention to another by either silently or verbally guessing their feelings. For example, "Are you feeling disappointed because you wanted to be included?" Empathy requires a willingness to enter the other's world with acceptance and respect while maintaining your self and center. It also requires a willingness to be with someone who is in pain without trying to get them out of it. Think of having someone tell you to "cheer up" or "calm down". Does it work? Has it ever worked? Does being commanded, or even suggested to do this ever helped you feel better?
NOT EMPATHY
These are responses that you might offer in response to someone's expression of pain or celebration. Usually when someone is expressing difficulty, empathy is what they want first. These responses below may be helpful, but they are simply not empathy, so should be offered later on only if deemed appropriate. (Simply ask the other person!)
- Sympathy: Bringing attention back to yourself. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I feel terrible for you!"
- Advice: You assume the person needs information. "Well, what you could do is...." "You need to forgive them"
- Explain/Analyze: You believe that if you tell someone why they feel the way they do, they will feel better. "You just feel bad because..."
- Correct: You try to point out someone's mistake in interpreting. "He didn't mean to hurt you, he was just in a hurry."
- Console: "It will be ok. You're ok, everything will work out."
- Tell a story: "The same thing happened to me one time...."
- Push away feelings: You might be uncomfortable so you tell others not to feel what they feel. "Come on, don't be sad" "Calm down, and take a deep breath" "It's not that big of deal"
- Investigate/Interrogate: "Why did you do that?" "What made you feel that way?"
Ugh. Yep. I'm an expert at them all, unfortunately. Most of us are. It's really hard to sit in someone else's pain with them, I'm learning when I actually throw out all these pithy platitudes to offer. To just sit with someone in grief, or chronic illness, or mental illness, or addiction. Or whatever they're facing. To just sit and offer comfort to them (the book How We Love teaches how!) is so much harder (yet easier in many ways too!) than these petty advances that don't really do anything but heap shame on the listener for being human. (The shame comes because the hurting person feels guilty and shameful for even hurting in the first place. They should be stronger, more impenetrable than that!) I think of the story of Job in the Bible. How his friends just sat with him quietly in his pain (for a week!) were much more helpful than the offering of all kinds of bad advice to his detriment.
These are all things we can heal and grow from. These are not character flaws or foibles, just skills we haven't learned yet. I love this lady's quote below, because it shows where she has healed and grown from. She had BPD and has healed herself from it with the help of her husband who is a counselor. Blaming others and being the victim are often one and the same. It often means we don't know how to express how we really feel, and use stories (as I explained above) to try to get us what we need to feel heard. If you as a listener are getting either a victim story or a blaming story, you can know that it likely isn't the whole story, but instead a hurting story of someone who can't express how they actually feel inside, and that's the difficult part. Asking, "Is this how the other party would portray the story?" can help bring it back to objective truth. Or "how did that make you feel?" focuses on the hurting parts rather than the subjective events.
I do think the church at large in the last generations perhaps plunked all this responsibility onto Jesus, and has left people with none. When I was recently singing "What A Friend We Have in Jesus", this idea came to me. Is it Jesus' responsibility to do all the comforting? All the healing? All the hope? Yes, He is the Comforter, but He also uses us on earth to be His hands and feet. Phrases like, "I'll pray for you" can tend to take the burden off us so we don't have to do any comforting ourselves (because it is painful and awkward). Although we should pray, we can also give hugs and hope through His Word. Do a quick word study on the word "comfort" in the Bible, and you can see that it doesn't mean lecturing, shaming or passing the buck of being with someone in pain. It jumps right in there and sits with them in the pain. This is a challenge for those of us who have been enmeshed or codependent in relationships too, who don't know their own pain apart from others'.
2 Cor 1:3-5 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
Another thought is that sometimes during really hard-to-fathom times (disaster, accidents, unexpected deaths or losses), it can be easy to either blame God or defend God without seeing His whole character. We often give quick platitudes to ourself or others, in a meager attempt to minimize the pain. [Often we even use Bible verses to do this!] Where is God when you prayed for help and it didn't come? How can I believe in a God who doesn't seem to see or hear me? Sometimes we don't see much evidence that God sees and cares for us the way we think He should. Sometimes our view is skewed, but being brutally honest can be the best balm for this. For many of us this is hard because we've never done it.
- I feel hurt, because this is painful
- I feel sad, because this is tragic
- I feel angry, because this is unfair
- I feel confused, because there is no clear pathway forward
Our flesh wants a world built on successful formulas, pat answers that actually fix things, and solutions to our problems. ("If I do the "right" thing, then bad things won't happen to me") We'd like life to be predictable, controllable and fundamentally fair. What we see around us, in us and what's happening to us usually isn't that. But what we really sometimes struggle with is honesty. Honesty with ourselves, honesty with God. Honesty in our disappointments, but also honesty in our hopes.
Just so you know, empathy is the path forward to less expectations of ourself and others, less responsibility, less performance, and thus less burdens. It relieves us of so much internal angst! That's my favorite word lately. Teenagers have lots of angst, but us adults do too if we'd just acknowledge it!
angst [äNG(k)st]
- a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general:
- strong worry and unhappiness, especially about personal problems
So how do we know if we ourselves or someone we know is lacking empathy? It can easily get mixed up with codependency.
Here's a quick list~ [source]
- Being extremely critical of other people
- Blaming the victim when bad things happen to them
- Not forgiving people for making mistakes
- Feeling like other people are too sensitive
- Not listening to other people's perspectives or opinions
- An inability to cope with emotional situations
- Lack of patience for other people's emotional reactions
- Reacting with impatience or anger when frustrated with other people
- Feeling baffled by other people's feelings
- Believing that negative things won’t happen to you
- Not thinking about or understanding how your behavior affects other people
How We Love our Kids by Milan and Kay Yerkovich (highly recommend!)
