Empathy During COVID-19

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Hannah Talks About Things. So right now it is a really difficult time for a lot of people, and I think that this specific episode is really important because often in the wake of intense emotional pain or fear, we as humans want to silver line each other's experiences and make people feel better. But sometimes we don't need to be made to feel better because there isn't a response that can help. Like Brené Brown says, what makes something better is connection. And especially right now with social distancing and a global pandemic and potential self-quarantining, which I hope you are doing, um, we can feel really disconnected. So this article is called "Empathy vs. Sympathy" and it was posted to Psychology Today on September 20th, 2019. Our job is not to take away someone's pain. It is to connect with them. And again, now more than ever, I think this is incredibly important. Throughout my life, I have noticed that we as humans have a tendency to sugarcoat each other's experiences by minimizing them, telling them that things will get better, or that this too shall pass. While our intention is usually good, the effects are not always helpful. As Dr. Brené Brown says, true empathy is being able to take someone's perspective, remove judgment, and meet them where they are. It is like crawling into a dark space with them and holding— a dark hole with them and holding space for their experience. True empathy never starts with "at least." One tip that I found extremely helpful in my graduate studies was about learning to implement the acronym WAIT into my therapeutic processes with patients. When I'm listening to describe— when I'm listening to someone describe their experience or explain their feelings, I may have the urge to jump in and give my feedback at that very moment. But if I ask myself the acronym WAIT, which stands for "Why am I talking?" It helps me to check my motives and implement the sacred pause. This pause during a brief moment of silence could be incredibly crucial for that person to continue digging even further. So we can use WAIT, why am I talking, in our daily conversations and interactions with those in our lives, especially right now. If someone FaceTimes you and is really stressed out and you just want to say, listen, stop stressing out, everything's going to be okay. First of all, you don't actually know that. And second of all, This too shall pass, everything happens for a reason, everything's gonna be okay may feel helpful in that moment, but for some people it's actually not helpful at all because their desire and urge to be seen and heard is completely being steamrolled by a platitude. Not helpful. We can use WAIT in our daily conversations and interactions with those in our lives. If someone shares something incredibly painful to you, the urge to silver line their experience may be visceral, just like Brené Brown says. We may want to share our own experience, tell them about someone who went through the same thing, or provide some spiritual or motivational anecdote. But is this always helpful? No. When applying this tool, I find that more often than not I'm giving someone my two cents because it's about me and I want to talk about me because I'm a human being. This doesn't make me inherently selfish and self-seeking, but rather a normal human being who tends to be egocentric by design. So someone says, "I'm really freaking out about the coronavirus. I'm self-quarantining." My human urge is to say like, oh, don't worry. What? What? Or, oh, this is my experience. And what I'm doing is missing that opportunity for true connection and vulnerability on behalf of that person and myself to really just hold space for them. That's okay. We need not shame ourselves for our human nature. What we can do, however, is grow into a person who is able to hold space for our loved ones and be present for those moments of genuine empathy. If it doesn't feel uncomfortable at first, you may be doing it wrong. I definitely subscribe to the notion that we grow through our discomfort. If we tell ourselves, "I'll be willing to do that once I'm more comfortable," we may be waiting forever. The reality is that we get comfortable by walking directly through the discomfort. So try it out. May empathy be with you. So again, I think especially now, I know for me it's really easy to scroll through social media, which can be like a cesspool of opinions, and get really judgmental and intolerant. And not only does that increase my anxiety, anxiety, but just increases my overall resentment and rage towards certain people. And so what's been helpful for me is to also give myself permission to take a break from social media, whether that's an hour or a full day, which I've not been doing well, um, and realize that every single person is doing the best they can with what they have. We are heavily influenced by our political stances and opinions, by what our friends and family are saying and doing. So if everyone around you is going out and treating life like normal, that is normal to them. And so we have to walk this line of creating space for empathy while also setting boundaries and parameters that work for us. I know for me, being in a helping profession, creating space for everyone else to process their feelings— clients, friends, family— can be incredibly draining if I'm not also utilizing support to talk about where I'm at and how I'm doing. And so just like I need to, or it's pretty important for me to have empathy for other people, I also need to have empathy for myself. There is no right way to be feeling right now. There is no guidebook about this. There's no like, how you should feel during a global pandemic, whether or not it's affecting you directly. I just know that for me, when I see people being insensitive about it, or when I see people who are fortunate enough to not be taking a huge financial hit, or physical hit, It's really tough to have empathy and tolerance and patience and love, for sure. And that's okay too. And I think that's important to notice, that whatever it is you're experiencing, it's okay. It's okay to be okay, it's okay to not be okay, and everything in between. So just like it's super important to have empathy for other people, and that saves us from being resentful, it's so imperative that we have empathy for ourselves. Especially right now. And remember, genuine connection, it may not feel organic and it may not feel natural, especially if you're doing it through a phone screen, and that's okay too. Talk about it, write about it. There are so many amazing resources right now, like the app Calm or Headspace, which is meditation and mindfulness. There's so many forums right now, there's so many groups on Facebook. I know my block in Baltimore City, my area, everyone's gonna be sitting on their stoops Tonight, like social distancing, because we'll all be on our own stoops, but we'll all be outside and connecting essentially, because everyone is going through it right now. Again, whether they're affected directly or not, this is a completely unprecedented time. And so rather than pulling upon judgment and hate, or let me fix it for you and let me tell you everything's gonna be fine, let's create space to actually honor our own emotional experiences and honor each other's. So stay safe. Thanks for letting me share this video. Okay, bye!