Dear Tristan: on empathy

Dear Tristan,

Yesterday I wrote about the important of feeling what you feel, and treating feelings as clues to what your needs are. Those needs that underly our feelings and behaviors are basic human needs. That means you share those needs with everyone else around you.

This is a beautiful thing, and it is because of this commonality that we can offer empathy towards one another. There are lots of ways to define empathy – your dad wrote about some of that yesterday. I like to think of it as the quality of being present with someone.

As human beings, we struggle along with the vast needs we have and the fact that much of the time, those needs are not being met. We have big feelings, some of which feel overwhelming to us. We develop strategies – that is to say, we act in a certain way – in order to meet our needs. Some of those strategies are effective and helpful, some are not.

The first person you need to give empathy to is yourself. A friend said to me recently that “Self-empathy is the only empathy.” I think that is to say, that you must give yourself the empathy you need rather than demanding it from others. Empathy is a gift we can give (and desire), but it can never be demanded or required.

In giving yourself empathy, you can observe what you are doing. An observation is not a judgment. For example, “I’m being lazy” is a judgment. “I’m sitting down right now” is an observation. Ask yourself what you are feeling in that moment, and then try to connect that feeling to a need. As you sit with your need, that is where you give yourself empathy. Perhaps a need is not being met and that is resulting in some big scary emotions you don’t know how to handle, and maybe that is driving you to do some things you’re not proud of. Self-empathy can help you be kind to yourself, to understand what’s going on, and then to choose, if necessary, a different path.

When we learn how to give empathy to ourselves, we can also give empathy to others. The most vile, disgusting, hurtful, immature behavior is all just a strategy…a strategy that someone is employing to attempt to meet their unmet need. You may not like the strategy…but you can connect to the need, because it’s something you share. Some of this overlaps with perspective taking that I wrote about a few letters back, but it’s more than just that.

Sometimes we try really hard to empathize with someone and as a result we try too hard to connect what they are feeling with something in our own experience. So we say, “I know how you are feeling because I’ve been there too.” While it can be encouraging to hear “I’ve been there” from someone, that is not itself empathy.

Empathy is silent. Empathy is being present with someone in their scary feelings, in their hard feelings, and to see their actions – even those actions that may directly hurt you, even those actions you find most disgusting – as mere strategies. Empathy is sitting with someone in their needs.

Empathy is not about you. That’s why it’s more than perspective taking. Empathy is not about how you feel about what someone else is going through. When someone says “I’m sad” and you say “I’m sad that you’re sad,” that is not empathy. That is sympathy, and it is also a beautiful thing, but empathy is careful to keep the focus on the other person rather than on you and what you’re feeling.

Marshall Rosenberg, the author and teacher who developed the process of Nonviolent Communication, says that empathy is “A respectful understanding of what others are experiencing.”

You can’t respectfully understand what someone is experiencing when you are busy judging them and writing your own story about what they are experiencing. That’s why empathy is not about you. You have to let go of your story about someone else in order to hear their story, in order to be present with someone.

Empathy is about connection. A lot of times people connect on surface things – like shared interests, or shared beliefs, or shared preferences. Empathy enables us to connect on something far more basic – our very humanity.

Empathy enables us to have respectful conversations with people we don’t understand and disagree with. It enables relationship with someone who may be very different than you.

Empathy can be the bridge between two people who have hurt each other deeply. It can start the repair work necessary in order to even have relationship. Empathy can help us do more than merely tolerate one another.

Often when people need empathy the most is when they are behaving badly. So when someone does something hurtful to you, or you are most frustrated with someone or annoyed at them, imagine a bubble above their head with the words “Needs empathy”. We would all do well to try this.

Empathy is an incredibly powerful thing, and an incredibly difficult thing. Much of the time, I don’t want to step outside myself and be present with someone else. I want it to be all about me.

As I grow in my understanding of all these things, I realize even more how far short I fall of my ideals. I don’t really know how to put this into action on a daily basis. Far too often I fall back on the ease of judgments and argument. It’s easier than observations and empathy.

I’ve said many times that having a child forces you to look at how you are living and it makes you want to do better. I want to live a life worthy of being an example to you – and often I am aware that the example I am setting is not a very good one. I am determined to learn this skill of empathy primarily so that I can give it to you. I can think of very little that is as important for a parent to give to their child as empathy. I hope that whenever your behavior is what people would call “bad”, I’m able to step outside of how it makes me feel and instead imagine what you are feeling. I hope that I am able to sit with you in those feelings, and follow them through to your deep needs, and help you find ways of meeting them that don’t involve doing violence to yourself or to others.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I will always try to be present with you, even when (especially when) I don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. And rather than making it all about me and taking it personally, I will offer you empathy, and hopefully together we can find a {nonviolent} way to meet your needs.

love,
mama

other letters in this series:
on failing to live up to ideals
on curiosity
on intrinsic motivation (and why we won’t do sticker charts)
on disagreements and choosing a different path
on being open
you are not what you do
on perspective taking
on the most important thing
when the going gets hard
on falling in love
on feelings and needs

 

Daddy’s letters:

I love you
I’m sorry
Be Yourself
Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Be Powerful
Be…just be
Do it for you
On Rewards and Punishments
Choose Wisely
Hold onto Yourself
Cultivate Empathy