Tools for self-management no.2 - Cognitive Empathy
We are naturally empathetic creatures, capable of understanding diverse views and connecting with others but our modern culture gets in the way and keeps us stressed and stuck. Here's a way back.
I used to start all of my courses and programmes by asking people: “What do we mean by conflict?”
It’s a classic trap that trainers and teachers often use, listening to all the answers offered before telling everyone what they should have been thinking all along.
I don’t do that any more. Instead I tell people that conflict is what happens when we reach the limits of our understanding.
Conflict, by its definition, is the rub between what we know and something that happens which we don’t understand and doesn’t meet our expectations.
It leaves us feeling confused or uncomfortable, and so we try to explain it through our judgements - the stories we tell about other people and the world around us - which help us make sense of ‘what just happened.’
But our understanding is based on our experience of life to-date - not on a thorough understanding of what is happening now.
It leaves us stuck in those judgements and the difficult feelings that come with them, which in turn keeps us stuck in our relationships and life in general.
I’ve been teaching this work for nearly a decade and I still regularly get tripped up by this.
So one tool I use that helps me in almost every situation is seeking to understand what I don’t yet understand.
I used to live on the edge of a busy city. At the bottom of my road was the main thoroughfare into the centre, where I also used to walk with my son to school.
There was a pedestrian crossing that we’d use every day and, while most people would slow down, stop and allow us to pass, every so often someone would speed on through.
Every time this would happen, I’d boil with rage.
“How could they be so inconsiderate?” I’d think.
“What if me or my son had stepped out on to the crossing?”
Sometimes, my need for care and consideration which led to my frustration and anger, would spill out into my behaviour and I’d shout some obscenity at them as they disappeared out of sight.
I think my young son learned some very choice language before he even left pre-school.
Then one day, as another 4x4 whipped by inches from our faces, I had a different thought.
I wondered what might lead them to do that.
I thought that perhaps they were taking their wife to the maternity unit as she had gone into labour, or to the accident and emergency with their injured child.
Or perhaps it was as mundane that they were late for a meeting and worried about being fired.
I felt the anger fade along with my judgement.
The potential impact on me and my son was no less, but my understanding of the situation had shifted.
And, after all, we were fine.
No longer was it about my incredulity and sole focus on what’s happening to me, but it was *also* about the other.
However much I didn’t like their behaviour, they were just another human being doing their best to get their needs met in that moment.
And the more I noticed this opportunity - for inquiry instead of (or after) judgement - the more ease I found in my daily existence.
No longer was every person who wronged me careless or malicious, they were just like me.
I felt that sense of powerlessness over events around me fade.
I could just get on with my day instead of carry around a lingering feeling of resentment or annoyance.
And that extended out. I was able to hear people on the TV talking in ways I found offensive or distasteful, in a new way.
I started to focus not on their words, but on what their unmet needs or motivations might be.
Even when someone I was working with expressed some views I might have labelled homophobic and anti-trans (I have family and friends who are gay and trans) - after noticing my initial feelings of anger, I switched into trying to understand.
I asked a few questions and heard that he was worried about the impact of cultural changes which he found confusing, on his young children.
He had a need for love and care. It’s just that how he expressed that need didn’t align with my needs - which were, unsurprisingly, for love and care.
It didn’t change my views or what I felt important, but it immediately shifted me from feeling confrontational to feeling level and clear.
I felt confident to say how I felt and, because I’d acknowledged his perspective, he could hear what I had to say and I think he left that conversation thinking a bit differently.
This is why I think this is one of the most powerful tools in anyone’s toolbox - not just because it helps us to manage our difficult reactions, but because in managing ourselves we can engage more clearly and confidently with the world, in a way that can change it.
This is in opposition to the way we might angrily and fearfully project our thoughts and feelings on to other people, which often causes them to feel judged, blamed and react defensively.
The reason I’ve titled this post *cognitive* empathy is because this is tool is about switching on something that is actually a natural and instinctive ability.
We are naturally empathetic creatures. The capacity to feel what another is feeling is something we are born with.
Studies have shown that babies mirror what they see in their caregivers. It’s obvious to anyone who has smiled at a very young child with the sense of care and love that they inspire in you - they naturally smile back.
It’s a nonverbal reaction that we developed as a species before we had language. We had to have a way to connect to and relate to other people. It relies on something called ‘limbic resonance’ - how our brain chemistry and nervous system are affected by the state of other people.
The reason we might need to learn how to consciously switch this on is that our weird modern culture creates a base-level of stress in our system that creates an up-state in our sympathetic nervous system.
Without realising it, the pressure of our busy lives and constant negativity of our media and politics means most of us are walking around already primed for conflict.
By learning how to actively switch into curiosity and inquiry - switching on our narrative mind so we can tell the story of what might be happening beyond our triggered self - we can bring about rapid change in our minds and bodies that allow us to feel more at ease and able to connect.
There is always a place for reacting instinctively - even angrily. When we’re suddenly confronted by someone else’s anger and frustration, it might cause us to examine our blind assumptions and consider different perspectives.
I’ve experienced this myself. Being shocked by someone’s reaction to something I said or did caused me to reflect afterwards on what I was missing and how I could see things differently.
However, this often isn’t the case and in our busy, stressed lives, these kind of interactions create further conflict and a hardening of our views.
Also, cutting right to the chase - being a reactive, stressed person all the time is wearing on your body and mental health, ultimately leading to illness and, most likely, an earlier death.
And that sucks, right?
You might also enjoy the first post in this series: “Tools for self-management no.1 - The Buffer”. If you’d like to develop your skills in working with conflict, check out my work or get in touch via hello@maxstjohn.com