gym employee: "Hi, how are you?"
gym patron, through gritted teeth: "I'm here."
A woman after my own heart!
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
The Trouble With Empathy
Over at Queer Romance Month I saw this video about empathy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=173&v=1Evwgu369Jw
It's thoughtful and funny, well worth a watch. But for me, it kind of scratches the surface of what empathy actually is: it's more about offering an empathic response. You see it a tiny bit -- the bear gets a cloud over her head -- but you don't really see the bear taking on the fox's feelings with her.
I've always had problems with empathy, and I still do. When my son tells me about something wrong, my instinct is often to distance, to argue, to try to convince him that no, it's not really wrong, or we can easily fix it. And why?
Because empathy HURTS. It's not just saying the right things instead of the wrong ones. It's really feeling. And taking on the depths of my son's pain is agonizing.
I see this in my son too. When he sees me in pain, he's in pain for me. Anything that goes a little wrong for me hurts him. It's a hard way to live. Luckily I'm a grown up and can usually brings things down: "It's okay, it's just a little scratch, happens all the time." But that doesn't work when it's his pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=173&v=1Evwgu369Jw
It's thoughtful and funny, well worth a watch. But for me, it kind of scratches the surface of what empathy actually is: it's more about offering an empathic response. You see it a tiny bit -- the bear gets a cloud over her head -- but you don't really see the bear taking on the fox's feelings with her.
I've always had problems with empathy, and I still do. When my son tells me about something wrong, my instinct is often to distance, to argue, to try to convince him that no, it's not really wrong, or we can easily fix it. And why?
Because empathy HURTS. It's not just saying the right things instead of the wrong ones. It's really feeling. And taking on the depths of my son's pain is agonizing.
I see this in my son too. When he sees me in pain, he's in pain for me. Anything that goes a little wrong for me hurts him. It's a hard way to live. Luckily I'm a grown up and can usually brings things down: "It's okay, it's just a little scratch, happens all the time." But that doesn't work when it's his pain.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Accessible
My mom always speaks admiringly of how well my son expresses his feelings. I always had tremendous difficulty talking about what was going on with me; she's told me that once during a very bad time she broke her own strict rules about privacy to read my diary but it was no help at all. I didn't even write about my feelings. Possibly I didn't even understand them myself.
Son has always been encouraged to understand and express himself, with additional expert guidance since he was 3. Today I noticed an unexpected benefit of this: when you have words to understand your own feelings, it's much easier for someone else to explain their feelings to you. Telling him "please be quiet because your dad is stressed" brought out frustration and stomping. Reminding him that noise is one of the worst things when he's feeling stressed brought peace and a loving apology.
He absolutely has empathy, no question of it. As with so many issues regarding disabilities, it's just a matter of the right access.
Son has always been encouraged to understand and express himself, with additional expert guidance since he was 3. Today I noticed an unexpected benefit of this: when you have words to understand your own feelings, it's much easier for someone else to explain their feelings to you. Telling him "please be quiet because your dad is stressed" brought out frustration and stomping. Reminding him that noise is one of the worst things when he's feeling stressed brought peace and a loving apology.
He absolutely has empathy, no question of it. As with so many issues regarding disabilities, it's just a matter of the right access.
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