“Love is an action: never simply a feeling.”

-bell hooks

If you’re reading this newsletter, you’re probably familiar with the concept–and skill!–of empathy. As social service providers, or folks who just care about others, empathy is a critical tool in our toolkit to connect with another person. But what is empathy, exactly? And what should we do if we feel out of touch with our ability to empathize? 

Empathy is the ability to understand and share someone else’s emotions. While individuals’ empathetic capacities may vary, research suggests that empathy is malleable and can be developed (Weisz & Zaki, 2017). This matters because empathy is linked with increased wellbeing (Wei, Liao, Ku, & Shaffer, 2011) and prosocial behavior like helping others (Batson, 2011). But empathy can be context-dependent, and wane, for example, during conflict or burnout.

Although empathy has actually been associated with preventing burnout (Wagaman et al., 2015), those in the helping professions may sometimes struggle to stay connected with their ability to empathize.

How can we strengthen our empathetic muscles? Research has found that guided, compassion-focused meditation is a powerful tool for increasing empathy (Jazaieri et al., 2015).

When your mind is buzzing and you find yourself overthinking, take some tips from Dr. Judith Orloff, M.D. In their book The Genius of Empathy, Dr. Orloff shares ways to calm your mind and combat overthinking.

• Compassionately identify the unproductive pattern.
• Focus on breathing through your nose, to shift out of your mind and into your body.

• Kindly tell yourself that "Overthinking won't help the problem, it just frustrates me."
• Focus on the now, rather than making up scary stories about the future. Do this by focusing on your breath, your immediate surroundings, and the problems that can be solved today.
• Accept what you do have the power to change, rather than dwelling on situations that are beyond your control.
• Gently put your hand on your heart and visualize an uplifting image that relaxes you.
• Keep repeating, "All is well, with time this issue will be solved."
• Listening to serene music transports you out of your mind and into your heart. Find a playlist that makes you happy. It could be music that calms you or makes you dance.
• An antidote to overthinking or overtalking is to revel in the wonder of nature. A sunset, trees swaying in the breeze, moving water, watching birds or listening to the wind can all help quiet your thoughts.

Once you are able to quiet an overactive mind, you are in a place where you can truly show up and show empathy for others.

As we said in the intro, empathy isn't just a feeling or belief, it is a practice. Ways to improve can be through education, learning about other people and their experiences. For example, researchers showed white college students a video about institutional racism. Afterward, the students displayed higher levels of empathy and racial awareness (Soble et al., 2011). Connecting with the stories of others brings awareness and understanding, even fictional stories. When you read fiction and have an emotional connection to the story it can increase your empathy for others (Bal & Veltkamp, 2013).

Perspective-taking is a common and effective way to increase empathy. To try it, imagine someone you want to empathize with. Perspective-taking is akin to putting yourself in their shoes: what is that person experiencing? What is their perspective on their current situation? How might they be feeling?

Finally, to practice empathy we can simply listen to what someone wants to share. In the Genius of Empathy, Dr. Orloff gives us this guidance, "The format of empathetic listening is simple: one person respectfully expresses themselves about a single issue, the other person listens but doesn't engage the sharer verbally. There is minimal conversation until the end, but it is ok to nod your head or offer an occasional 'I hear you'." She shares some Dos and Don'ts of empathetic listening.

DO

• Create a safe place for someone to express themselves. This is a private atmosphere where someone feels comfortable to express themselves without being judged or interrogated.
• Listen more, talk less, or remain quiet.
• Be tolerant.
• Use a kind tone of voice.
• Come from a place of love and acceptance.
• Show your caring and interest.
• Make gentle eye contact.

Excerpted from the The Genius of Empathy by Dr. Judith Orloff

DON'T

• Try to fix or heal the person's pain.
• Make the conversation about you by sharing similar or worse experiences you've had or heard about.
• Offer unsolicited advice about possible solutions that have worked for you or tell someone what to do.
• Interrupt, interject your thoughts, finish their sentences or talk over someone.
• Correct the person on what they said or how they said it.
• Judge, label, or minimize the situation.
• Fidget, yawn, check your phone, or look bored.

Remember, empathy isn't just for other people in our lives, it's important that we show ourselves empathy, especially when we are struggling. Let us know if you’ve been feeling some empathy burnout, and if any of these techniques help!

Now that we’re all on the same page, lets keep digging into the concept of “start with heart.” Since we only have control over ourselves, it makes sense to contemplate the “why” behind our motives when we find ourselves moving towards silence or violence in challenging situations. 

If you’ve chosen silence as a tool to navigate a tough situation in the past, know that you’re not alone; we’ve all done it!

Do you remember earlier this year where we worked on turning the lens of unconditional positive regard inward, giving our self compassion muscles a (well-deserved) stretch? Let's keep working on it! If you’ve responded in ways that were avoidant or defensive in the past, what would it look like to be courageously reflective? This is a term we've used in AE to describe the ability to look at one's own actions with compassionately honest introspection.

First, ask yourself “What does my behavior tell me about what my motives are?” In our sample example, Left on Read, perhaps the courageously reflective answer here would be “I’m avoiding a response to this email, because I’m overwhelmed; I can’t handle all their messages right now and think the issue will resolve itself in time.”

Sometimes we are inundated with emails, calls, and texts in our work. It is easy to see how one might label a situation overwhelming and this could translate into feelings of frustration and the labeling of an “individual” as overwhelming due to their proximity to the challenging situation. 

The feelings and thoughts experienced in this scenario are valid. Yes…I said it! Sometimes we make mistakes and the feelings we experience can still be 100% valid. Given this there are a few additional courageously reflective questions we could ask ourselves to ensure that our crucial conversation has a good chance of being resolved in a way that benefits everyone. 

The next questions are twofold and involve holding 2 concepts in balance with one another:

• “What does my behavior say about what my motives are?”
• “Are these the motives I want to communicate with my actions?” If not, “What do I want for myself? For others? For the relationship?”

Lets see what these courageously reflective questions might look like in practice with the scenario we’re working with. 

“What does my behavior tell me about what my motives are?”

The answer here, reminds me of something my grandma used to tell me: “Re, sometimes, silence is the loudest kind of noise.”

Not responding to an email, text, or call by a coworker who knows you’ve seen it, communicates something whether you like it or not. If you’re truly trying to be reflective, it is important to name those potential impacts. Here’s a few I’ve come up with:

• “I’m too busy to respond.”
• “I don’t want to respond.”
• “I can’t help you and so I’m not responding.”
• “It is not my job to help you, so I’m not responding.” 
• “I’m working on a response, but don’t feel the need to give you this update currently.”
• “This isn’t important enough to warrant my response.”
• “I want this communication to stop, because I don’t want to engage further and hope the situation goes away.”

We could keep going with this list, but you get the picture. Silence does speak; because communication doesn’t just take place when something has been said with words. Part of “starting with heart” is acknowledging, that we all have a role to play in communication breakdowns. It is our responsibility to own up to our role, and take accountability for our part if we seek a better outcome. These are some potential inferences to the actions that have been taken. Our next step is to reflect and clarify:

“Are these the motives I want to communicate with my actions?”

Looking at the list above, I can say that none of these responses are what I would want to intentionally communicate with my actions, but let's start with the one that might feel closest to a truthful motive. We can recall the first courageous reflection in Left on Read for insight: "I’m avoiding a response to this email, because I’m overwhelmed; I can’t handle all their messages right now and think the issue will resolve itself in time.”

Maybe there’s a bit of truth in this. A possible motive being communicated by the action to avoid response, might be “I don’t want to hear from this coworker again/right now; maybe not responding to this email and other communications in the future will achieve the goal.” This might push the crucial scenario towards the goal of stopping/stalling further communication, but, what will this motive do for others? It is safe to say, this avoidance, won’t build trust in you as a resource or a coworker. It will also likely diminish any sense of reliability in you from the other person’s perspective and anyone else they discuss your working relationship with. For many of us, these outcomes would be considered a less than ideal resolution. 

Now this is the fun part! Remember, we each have the choice to make a powerful reframe and clarify what we REALLY want. Ask yourself...

"What do I want for myself? For others? For the relationship?”

Upon honest reflection about your motive, you might discover an unmet need like this “I need some space and time to better understand why the dynamics of this working relationship have been such a challenge for me, but I’m currently too overwhelmed with my current workload and don’t have capacity to think through this. I want to improve the working relationship with this person and I want to move forward with new communication patterns in the future.”

Phew! That might be what is really going on behind the decision to choose silence or avoidant behaviors in this crucial situation. If this is the most honest reflection of your motives and needs right now, what might an answer to the last courageously reflective question look like?

“How would I behave if this were what I really wanted?”

Acknowledging all the motives and needs captured in the reflection, a behavior change might look like this:

Description for image: (Yellow, white and black instant messaging bubbles.)

The 1st reads: Do you know when the staff meeting agenda is due? Who needs to receive it? The 2nd chat bubble reads: “Hi, I saw your message and understand that you’re wanting support on completing this task. I’m feeling at capacity with my workload and need to focus on completing time sensitive tasks. I’d like to talk further about ways we can best communicate support and needs with each other in the future. I’ll be in touch when I’m up for the conversation and you can let me know what works for you.”

In our ideal world, we’d always take a mindful moment when a challenging scenario is presented, check alignment with our goals and motives, and show up in these moments as Crucial Conversations All Stars. Sometimes, this is us, and sometimes, we fall short of the goal. Practicing this framework when trying to bring clarity to a difficult conversation will become much easier the more we do it.

Next month we’re going to explore a big step on our “path to action” in navigating crucial conversations called “Mastering Our Stories.” We’ll highlight how the feelings we develop are the result of the stories we tell ourselves about any situation and sometimes it is extremely hard to tell the difference between the story and the facts. 

Until then we’d love to hear from you about how you’re practicing these skills in your work or personal life. If you feel like sharing, email us at aeinfo@multco.us.

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Memorial Day weekend marks the anniversary of the flooding of Vanport on May 30, 1948. The creation of the city as a home for shipbuilders and their families during WWII and the destruction caused by the Flood of 1948 are detailed in this OPB documentary.

Image from the Oregon Historical Society Research Library

Ed Washington, Director of Community Outreach & Engagement at the Portland State University Office of Global Diversity and Inclusion, pictured here describing Vanport as it was before the flood.

Photo credit: Helen Vank

We visited the site where Vanport was located on the Fair Housing Council of Oregon's bus tour and heard speaker Ed Washington describe the vibrant city he grew up in, how it was a giant playground where all the kids played, fought, and walked away friends. The schools were the first in Oregon to be integrated and while there was one Black teacher in PPS at the time, there were four in Vanport. He described the day the swollen and fast Columbia washed away the town he loved and the kindness of neighbors, church folk, and citizen in the aftermath of the disaster.

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