Over my lifetime I’ve had a hard time giving empathy. I’d often excuse myself until one day my wife Marti gently said, “You are so competent in so many things. I bet you can become competent in being empathetic, honey.”
This was a challenge for a guy with an ego that sees itself as competent, wise, and action-oriented. When I see my highly capable Marti troubled or in tears about something and ask her about it, I usually go immediately to giving solutions or advice.
Wrong approach!
I recently listened to Brené Brown’s audio book “Men, Women, and Worthiness: The Experience of Shame and the Power of Being Enough”. Brown suggests the following 4 steps on how to give empathy. They seem to be working, but I’ll admit I’m still a novice (take that, ego!). Here’s what I got from it, framed in a me-she interaction:
1. See the World as She Sees It
“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Try to take her perspective. This really takes some work, because my first thought is “Jeez, why can’t she see this my way?” As I am not a woman, and especially not this amazing woman, I have to work hard to try to get into her experience and imagine how she sees things—her perspective.
2. Be Non-Judgmental
“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”
Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
If I let my ego run things, I’ll think I know everything and that I can judge my wife for not being “x”. This will only lead me into giving advice or solutions. As I said earlier—wrong!
The x thing represents all the ways I think I am superior. But in truth we are all at least partially deficient in those things. As Brown puts it, “We judge in areas where we feel insecure.”
3. Understand What She Is Feeling
Acceptance is Understanding. Understanding is Love
Thich Nhat Hanh
Here again I was awesome at implementing the wrong approach to this. I would say something like “So, you must be feeling ‘y’.” Wrong, Marti was not feeling y, and this made it worse because it showed I was reading her mind wrong.
The better approach is to ask in a curious and friendly way, “How are you feeling?” This is what my daughter Helena often says to me after I’ve had a new medical procedure. Asking Marti this will educate my know-it-all ego to proceed more”wisely”.
4. Communicate That You Understand
Once you’ve completed steps 1 through 3, you now have the basis for communicating that you understand. And, if you have had the same kinds of feelings in your own life under similar situation, you can even say, “Yes, me too, I’ve felt ‘y’ too when ‘xyz’ happened in a similar situation.”
However, given all that, and knowing that I should not give advice or solutions, I sometimes end up just telling her a lot of stuff about how wonderful and amazing she is, followed with, “How about I fix you a nice warm bubble bath.” And BTW, I didn’t get this from Brené
So, as my dad always said, “There you have it!” I hope this helps shed some light for you on what has been, for me, a baffling skill to learn.
Peace, love , soul, and rock ‘n’ roll!
Harry
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Ogden Nash, “A Word To Husbands”
Photo Credit: Archie Fantom
