Episode 38: Empathy in Communication with Deborah Needham, Part Two

00;00;12;12 – 00;01;59;11
Rick Hoaglund
Let’s talk about why empathy is such a big deal. It helps us understand and achieve our goals. Empathy let’s us see things from other people’s perspectives and it makes it easier to persuade them and to get things done. It’s also crucial for finding common ground. We want to solve a problem in a way that works for everyone. We’ve got to understand where others are coming from. Empathy makes relationships smoother, when people feel like we’re really listening and caring about them, they’re more likely to cooperate and open up, even in tough conversations. It feels pretty good for us, too. Being empathetic gives us a sense of satisfaction, and it boosts our mental wellbeing. It helps to make real connections. Being able to empathize with others not only makes our relationships stronger, but it also helps us build a network of meaningful connections. Being empathetic doesn’t mean we’ve got to give up our own opinions or our goals. It’s just about understanding others before we assert ourselves. In our last episode, we talked about mirror neurons, the brain cells that help us feel what others are feeling. They may be the building blocks of empathy. They help us to connect with each other. Now let’s give a warm welcome back to Deborah Needham. Welcome back Deb. Thanks for joining us again. In our first episode, you talked about the importance of using empathy in your speech when you’re talking to someone, whether they’re in crisis or honestly, any time. And you were talking about that it’s very natural for most people to do this, or all people. And that was because of mirror neurons. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that works? Because I think of mirroring as being something that doesn’t happen naturally for me, but maybe it does. Maybe it does.

00;01;59;14 – 00;03;50;08
Deborah Needham
Well and mirror neurons are working on a whole different level. It’s happening in your brain and it’s not anything to do with what you are physically doing with your body or with your speech. So when we talk about mirroring techniques, which are an important technique, but those are things you’re consciously choosing to do, your mirror neurons are an unconscious process that happens in your brain. These are specialized neurons that are wired to detect those micro signals of when you’re reading other people, because we are social animals and we are wired for empathy, mirror neurons are helping you connect socially to other people. The way they do that is that when they read those microexpressions or those subtle shifts in body language, like when someone’s shoulders are being held a little bit tense, your mirror neurons pick that up and they do this incredible calculus and mathematically figure it out, and they translate that into what emotion is that person feeling. Now they usually get it right, and when they get it right and you begin feeling what the other person is feeling, that can be very helpful information for you to be able to relate to the other person. But mirror neurons, of course, they’re part of your brain and they’re basing their calculus on your lived experiences, what you know of human behavior and what you sense. So it’s a complicated calculus and it’s all automatic and it’s going to give you an impression or a feeling and you may experience that as an emotion yourself. That emotion can be a source of understanding for you to relate to the other person. So it’s a starting point for you, but I do say there is, it’s always important to verify and to confirm with the other person or through other observational methods. So it’s not the only thing, but it is the great starting point that we have, the great advantage that we have as humans is that those mirror neurons give us sort of a leg up on being able to understand other people.

00;03;50;11 – 00;04;15;27
Rick Hoaglund
So we have this, this part of being people, this biological response that helps us with that. But there are tools beyond that, right? I mean, I mean, what else can we do to make sure that we are doing our best to be empathetic and also what safeguards are there that we’re not taking on this person’s emotions to an extreme with us, within us.

00;04;16;00 – 00;07;35;11
Deborah Needham
Yeah and I think that is a really important consideration, because that’s one of the things I see often when people see me in my private practice, that they are overwhelmed because they’ve been dealing with other people or even just, overwhelmed by their own stuff and so I’m helping coach people through, like, kind of teasing that out for themselves. So there are definitely techniques that can be used to help you form that connection in the first place. So let me let me tackle those first and then we’ll talk about what I refer to as shielding. So with the techniques and mindsets that increase empathetic connection with people, one of the most important ones is you have to be able to cultivate a respect for differences in people and to be able to withhold judgment. So when when I was in my grad school program the whole first year I was in, I sort of double majored in the counseling track as well as the organizational systems track, and one of the things that we learned was what’s called the Carkhuff and Rogers helping skills. So people who are in the counseling professions and therapy professions, will know what I’m talking about here. It is this, there’s a phrase it’s called “having unconditional positive regard for the other person”, and this means not judging them, not having negative views towards them, but just keeping yourself in this openness and positive regard of the other person so that you are, you are creating sort of a welcoming, embracing thing. You’re allowing yourself to genuinely like the person and I dare say, even love the person. And I say that because some people are uncomfortable with, like, that word love, they’re like, “well, why can’t I just respect them?”, and that was me my first year of grad school. They broke that out of me and then I finally got over it, and I’m like, yes, you do have to love people. And there’s even a coaching professor that I had and she said that you have to, in some ways, fall a little bit in love with your coaching client and not in a weird, romantic way that’s inappropriate, but you have to really, genuinely, open yourself to liking the other person and truly loving who they are for who they are and just accepting this is a human being that is imperfect, and I’m just going to love them in spite of their imperfection. So when you’re entering into an empathetic connection with somebody, if you don’t think that you can do that with them, I think that makes it really hard to form an authentic, empathetic connection with them. And I think that authenticity is super important, because if you’re trying to fake it, I know a lot of people will say, “fake it til you make it” or like Amy Cuddy says, with behavioral, you know, body language stuff, “fake it til you become it”. Yeah, there’s some stuff there. Body language is important. However, if you’re trying to fake it, they have mirror neurons too, and they’re mirror neurons are going to tell them that you’re lying to them and then that will create mistrust of you. So unless you genuinely feel it, if you can’t put yourself into that mindset of unconditional positive regard, then don’t try to fake your way through it. You’re probably then better off sticking with those more brusk, you know: red flower, blue thorn, that we talked about last time where you keep them talking on the cognitive level, but if you’re trying to connect empathetically, don’t try to fake it. If you’re not feeling it, don’t don’t lie with your feelings. It just doesn’t work.

00;07;35;14 – 00;08;07;27
Rick Hoaglund
So really quick, and I know we have some more about guarding, but is there a warning here too? Because you could have someone that’s not being honest with you, but they’re really, really good. And I’m thinking about people that have mental or social disorders that, or maybe they have a criminal intent or they’re psychopaths. I don’t know, I’m just I’m just throwing those words around and maybe I shouldn’t be saying that, but do they use that? Can you, do you have to be careful of that? You have to be, and I know we’re going to talk about guarding yourself, but yeah, just something you need to think about.

00;08;07;29 – 00;13;40;29
Deborah Needham
Yes. Yes and. I think that you’re absolutely correct. People can misuse that. Remember I talked, last time about, it’s often called projective empathy. I think of it as more like transmitting empathetic signals to other people. It is possible for you to, and for the other person, to literally manufacture the real emotion within themselves and then transmit that or project that out. Now, psychopaths and sociopaths actually do use this. So this is where I always say to people, when you’re developing your empathetic skills, don’t use them for the dark side, because they are the same things that con men use, and psychopaths use, it’s the same technique. And so it can be used for evil, and so I think what you have to realize is if you think there is someone who’s gaming you, who’s trying to pretend to feel something, there are a couple things that you can watch out for. First of all, are you having just a little seed of doubt? Are you having just that little nagging feeling of like, I don’t quite know if I believe this. If you’re having that, it’s important to pay attention to it. And sometimes we’re taught, “No, this is someone’s experience. Just believe them when they tell you”, but when you’re having that little seed of doubt, that little gut feeling, pay attention to that. That means you need to investigate further. There’s really not, and honestly there’s not a way to, for sure, be able to sort that out. Maybe that guy from that TV program “Lie to me”, maybe he could figure it out. I’m not that good with directly reading Microexpressions, but what I do know is that my mirror neurons are tuned in when there’s something that’s a little bit off about a person, you’ll feel it. The only ones that I will say fooled me – when I was a paramedic, I encountered a lot of people with mental health crises or mental illness – and the ones that fooled me, and that I had to be aware of being very, very careful, were the ones who sincerely believe their own delusion. And so when they believe it, the signals are not there. There’s no incongruence in the signals they’re giving, and they’re going to fool you. And so I think there is a caution, and mental health professionals know this, you have to be very, aware, that you can’t know everything and you still have to take appropriate precautions. So if you’re dealing with someone who is in, you’re in a situation where you could possibly be unsafe, then you need to take those extra precautions. You need to, you know, like maybe you don’t interview alone or like one time I, I had a volunteer that needed to be discharged from service because of mental illness, and there were some concerns about safety around that. So when I was having the conversation to fire, basically fire that volunteer, I took the precaution of having a plainclothes police officer just outside the door in case anything went sideways. But then what I also did is I formed an empathetic connection with the person. We bonded, ironically, over hats. Most people who know me know Deb goes everywhere with the hat on. I love hats, I’ve got almost 100. And so I, I commented on his hat. We had some bonding over the hat thing and we formed a connection. And after I fired him, he thanked me for my kindness and was really happy that, you know, I still regarded him as a good person. And so I was able to, to smoothly transition that person out of this volunteer service role he was in. But I took the precaution – even though I trust my ability to form an empathetic connection, we had seen some warning signs there – I had the precaution of having a plainclothes police officer nearby. So, so I guess it’s be, be wise in what you do. The congruence thing, though, I wanted to mention something on that, that’s pinging for me a little bit. When somebody is being deceptive, your mirror neurons are going to pick up signals. And remember I said that when, when you’re not authentic, people will pick up on that and they won’t trust you. Well, you’re going to feel that with someone else that, that lack of trust or that seed of doubt. That’s, that’s your mirror neurons telling you something’s incongruent and it’s so small you can’t see it, but you’re picking it up on a subconscious level. So that’s something to pay attention to. Congruence is so important that this was one of the things in my grad school program they drilled us on. They had us participate in these encounter groups it’s the best way to describe them, they called it “I” group – which I don’t know why it was called that, but maybe interaction – but in the “I” group, you were having conversations with your cohort peers and you were talking about some difficult subjects, and you were often disagreeing with each other. You were if you were really in a forced situation of working out conflict with people directly while practicing excellent communication skills, which I’ll get into. And one time I was saying something, I was actually feeling irritated. In fact, I was kind of angry with this person the way they were were saying something. But when I responded to them, I said it with a smile on my face and told them what I was thinking, what the impact was on me. And then they called me out for incongruence because I was smiling, but they were picking up that I was actually angry. And so that incongruence, I learned just through kind of drilling and practicing that with other people who had the same commitment to learning to communicate cleanly and authentically, that when you are incongruent, people can tell and most people won’t say anything, but what it does is it makes them not trust you. So that’s why you don’t fake it with people.

00;13;41;01 – 00;14;04;20
Rick Hoaglund
And trust is a valuable part of this whole communications piece. If somebody doesn’t trust you, they aren’t going to listen to you. They’re not going to believe you. I mean, it’s part of being just not trustworthy. We were talking a minute ago about, there are two things I wanted to go over, but shielding is one of them. And we’re talking about: what are some techniques to shield yourself so that you’re not taking on the weight of the world when you’re talking to someone?

00;14;04;20 – 00;19;11;10
Deborah Needham
Sure. And I think one of the most important things is to be able to have self-awareness. In fact, in the coaching profession, it’s often said that you can you can basically fix anything with coaching, like someone can change any aspect of their life with coaching, but if they don’t have self-awareness, it’s really hard to do any of the other things. So the the most foundational, fundamental thing in cultivating your own emotional intelligence is to make sure that you’re self-aware. And so self-awareness means that you need to, you need to get clean and clear. I tell, everybody should go through therapy. I’m just saying everybody should go through therapy at some point because it helps you clarify the emotions that you’re feeling and sort them out so that you can start identifying: Here’s what I feel, here’s this feeling, here’s this feeling, here’s this feeling. They’re not all the same. It’s not just a blur of, of swirl. It is individual feelings. And then being able to be self-aware enough to know, where is this coming from? What triggered this? What, what is it connected to? What are my thoughts that are connected to this? That self-awareness piece is really important because in order to do shielding you need to have self-awareness. So self-awareness is the foundational point. But shielding techniques can be as simple as, recognizing when you’re having feelings or you’re, you’re having an interaction with someone that, that’s causing you to feel uncomfortable. And then being able to differentiate between their feelings and your feelings. And then it’s, it’s like a mental process where – I’m closing my eyes as I’m as I’m imagining this in my mind – It’s almost like, not creating a wall between you and the other person, but it’s, it’s like creating a little bit of separation from you and the other person mentally. Some people do this: My favorite technique is to imagine myself standing on a sort of a high cliff above the other person, so they’re small and far away, and I’m standing, I’m doing this mental distancing thing where I am mentally standing back from them, and I am then not in my brain. I am not as close to their emotional signal, and so it somehow dampens the amount of emotions I’m picking up from them, if that makes sense. And so that is just, that is just one practical technique that you can do. The other thing I think that’s really important is the sometimes it’s not even just what you’re doing in the moment, but it’s what you do afterwards with it. So recognizing when you’ve been in, in the crackling air of intense emotion. And most people who who’ve been in those situations know what I mean. It feels like it crackles. And then being able to take care of yourself, recognize, first of all, that that happened, and then it’s having an impact on you whether or not you realize it. And then taking yourself, and doing self-care afterwards. So that’s the other part of it. It’s not so much the preventative, but it’s the self-care afterwards. So for me, I mentioned, last time, having a, a difficult call when I was a paramedic. And after that really difficult call with the father slapping the dash of my ambulance, I realized that that had impacted me emotionally. I was taking on his anxiety and his, his grief, and his horror at what had happened to his son. And so when I got off shift set that next morning, I went home because I was on 24 hour shifts, so I had to, like, deal with it and get through the night. But as soon as I went home in the morning, I had a place that I had set up in a second bedroom that was just kind of like a little meditation space that I had for myself, and it had a little corner window, and the corner window just happened to look in the direction of the hospital. And so what I did for myself is I went in there and I recognized that I was having some like: well, maybe I could have done this differently, maybe I could have done that differently. I had a little bit of guilt, like, could I have done better? So what I did is I lit a single candle in the window, and I opened the window that pointed towards the direction of the hospital, where I knew that the young man was probably dying or already gone, and I gave myself self-forgiveness, for if I didn’t drive exactly the best way that I could, if I didn’t take the best route, if I could have handled the call differently, if we maybe could have recognized that the helicopter wasn’t being dispatched in a timely fashion, and we’d left the scene earlier, I let it go and I just said, “you know what? It wouldn’t have made a difference. And I did the best that I could,” I gave myself self-compassion, and I also sent prayers for support for the family. And so, just tapping into that spiritual side of myself, I find a lot of people rely on that for comfort when they’re in an intense situation. Whether they’re a survivor of a trauma or whether they have been vicariously traumatized as a responder, I think it’s really important for those who do have a spiritual practice to incorporate that into your self-care. So for me, that, that has really helped me.

00;19;11;12 – 00;19;29;05
Rick Hoaglund
So is empathy. If you’re, if you’re the one trying to be empathetic, you’re the one doing most of the communication. Is it, is there a cultural aspect to that? Is empathy the same around the world?

00;19;29;07 – 00;25;20;11
Deborah Needham
I don’t know the answer to that. So I, I think that from what I know of, I mean, I have like a lot of coursework I’ve done in cultural anthropology; that was my passion in my undergraduate work. And I know that, that people perceive things differently in different cultures. But what I’ve also seen is that people are people are people, and that people recognize love and care across cultures. There are different cultural things you should and should not do, like in certain cultures, a man must never touch a woman. In certain cultures it just cannot be done. In fact, HR will probably tell you never ever touch a woman. But it’s, it’s one of those things that you just have to know the cultural rules of who you’re operating with and that requires a certain amount of cultural literacy. If you’re helping someone, if you’re in the helping profession and you are interacting with someone from another culture, you need to know some basics about what is, what does it mean in their culture to show respect? Like there are some cultures who are making eye contact persistently, from a woman to a man is considered extremely disrespectful and probably a come on, and so I would break eye contact frequently with someone if they were from a culture where eye contact, like sustained eye contact, was considered to be provocative in some way. And on the other hand, there’s other cultures, American culture is one of them, where if you’re not making eye contact, it’s considered disrespectful and it means you’re lying. So you just have to know who you’re dealing with. So I think that cultural literacy, there’s a case to be made for people really understanding that the thing that helps most, I’m going to I’m going to sidetrack just a little bit here, if I could. I’m, I’m just thinking about like there’s been recently, there’s been a lot of backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion work, and I think what people forget is that the whole point of it was to be able to help everybody participate in society, contribute to society, connect with each other, and if we could drop some of the political labels and some of what goes along with that and realize people are people are people, the key is having the openness and the willingness to be able to encounter other people for who they are without judgment, and be open to hearing what you might need to learn about them. There is a necessity of having an openness to the other person in order to listen to them. What’s respect look like for them? Don’t assume that you know. And so trying to learn as much as you can from them, or if you don’t have an opportunity in advance, know as much about their culture as you can, that’s really helpful. So some of the things that I do, I work with, doctor Mark R Jones with the Sunyata group, we’ve been doing some DEI work, and one of the important things is the skill set that is taught in how to interact with people. I think the goal of it is to help people be able to hold multiple perspectives, to say that I might have this, this belief, and I think this is the way things should be done. But if I were this person with their background, with their culture, then they’re going to see things differently. And then can I hold that at the same time that I hold my way of seeing the world? Can I hold that at the same time and be able to interact with them in a way that they can relate to, in a way that they can understand. When we are responders to help other people, it is absolutely necessary that you need to meet them there. You need to figure out and understand where they’re coming from and their skills that can do that. There’s that mindset of a respect for difference and a respect for different perspectives and that non-judgmentalness. But there are techniques like, Dr. Jones has developed his work. He did some work with the Dalai Lama in the year 2000, and he developed a social theory around that, saying that he calls it the HSL that people need to feel heard, seen and loved, and in that order. And so you need to hear people, you need to deeply listen to them, you need to see them in their entirety as whole people, as imperfect human beings as they are, but really see them. And you also need to love them. It is not the same to respect them and just hold respect, but you genuinely need to open to them and have that embracing, opening to them. The skills that go with that, part of it is with that intense listening is, I think we’re all familiar with the term paraphrasing. So where you paraphrase someone, you say back to them what they basically said to you, but that can sound a little bit like a parrot, you know, like, you know, you say, “I’m feeling a little blue today” and then the person paraphrasing you goes, “it sounds like you’re feeling a little blue today” it’s like, didn’t I just say that? So it can be, I find that paraphrasing can be a little irritating. So Dr. Jones advocates using Paraphrase Plus, which is you listen to their story and then don’t feed their exact words back to them, take a stab at understanding and phrase it back to them. So someone’s talking about, you know, essentially they’re feeling kind of blue and, and you could say something similar back to them like, “it sounds like maybe you feel a little bit lonely. Is that right?” and then you check your perception. So you change it a little bit to interpret and see where you thought they were going with that. That’s where those empathetic cues you were getting maybe you can work those in there that always check your perception. If you forget to do that step, people will feel like you’re putting words in their mouth or that you’re misunderstanding them. But because you’re making the attempt with Paraphrase Plus, they’re going to give you some grace because you also checked with them to say, would that, is that accurate, or is it something else? So always giving that opening with Paraphrase plus. So I advocate get rid of paraphrase, pure paraphrase: it’s parrots don’t do parroting, but do the Paraphrase Plus, it really makes a difference with people.

00;25;20;14 – 00;25;54;15
Rick Hoaglund
So this is all part of what you started to – and I actually kind of cut you off and I didn’t mean to – but the excellence in communication or communicating excellently, what are, what are some of the other pieces of that? Because I think that is a tool set that if someone feels like they’re not empathetic, there are people who, who really struggle with that. How, some of the, having some of those tools that we’ve already talked about, but there’s got to be more to that. Like there’s got to be, for people that aren’t empathetic, there needs to be – I hate to say this – kind of like a checklist of things, but you’ve got to be authentic. What would that be?

00;25;54;18 – 00;28;11;14
Deborah Needham
So I think one of the things that’s really helpful is to, like you mentioned about when you get into just that logical mindset, here’s how you can use that. Start with behavioral observations and reflecting that back to them. Even though you might not be sure exactly what to say, you’re noticing things whether you’re conscious of it or not. You’re noticing things about the way they hold their shoulders or the way they may fold their arms. And so if you mention something to them, say: I notice, you know, you’re sitting with your arms crossed and I’m wondering – so you always phrase this very tentatively – I’m wondering, are you, are you feeling like you’re needing some protection? Are you, are you cold or? You know, like just noticing. I’m noticing you. You seem like you’re, you’re physically really tense. Is, is that accurate? So that you’re tying it to a behavioral observation or: I notice, you know, you’ve been, you’ve been wringing your hands or tapping your feet a lot. Is that nervousness or is that something else? You’re providing an opening and an opportunity for the person to talk more about it that you’re, you’re expressing: I’ve noticed this, and I’m concerned enough and care enough that I want to find out more, but I’m not going to assume I’m going to check with you. And so I think that use of behavioral observations can be very helpful. And at the same time, I will tell you, I’ve been caught by this, not not all that long ago, where I had someone tell me I had my arms crossed. I was feeling, what was I feeling? I’m trying to think. I think I was feeling, not defensive, but I was feeling maybe just kind of insecure. And the person then said to me that “I noticed that you’re sitting with your arms crossed and, and it seems very defensive”, but didn’t check it out with me. And I’m like, “hmm actually, I was feeling insecure. Would have been more of a, would have been what I would have called it, but instead it became defensive, which almost makes it sound like, like an aggressive sort of thing. And I’m like, oh, I didn’t like being interpreted that way. So I think it’s, it’s important to always hold that, suspend your assumption that you know what it means and always check it out with the other person. But behavioral observations are a great place to start when you don’t know where else to begin.

00;28;11;16 – 00;28;14;13
Rick Hoaglund
Because you still could have had your arms crossed because you were cold.

00;28;14;15 – 00;28;16;02
Deborah Needham
It’s entirely possible, yes.

00;28;16;03 – 00;28;26;21
Rick Hoaglund
I’m being honest, I do that, and I probably, I try not to do that because people might think I’m sending off some others. I’m literally a person that’s always cold, so I’m always huddled up.

00;28;26;23 – 00;28;28;06
Deborah Needham
Yeah.

00;28;28;08 – 00;28;48;10
Rick Hoaglund
What is your take on when, when you say something and it’s wrong? I have just offended someone. I’m trying to lay the foundations of being empathetic, and either I’ve said something really wrong or, or that person is interpreting what I’m saying in a different way that I mean.

00;28;48;12 – 00;31;23;17
Deborah Needham
That, that ties directly into one of the skills. I actually learned that from Dr. Jones as well. So he’s, he’s really giving me so many good nuggets. I, I really appreciate him for that. One of the things that we learned to do in grad school was to be able to – that those “I” groups that I found so unpleasant and uncomfortable, those encounter groups – one of the things that we had to do with each other was we learned to check for impact, to report impact, to state intent or to ask intent. And what that means is when someone says something to you, like, let’s say you just said something to me like, “well you look like you’re being really defensive. You look, you look really defensive and and I’m offended by that” then what should happen is after you say that, you know – hopefully you would have said it more tentatively than that, but let’s say you just blundered it – but all of a sudden you realize I’ve just stiffened my body and you can see that I’m having a negative reaction to it, because I think most of us know when we’ve hit somebody wrong, our mirror neurons are screaming at us like, “uh oh, uh oh, you just stepped in it” and so you’re like, “uh oh, uh oh, what do I do?” The best thing you can do right then is say, okay, but I want to check. I just said that now I want to check impact. How did that land on you? And so if you if you’re asking that in a way that is truly inviting someone to be able to give you an honest response because you just say, you know, I just noticed I saw you tense up when I said that, and I feel like I may have stepped in it. You could literally just say, I feel like I may have stepped in it. My intent was not to. You can also state your intent. My intent was not to offend or, and I should not have assumed what, what’s the impact of me saying that to you? And then, if I’m being honest, and if you’ve convinced me that you sincerely want to know and you’re concerned about the impact on me, I could say, well, I feel a little misunderstood there. I’m feeling actually rather insecure. Then you have a chance to have an honest dialog about what’s really going on. So either the person who has stepped in it can catch themselves and go, “ooh, what’s the impact of what I just said on you?” or the person – which I would not expect a survivor of trauma or, you know, somebody else who’s in a, in a crisis of some sort, I would not expect them to have to volunteer this but, you know, the shoe might be on the other foot someday and you might need to do this – but you could also volunteer, “you know, when you said that, I just felt myself resisting you because I’m feeling misunderstood. That’s the impact that you’re having on me right now.” And so I think these are, tools that stating, stating impact or asking for impact are an important tool. The other one is to state intent, and this is a good way to ward this off at the front. If before you say something, if there’s a chance you think it might go sideways, if you simply state your intent before you ask or say something that lets it, it primes the person and it sets the stage for them to understand how you mean it. So if you’re going to ask something particularly personal, for instance, to say, you know, I’m, you know, “I want to ask you a question and the reason I’m asking this is because I need this for the paperwork for the hospital” for instance. Okay. “and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but this is the reason I’m asking”. Then you ask the very deeply personal question, and the person then has it framed that you need it for paperwork, but you’re not prying into their life and they have permission to not answer if they want. Now, they don’t need to have such a defensive response or recoil in horror that you’re trying to be too intimate in your knowledge of them. And so now you’ve clarified that you’ve kind of cleared the way to be able to say, here’s what I mean by this, and then say the thing. Likewise, if you’re on the other end of that and someone says something and you’re really like, “huh!?” you could state your impact, but you could also ask for the person’s intent. “So I’m finding I’m having, a pretty resistant defensive reaction to you right now. Could I ask, what is your intent in asking me that question?” And then that causes the person then, if you’re in an intense situation, it causes them to then self-reflect and find out why am I asking that? It clears the air and it gets rid of, and this is like, I gosh, it goes back. I forget how many years. But there is this thing called the interpersonal gap where people just misunderstand each other. You send the communication and then everybody else’s filters start interpreting what you’ve said, and they turn it into something else that you never intended. That’s the interpersonal gap. And so when you state intent or ask intent, when you state impact or ask impact, you’re clearing the air in that foggy zone, in that interpersonal gap between two people in communication, it’s so fundamental that so many people forget that it exists, and they just think everybody thinks like me. I actually have a funny story on that, if I could share that. I was, I was friends with a fire deputy chief, and I remember we both used to stay late in the office a lot, and one day I, I was it was 8:00 at night – I’m serious. We were serious. Both of us workaholics. I’m trying to get better now – but, but I walked in there, I said, hey, you know, you’re going to have to put the cat out, I’m leaving. Your, your turn to put the cat out. And I said, yeah, how come you’re here so late tonight? He goes, “oh, I’m taking my last kid off to college.” And I knew this was his youngest child. And I said, “oh my gosh, you’re going to be an empty nester?” And so he he nodded his head and I leaned in for the high five because I was thinking, you know, I, I just always had this idea that when you’re an empty nester: woohoo, you know? Like you don’t have to account for being home on time when the kids are home and everything. So I leaned in for a high five, and he did not raise his hand. In fact, he lowered his head and he looked at me over the bridge of his nose with sad puppy dog eyes. And I’m like, “oh, you’re sad about it.” So. And it just reminded me of how much our own, our own projections are. There on to other people. And this is, I think, one of the big dangers with interpreting empathy is you’ve got to have the self-awareness to know what are your projections, what are your assumptions about how other people are feeling in a situation and not project those on to people. Don’t do what I did go in for a high five on an empty nester who’s grieving, that he’s going to be an empty nester, and I that was a real moment of awareness for me.

00;35;14;03 – 00;35;24;26
Rick Hoaglund
And I’m guessing it’s perfectly okay to say I’m really sorry I said that. That’s not what I meant. I mean, or, I put my foot in my mouth sort of comment.

00;35;24;04 – 00;35;24;09
Deborah Needham
Absolutely!

00;35;24;09 – 00;35;24;26
Rick Hoaglund
I mean, or, I put my foot in my mouth sort of comment.

00;35;24;27 – 00;36;11;04
Deborah Needham
That’s exactly how you recover from it. And I think sometimes people forget the power of a sincere apology. And I think, in an apology, you need to recognize the impact that you had on the person and immediately acknowledge the impact and apologize for it without excuses, without, “Oh, no, I’m just having a bad day. I’m sorry. You know that. I’m just having a bad day.” not even that. I should not have said that. I am so sorry. Can we, can we take a run at this again? Can I try this again? Can I clarify my intent in asking whatever it is and genuinely, sincerely apologize. There’s plenty of stuff on the internet you can Google about how to construct a good apology that’s not a pathological mess. And I think sometimes people don’t know how to do that.

00;36;11;06 – 00;36;23;08
Rick Hoaglund
Well, thank you very much for all your time for the last two episodes. I want to give you a few minutes. Is there anything that we did not cover that you’d like our listeners to know about?

00;36;23;10 – 00;40;15;23
Deborah Needham
I think what I would want to leave you with is, twofold. One, I think on that recovery from intense encounters with other people, you need to have a self-care plan in place if you know you’re going into an intense situation. So people who are in the helping professions, you need to know what are your resources and your go to techniques for how you recover. It can be I, I’ve even heard people say, you there’s there’s – he’s he’s since passed away, unfortunately – that he was the person who did the Seattle family constellations group and, and he did some really intense encounter groups. And he would tell people when he would bring people together for those things. There was some role play involved and people kind of taking on. It felt really intense, like I participated in several. His instructions afterwards were to go home, to take a shower, and to wash your hair, but he he actually closed all those encounter sessions with, people who had participated, holding hands with the person that they were working with and saying, I release, you know, I take what is mine, I release what is yours. You know, like really having a little ritual around that and then go home and take a shower and wash your hair, because there is there’s something that clings to you in those situations and that was an important ritual that he had established. But it could be anything for anybody. So I think that that self-care planning, know what your go to techniques are for when you’ve been in intense situations. How do you get rid of that? How do you literally wash it down the drain? Or whatever you do to to feel okay. And then I think the other one would be the importance of preparedness. being mentally prepared before you go in helps you know what to expect. And so I know, when I was, gosh, I was working as an emergency manager in Clark County, Washington, when September 11th happened and my daughter had just turned 12, and I woke her up when I saw what was happening on the news, I said, “you need to see this” and we weren’t watching at that point. It was just planes going into towers. And I said, I just, “this is history. I don’t know what this means, but I think it might mean that our country is at war. I don’t know, but this is an important historical moment.” Well, then she had been part of, as I became an emergency manager, she had been part of doing our emergency preparedness for our household, like getting all the kit stuff together. And so she was nagging me and we stocked up our kit together. So she had been part of our preparedness planning and we had talked about emergencies. We never talked about anything like a terrorist attack, but we had talked about preparing for disasters. So here’s the context. Here’s a 12 year old who’s from age nine has been thinking about personal preparedness in a way that’s very empowering. We’ve got our kit, we’ve got our stuff, and then this terrible thing happened. She, she’s witness to it on television. And so it was really interesting. A couple days later after there was nothing else on television for days, you know, days on end. She turned to me and she said, it’s only a 12 year old can. She said, “mom, I wish people would just quit talking about this now because frankly, if you’re at ground zero, there’s nothing you can do about it. But otherwise we’re as prepared as we can be. And so I want to just get on with my carefree childhood.” And I thought, wow, what a healthy perspective that is to say that I’ve done my preparedness. I know where the limits of my control are, because if you’re at ground zero, there’s nothing you can do about it. But actually, I do have control over all this other stuff. And I think that preparedness step, if you’re going into a situation which has the potential to be intense, knowing exactly what you’re going to face and being prepared for that the best that you can. And then when you’re in the middle of it, you work with what you have and you know that you’re going to come out on the other side, that to me, just helps prepare people the best possible way.

00;40;15;25 – 00;40;21;26
Rick Hoaglund
Thank you very much, Deb. Our audience appreciates it. I appreciate you. Thank you for talking to us.

00;40;21;29 – 00;40;24;05
Deborah Needham
Thanks.

00;40;24;08 – 00;41;53;09
Rick Hoaglund
Using empathy isn’t always a walk in the park. It can be tough and sometimes inconvenient, but the benefits make it worth it. First off, building trust through empathy. Yes, it takes time. You must be really actively listening and resist the urge to jump in with your own arguments or solutions right off the bat. Then there’s patience. It takes some serious patience to truly absorb what someone is saying and give them the attention they deserve. And let’s not forget about being proactive. Empathy won’t work if both parties are just waiting for the other to make the first move. Especially the other person isn’t really interested in what you have to say. Now, we’ve talked about how empathy can improve our personal relationships and our careers, but its impact goes even farther. Empathy can literally change the world. Think about it when there’s a major disaster, people step up and help out total strangers because they understand that that’s what they would want if their roles were reversed. Without that compassionate empathy, the world would be a much darker and less functional place to live. To hear other episodes of On Topic with Empathia, visit our website Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia and subscribe to On Topic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m Rick Hoaglund. Thanks for listening to On Topic with Empathia.