I often try to imagine what it's like to be so many species and so many people. I imagine being so many known and unknown people all over the earth, in their neighborhoods; in their quiet lives, waking and going to bed and getting on with whatever their circumstances may be; with whatever options they may or may not have. At this moment.
When our lives are challenging, it can be comforting to remember that we are in good company. Now. And since the beginning of time. With others, all over the world. As we sit here.
When our days are difficult, it is good to remember that ants and trees and bears and fleas and tigers and snakes and ticks and mycelium all endure challenges. They get sick or die or get displaced or struggle in so many, many ways. As we speak.
One of the silliest things about humans...is we tend to forget all this; we tend to forget the endless universe within which we are a small lovely short lived existence, and think it is hardest, most difficult, for humans, or especially, for us.
That is not to say there is not an important place for sitting or standing or walking or singing or talking or sobbing ...with what is so very hard for us ...today. In this moment. Seems we are here to take that time....with some awareness if we are blessed....to be aware of how these times feel, and give ourselves the gift of being with that experience.
There is also what people are calling 'First World Problems'. Meaning, not hunger or life threatening drought or genocide or refugee camps or war or no home or no schools or no...so many basic things. Course, there is a bunch of that here, in the U.S. But I do appreciate that distinction, when we, understandably, get tense about how on earth we are going to keep up with our car payments or an orthodontist fee or getting the furnace cleaned.
I once knew a person who was born independently wealthy.
They would have parties where people would cater it and come in to clean and clean up afterwards and do all that stuff, and this person would get so STRESSED. When it came time for them to move, and they had people packing and carrying and labeling and driving and carrying and unpacking and cleaning, they were so STRESSED. I stood there just fascinated. Wondering what oblivious things I was unaware of in my own little life.
Seems like when we are really challenged by difficult experiences and feelings, learning how to simply BE with that experience is the big secret, and has been, since f the beginning of time. Being with that sadness or rage or sense of deep betrayal or bereavement or terrible, unendurable physical pain, is the key to moving from suffering to the simpler aspect....of the pain.
In sessions with clients, I would commend them on their tears and sobs. I would sit and listen and hand them the tissues and then tell them how much easier it is for their immune system and necks and backs and hearts that they just told me all those hard, hard things about yesterday or years ago, and sat, saddened or angry or with a great sense of wrong, or cried. When they would get on the acupressure table, it was a palpable thing, always, the experiences they were expressing, or had held in. Or felt underserving to have.
Sometimes we try to talk ourselves 'out of' giving ourselves an opportunity to sit or stand or walk or cry or share with someone else...that which hurts so much.
We tell ourselves others have it worse, so be quiet and hold it all in, tight. Now.
We tell ourselves it will do no good at all, so be quiet and hold it all in, tight, you weak fool. Now.
We tell ourselves it will be harder for those who depend upon us, if we 'give in' to having the gift of a moment of just standing there, feeling the great pain. Or disappointment. Or shame. Or envy.
We tell ourselves a really big fat lie, too- we say "It will do no good to cry or to talk about this or....fill in the blank. ' Which happens to be patently untrue.
But the most amazing thing about being a parent, and being raised in a somewhat disastrous setting, and being determined to learn how to be kind to oneself and grow and heal and then turn around, and be an aware, loving, in the present parent and partner and friend and coworker and self....or whatever the scenario is of your own time here in your life, is
that we watch what happens when we just sit and listen to someone.
Oh, we have that terrible, terrible itch that almost drives us NUTS to relieve our own selves by ....shutting them UP and telling them what to do. Yeah. We suffer under the illusion that if our kid or neighbor or beloved or cousin would just finish and get done with whatever it is they are going ON about, we can then get to talk and talk and tell them just what to go and do right now to FIX it.
But when we really love someone. Or someone has really loved us, with awareness, what we learn is that what we and everyone actually needs, is to be listened to.
Without an itch. Without someone waiting their turn to jump in and tell their own story and tell advice and stop them from suffering or at least talking about it.
Ever watch people with crying babies and kids? Pat pat pat hush hush hush be quiet stop making this awful sad noise you are upsetting me I am beginning to feel all the times I felt this way too and people went hush hush or shut up or that's enough or now now its ok now. Stop. Be Quiet. Hold it in.
It's the most amazing thing to be young and have a baby and comfort them but not try to get them to shut up. Stop crying. And instead hold them and reassure them and rock them and say "I know. I know." And try to imagine what they might be feeling and then say small things that might be on the mark. And then when they are done being so very brilliant with all that crying and sobbing and sometimes yelling and being angry and saying all kinds of things that they are actually saying to express emotions, versus really meaning all the words, it is really the hardest thing to just be there and listen and try to imagine how they are feeling, and empathize and say things that ask questions or express what you are thinking they might be feeling right now.
"You are so, so angry at that kid who hit you."
"You were so embarrassed you feel like you never want to go back."
"You feel like you will never have a best friend again?"
When my kids were little and they would fight, the three of them, I would be aghast at what one or another would DO to each other. I mean, really! I would feel so ANGRY. My own feelings would get ignited. Then I would think "What the heck is going on with me here???" I would get angry at the kid who bit the other, the one who made fun of the other. And then finally, one day, BAM, it hit me. Empathize. Yeah, set limits, yeah, sometimes consequences. But listen. Break it up. Empathize. So I tried it.
Kid A would bonk Kid B. I would pull them apart, comfort Kid B, help their bonk. Then go and sit with Kid A. And empathize. Try to imagine what they were feeling. They would talk about it. I would listen. And listen. And that funny thing happened. If I didn't steal from them their own impetus to feel regret, and to feel sad for the bonked crying one with the bruise, eventually off they would go...over to sidle up to their sibling, brush pebbles around aimlessly with their sneaker, while Kid B looked up into the sky, apparently enthralled. And then Kid A would apologize.
Pretty soon they all figured it out better and better. Smash, grab, steal, make fun of. Empathize, empathize. And off they would go, as I peered through the window, to apologize or somehow make amends.
Of course it didn't work perfectly. But I was so surprised.
When a four footed family member would die. When they didn't get onto a team. When they got a low mark in school. When some kid ridiculed them. When they felt scared of some teacher. It worked like magic. Notice. Sit. Empathize. And off they would go, with their own realizations and our support and their own solutions.
Eventually on the kitchen wall I just put a note to myself that said "Empathize". Eventually some of them took me up on my offer to sit and shut up and just listen when they asked me to. I would say "Let me know if you want me to shut up and just listen to you, ok?". I would sit there, zipped lips, struggling to not blab on about what they should do. I mostly did ok. Well, sometimes. Granted, sometimes they would be sitting there, sobbing or enraged and saying terrible hateful things about someone or another, and how miserable and hopeless and full of misery their horrible lives were, and I just had to pinch myself and remind myself that they were....expressing their emotions. To just listen. Ask questions that had no agenda, if I could pull that off. Otherwise, hang on for dear life, and listen.
The point is, when I did do well listening versus getting off on pretending I could solve something for them, rescue them, be the ONE who KNEW, then they went off figuring things out, and then knew they were the ones who...figured things out.
I began to realize that jumping in and pretending to solve other's problems is a funny , secret way of filling one's own needs.....versus somehow living in a way that we take care of ourselves well enough that we are well cared for by ourselves and can manage to offer the thing someone else actually can benefit from.
Course, it took me about 1,000 years to mature enough to do that with my beloved. 35 years. I think our anniversary is tomorrow, which is great, because I would have forgotten otherwise. Still, they would be expressing their feelings, right? Their sadness or regret or dissapointment, and I would essentially either try to leap in, shove them aside, and see if I could FIX it, god dammit, or kind of infer that they should buck up and go about their life. Wow. I did. For a long long time.
Til a therapist we saw who was maybe the 1,000th one, thus our longevity, thank you very much, who was kind of a weird one, did provide one great tool The 5 Minutes Thing.
See, with the 5 Minutes Thing, you ask them if you can both 'do' 5 minutes. Like, tonight, after dinner. That's giving a heads up. Helpful in the beginning.
Then one of you gets to talk for 5 minutes. About anything, right? Well, not the kid disapline thing you both fervently disagree on. Or the car fender. Or anything that is kind of red hot. But YOUR stuff..yeah, your stuff, you get to talk about.
So lots of times one person likes to start and the other endures like a 'good partner', and it's really important not to go over. And then the other person gets to 'go'. And if they don't do a whole 5 minutes, that's fine. Oh, and never EVER EVER talk about what they brought up , after. Nope. Sorry. That 's the magic here , too. The person LOOKS at you while you talk, you are careful not to talk about stuff that would be hard for them or rile them up, and afterwards, mums the word. No "Oh, you know during 5 Minutes when you talked about what a jerk my Aunt Sally is?". First of all , no saying in 5 minutes that their Aunt Sally is a jerk. You get to say YOUR Aunt Sally is a jerk. And btw, its confidential too. So no telling your best friend or coworkers what your partner said during 5 Minutes. That way, it will work.
You both get to go on for a little bit, about how pissed you are at the town dump or your stupid boss or how worried you are or how anxious you have been but you just don't know why, or how much pain you are in and how impossible it is to go one day after another talking with others when noone has any idea what it's like...to be you. You listen equally to your friend or partner or neighbor. And then, it's done. Goes off in it's own little confidential container. Not your business, what they said. Not your job to fix anything. It's really quite cool.
Empathy gets a short shift. Here we are in a world where the media provides us such a volume of information. Which, by the way, is delivered but not shoved down our throats. Which, please try to remember, we can read or listen to or watch online....or NOT.
But the mere concept of empathy is a phenomena that has such power to change. It is age old. It has this powerful capacity. To soothe. To facilitate closeness. To be the antithesis of antipathy, of isolation and loneliness Is so easily forgotten in this flash flood of shiny life stuff. Machines and things and place to go and stuff to want and yearn for and buy and somehow to live distracted , so much so, that we can actually manage to avoid actually experiencing so many emotions we actually need to feel...in order to....live and breathe and be healthy and happy and survive.
I
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