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Empathy: two people, two reactions

We tell a joke or say something that is funny.  One person laughs – another person does not.  We serve squash at dinner, one person likes it – another person does not.  We are at the ocean and we playfully splash water on our friends, one person laughs – the other person gets mad. 

What happened here?  Two people can feel differently about the same situation.  In fact what may be amusing to me on one day may aggravate me on another.  No matter the situation we must consider the personality and mood of a person when we are using our empathy. 

Now we know that on an intellectual basis but have you ever seen someone do something that gets a bad reaction from another and then says, “just kidding”.   If we make someone angry, hurt, or upset, does saying “just kidding”  solve the situation.  In my opinion it does not.  In fact given the tone of voice or other physical actions I may even question the sincerity of the comment. 

Many years ago I had an embarrassing situation take place that required an apology and a rethinking of how I described things.  One day I had a phone call from a business acquaintance whom I had never met in person.  He asked me how I was doing and I said “I was busier than a one-armed paper hanger”.   We both laughed, but then a couple of months later I had the occasion to be in his office.  Much to my surprise he was an amputee with just one arm.  Can you imagine my feeling at the moment of meeting him.  Now whether this is just being too PC or not – but I vowed to myself never to use such an expression again unless I knew the person very well and then in person only. 

No matter our age we must take responsibility for the choices and actions we make, even if we didn’t mean it.  How would we do this?  We must make a sincere apology to the party that was hurt, and then be sure that both ourselves and others do not continue in that line of speech or action.  This is true whether it is a young child playing with another child’s hat or joking that is done by an adult. 

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Empathy: our actions affect other people

Can you make someone else smile, feel good, sad, angry, frustrated?  Most of us know that we have that power just by what we say or do.  In fact it is by our choice of words or actions that others many time are affected and can have very strong emotional reactions.

One action like a smile or hug may make someone happy, another action like leaving someone out may make them sad.  Now it is not always possible to make others happy with our actions, nor should we, but we should be aware of and in fact we may want to predict the affect on others prior to taking a certain course of action or making certain statements.

There are some goals or actions that we can set for ourselves though that help both ourselves and others. What if we chose to help out a charity group with some of our time or to tutor a child who needed to improve in their reading.  If we are a young person, what if we helped our brother or sister with some of their work or read to a senior citizen.  All of these things demonstrate empathy and will no doubt make others happy.

Here is one more question on this subject though.  What is it that gets in the way of our seeing how our choices or behavior affects other people?  I think back to the time when I was a teenager and I do not think that I thought very much about how my actions would affect those closest to me.  Some of my actions brought pain and worry to my mother.  Was I that self – centered that how she felt just was not that important to me? 

When I look around and I see the hurt of some young people and their parents today. It goes both ways.  Some parents are so busy with their “lives” that their children are feeling very hurt and are affected by the lack of closeness.  One young man (17 years old) said to his pastor one day, “All I want is for my mom and dad to stop fighting about money and just spend some time at home with me.”  He said this just after his parents gave him a brand new BMW to ride around in. 

It is the hardest thing in the world to know how another person is feeling.  So the question is how can we adjust?  How can we do this first and foremost with our own family and then with others.  This is just a thought but I believe it takes deep listening and time.  As we start this year off, I for one plan on making empathy a bigger role in the decisions and choices I make.  That is one way to make a difference in the world that we live in.

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Empathy: Communicating feelings

One of the hardest things for all of us is communicating our feelings without blaming the other party for “making” us feel a certain way.  Yet this is one of the most important parts of empathy.  As someone trying to practice empathy we are not just going to let others walk all over us.  We should not give up our  own power and feelings just to make someone else feel good.  That is not a win – win.

 Finding a respectful way of expressing our feelings is key to maintaining this balance.  One way of achieving this is to use “I” messages.  Now we have all heard this before but putting this into practice whether as an adult or a child is difficult without taking our time to respond. 

One suggestion that is key to expressing ourselves respectfully is to take 3 breaths prior to speaking.  Consider quickly how the other person is feeling or what the situation is that created the feelings of the other person.  Once we have done that the message we deliver should be on the lines of  “I feel hurt when you speak to me in that manner.” 

Now having the correct feeling in our mind may be the hard part and we may need to take note of what we are really feeling and why.  So as we teach our children how to use “I feel statements’, we need to teach them feeling words.  This will give them the vocabulary to use and not just use one or two feelings for everything.  They should learn words like angry, frustrated, disappointed, happy, proud, left out, hurt, and how to use them. 

Finally as parents we want to model this when we are talking about other adults, situations at work and especially when we are disciplining our children.  These are teaching moments.  Remember, our children learn more about how to handle things from what we do that from what we tell them to do.

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Empathy: predicting feelings

While it is important to figure out by looking at someone or a situation what someone is feeling, it is just as important to predict how someone may feel if you speak or if you act in a certain way.  When we are able to predict how someone may feel given a set of circumstances, we can gauge how and what we may say or do.  

This is an important social skill that we can teach our children by playing a game with them or by just simple conversation.  We may ask them, “Lauren just moved and will be going to a new school tomorrow. How do you think she will feel?”   We can make up other scenarios that may be applicable to our own children that would be good for them to consider the feelings of others.

When we take children out of the scenario, their own emotions about the situation do not get involved and they can express clearly what may happen.  When the time is appropriate you can compare it to a situation that they are in and it will be easier for them to understand how they may respond with more empathy.

When we are in the middle of a situation, especially if there are emotions involved, it can be very difficult to be empathetic.  Practicing predicting the feelings of others can be helpful for all of us, child or adult.

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Disaster in Haiti

The reports are still coming in on the earthquake and all of the damage done on this small and very poor country.  Obviously we are concerned about the lives and welfare of the people there.  From a personal note as much as I want to help in any way that we can, I am not inclined to give to large organizations with big overhead – without knowing exactly how what we do can help.  So while still here in the Caribbean on vacation I have started to investigate how we may be able to assist.

Here are a couple of ideas and please this is also a call to others to contribute ideas too.

  1. Soles4Souls Text message a contribution: Text “AOK” to 20222 ($5 per text will provide 2 pairs of shoes)  or contribute to the Balanced Life Skills site.  This method will help in our local community as well as Haiti
  2. I do know a priest in Haiti (Father Alexis) who runs a number of schools that along with a local Rotary we are trying to reach to see how to make some direct assistance.
  3. There is an organization called Shelterbox who may be a good choice also
  4. I have been contacted by another friend who has a connection to an orphanage that I am also trying to make contact with.

Do you have anyone or any groups that have people on the ground there that we can assist directly?   Leave a message here, email us or for students go to our student site and check out volunteer opportunities and lets talk about what we can do.

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Emapthy and anger control

Developing empathy is a major anger control tool because it is more diffiuclt to stay angry at people once you understand things from their point of view. The skill of empathy also involves increased sensitivity to how you yourself are coming across to others.