empathy-related stories
Helping a stressed out co-worker
You exercise, you eat right, you get a good night's sleep, and you try to stay organized; you're doing everything you can to manage your own stress. But what if you work with someone who isn't managing stress well? Regardless of where you might work, there are a lot of reasons for stress in today's workplace -- threats of layoff, increased workload due to reduced staffing, and so on. When you add in all the non-work-related causes of stress, it's no wonder some people aren't managing the pressure well. And, no matter how well you handle stress, when a co-worker is stressing you'll be affected by it.
So what can you do to help a stressed out co-worker? As long as you don't take on the reasons for their stress (e.g. taking their workload), it's a good thing to help out. And, if you happen to be the boss, it's imperative that you do so in order to maintain a positive workplace and to prevent productivity from slipping. Some ideas:
Life Fit with Laura Lewis: Frankly My Dear, I Don't Give A ...
Being Life Fit is about your total health, including the health of all of your relationships. Life Fit is a journey, not a destination. It is a process of continuous growth: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Check in each Tuesday to Life Fit with Laura Lewis, author of "52 Ways To A Healthy You," as we explore our total life fitness. Then, weigh in with your own thoughts over at Laura's "Life Fit Chat" each Wednesday and Thursday for further discussion on the week's topic. Or check out "Ask Laura" every Friday for answers! For more information visit Laura at www.LauraLewis.com.Let's face it ... we live in an egocentric world. Remember in the movie, Beaches (OK I am dating myself), when Bette Midler says, "Oh, enough about me. What do you think about me?" We now know that Bette Midler's character was suffering from a serious case of empathy deficit disorder. And gawd knows the illustrious and beautiful Rhett Butler was knee deep in EDD when he flippantly told the distraught Scarlet, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Empathy -- the ability to understand and share in another's feelings -- is something we either do or do not learn as children. The way our parents reacted to our childhood responses to whatever life threw our way molds our ability to connect with others in sharing in their pain and their happiness. When you fell down, scratched your knee, and broke the head off your most beloved doll, did your parent cradle and console you in the pain of your loss, or did they say, "Buck-up kiddo it's gonna get a whole lot worse than that!"? Think back and then take a close look at how you respond to those you care about.
New York psychologist Frank M. Lachmann, Ph.D., author of Transforming Narcissism: Reflections on Empathy, Humor, and Expectations, explains that many of the common responses to the pain, suffering, or loss that others experience are intended to help but can be very cruel and dismissive. A friend of mine who is experiencing a devastating divorce was told by someone she cared about that she needed to just "snap out of it" ... IT being the grief she was experiencing over the betrayal and loss of her husband of 20 years and father of her children. What was mostly intended as words of encouragement made her feel isolated, humiliated, and further shamed for expressing her sorrow. Dr. Lachmann explains that dismissive remarks are experienced as a rejection and denial of what the other person is experiencing. He says, "They are code for 'Don't confront me with things that are unpleasant, or 'Don't bother me with your pain.'"
We all -- at least those of us who peruse That's Fit on a regular basis -- are interested in living a fit life. I believe a discussion on emotional fitness and our own personal degree of empathy should be examined as closely as we examine our physical fitness. So, how do we start living a more empathetic life? For starters, pay attention to the "humanness" of us all. Just as important as giving a homeless person money or food is to also give that person a kind smile, a conversation, a pleasant ... "How are you today?" ... just like we would with anyone else. Listen. Put ourselves in the person's shoes and imagine what they are experiencing. Ask the question ... How does that make you feel? Honor and respect what others may be going through. And when we find ourselves slipping knee deep into EDD, be big enough to pull out of it with a simple apology and willingness to acknowledge the lack of empathy.
Anger: Don't express it, don't repress it
Diet & Weight Loss, Motivation
Anger is bad for the body. Studies have long linked this maddening emotion with high blood pressure, increased heart rate, soaring stress hormones, and decreased immune system response. Stress can also lead to lack of sleep and unhealthy habits, like smoking, drinking, and poor eating practices.
The experts at the spa destination Canyon Ranch say the best anger solution is not to express or repress the feeling but to create less of it.
Say you're driving to an appointment, you're short on time, and the driver ahead of you is making slow progress, causing you to get caught behind several red lights. It would be easy to get angry because driving is depersonalized -- we're indifferent to other drivers' needs because we don't know them. Practicing empathy, though, can prevent anger from unfolding. Try to imagine the other driver as someone you know and love. It might just make it easier to understand the reasons for the drivers' actions.
Read on for a calming five-step strategy for defusing anger.
Meditation can build compassion
My son is adopted. While he is kind, incredibly smart, athletic, and way too funny for words, there are some traits which don't come naturally for him. He has little to no empathy for others and doesn't have much compassion either. His lack of those traits comes directly from his birth mom's bad choices while pregnant with him and the traumas and inconsistencies he endured during his first 10 years of life. (I adopted him shortly after his 10th birthday). Teaching him to be empathetic and compassionate is a part of my everyday life. I take every example I can to point out others' emotions in an effort to have him start recognizing others' feelings. It's something that will likely take years and years to teach and will probably never be a natural, instinctive reaction for my son. He has a heart of gold, though... I just have to help learn to bring that out more often. So I was happy to read this article which states that kindness and compassion can be taught through meditation. People who practice meditation with a focus in those areas actually experience changes in the area of the brain which promotes those traits. The study involved 16 monks and practitioners who had meditated for at least 10,000 hours in their lifetime and 16 novices who had only recently been taught meditation. Those who have meditated more had increased brain response to introduced noises (such as a woman crying).
While it's obviously unrealistic for the average Joe to meditate more than 10,000 hours, I think the finding that areas of the brain can be retrained to be more compassionate is very interesting.
Study discovers roots of empathy
Diet & Weight Loss, Motivation
Watching another person being touched engages the same part of your brain as actual touch, a new study reveals. This, according to researchers, is how we understand what others are feeling -- which means, essentially, that it's the root of human empathy.
Scientists discovered this connection by studying people who experience a kind of extreme empathy, called mirror-touch synesthesia. When those with this condition see another person being touched, their brain is engaged (like most of us) -- but the difference is that they actually feel a tactile sensation -- just as if they had received physical contact.
While the condition is thought to be very rare, doctors say nearly everyone experiences a watered-down version of it when we witness an injury, and flinch. It's thought that by studying this extreme form of a common gut reaction, doctors will be able to understand what causes the emotional component of empathy.
