Not sucking at empathy

I suck at empathy--at least sometimes. I can empathize with some people in some situations, but sometimes when someone I care about has been unhappy about the same thing for a while, wants my empathy, and  isn’t willing to take my excellent advice on how to work to alleviate their problem--well, I can sympathize, but I just can't empathize.

What's the difference? Here are the definitions that I will use: sympathy and empathy both involve relating to the thoughts and feelings of another; but empathy  contains the idea of putting oneself in the place of another, and experiencing those thoughts and feelings as one's own.

So let's take a concrete case of sympathy coupled with lack of empathy. Bobbi, a normally sane person, has a list of things that, regularly and reliably, get her upset and occasionally miserable. She tells me about her upset. I listen, then give her excellent advice, which she does not take. In fact, it pisses her off. This strikes me as stupid, which I don't say outright, because I am not crazy. Instead, because I do care, and because she does want me to, I try to empathize, but I can't do it. So I say, "I suck." and quit.

But today we talked this through and I realized that my problem wasn't that I could not empathize; it was that I absolutely wasn't willing to. Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person's place, and I could not do that because in her place I would never, ever think, do, or feel the things that she thinks, does, and feels. Instead, I would take action. I would ask me for some excellent advice; I would listen, respectfully; I would do what I advised; and I would go on to live a happier and more productive life.

Not being able to put myself in her place for that reason seems rational if convoluted, but it has the signs of being really stupid, too. Here’s why: if my goal is to help her; and if she believes that empathy will help; and if I believe that empathy might help, or at least believe that empathy would not hurt; and I believe that providing what she wants might make her amenable to more effective approaches--such as my excellent advice, well--why not empathize?

And if not empathizing leads to conflicts and upset instead of what I want--which is to be helpful, why in hell do I adamantly insist on doing that which doesn’t get what I want and reliably gets what I don’t want? It’s irrational. It's stupid. And I’m doing exactly what I rail against. Acting stupidly. Realizing that, there’s only one rational answer. I need to ask myself for some of that excellent advice.

"Follow the ABC+D model," I tell myself. "Do that, and you will quickly find the irrationality and be able to handle it. "I thank myself, because it’s obvious that this is excellent advice that will quickly lead to good results. And I followed that excellent advice (with some help and attentive listening from Bobbi) and here's how it went.

A) I have an Activating event: a request for empathy. C) I have undesirable Consequences: No empathy; Bobbi not helped, and occasionally pissed off because I will not empathize; me frustrated and sometimes pissed off because I cannot help mainly because she will not listen to my excellent advice. So there’s an A leading to some very bad Cs. According to the theory, that means there are intermediating irrational Beliefs (B). The formula says: find them, and dispute them. It’s not hard to find them. They’re right out in the open. And not hard to dispute them. They’re pretty dumb once you see them in the bright sunlight.

 

First is the Belief that she is being an idiot. That’s easy to dispute. Years of marriage have proved that she is not only much less an idiot than I am, but actually much smarter. At worst, she is behaving in a way that is not productive. Fine. But that does not make her behavior idiotic. It's unproductive and persists for reasons that I don't understand. That makes me ignorant; it doesn’t make her an idiot.

Next, of course is the Belief that she SHOULD take my excellent advice because I don't have the problems that she does by following my own excellent advice in the past. (I have others, but never mind.) And that’s also easy to dispute. The evidence is that she’s not listening based on some causal chain of events. So why should she violate the laws of causality? She shouldn't. 

And my advice is not so obviously wonderful, except to me. And since my advice does not make sense to her, so why followsomething that does not make sense. So fine. So she doesn’t have to take my advice. 

OK, so there's no reason for her to change. Why am I completely unwilling willing empathize? 

To do that, I'd have to put myself in her place. And if I did that I believe I’d be stuck not listening to my excellent advice, and continuing to be miserable about this or that. And I have proof of it. After all, that's what she's doing: she’s not listening to my advice and she is stuck and insisting on being miserable. The answer is: “Even though you’re putting yourself in her place, you are in fact, not her. See prior post, "Anyone can be Anything". Being is the easiest thing to change. You can be her or not be her.”

Alright, next: if I was that way, some people would think I was an idiot. And I have proof of that. I think she is an idiot for being that way. So if I was her, then I would think that I was an idiot;  and that sucks because I much more highly regard my own opinion than she does. But that’s double dumb because, first of all, I/she am/is not an idiot, as shown above. And if I, or anyone else thought I was an idiot, so what? Really, what if I and everyone else thinks I am an idiot? Does that make me an idiot? Does that change anything? No.

So, finally, I am ready to give up the following irrational beliefs: 1) That she is an idiot; I know she is not. 2) That she is behaving idiotically;  I don’t know this for a fact; what I do know is that I don’t understand why she does what she does. 3) That she should listen to me. She shouldn’t because she doesn't; and because I’m actually wrong more often than she is. 4) That I’d get stuck if I empathized. Doesn’t have to be that way. 5) That I’d be judged by me and others. So what?

So I give up these irrational beliefs. Does this make me emphatic? Maybe a little more. Certainly it gets the wrong thinking out of the way. It changes me from being one who  hides behind “I suck at empathy,” and lets me be one who actively tries to get better. That deals with the cognitive side.

The behavioral side: do it. I believe if you do anything often enough you get good at it. So that's what I need to do.

And it encourages me to look for other areas where I adamantly refuse to be or do what would be helpful. Ahh, I feel better already.