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December 2 - December 11, 2024
It’s not what you do that counts, it’s the quality of your attention.
The only way to resolve all violence is to give up your story.
There is a story of a man on all fours under a street lamp, searching for something. A policeman passing by asked what he was doing. “Looking for my car keys,” replied the man, who appeared slightly drunk. “Did you drop them here?” inquired the officer. “No,” answered the man, “I dropped them in the alley.” Seeing the policeman’s baffled expression, the man hastened to explain, “But the light is much better here.”
First, we observe what is actually happening in a situation: what are we observing others saying or doing that is either enriching or not enriching our life? The trick is to be able to articulate this observation without introducing any judgment or evaluation—to simply say what people are doing that we either like or don’t like.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. For as you judge others, so you will yourselves be judged … —Holy Bible, Matthew 7:1
Certain ways of communicating alienate us from our natural state of compassion.
When I encountered people or behaviors I either didn’t like or didn’t understand, I would react in terms of their wrongness. If my teachers assigned a task I didn’t want to do, they were “mean” or “unreasonable.”
Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and are not getting.
Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.
The relationship between language and violence is the subject of psychology professor O.J. Harvey’s research at the University of Colorado. He took random samples of pieces of literature from many countries around the world and tabulated the frequency of words that classify and judge people. His study shows a high correlation between frequent use of such words and frequency of incidents.
In 75 percent of the television programs shown during hours when American children are most likely to be watching, the hero either kills people or beats them up. This violence typically constitutes the “climax” of the show. Viewers, having been taught that bad guys deserve to be punished, take pleasure in watching this violence.
In his book How to Make Yourself Miserable, Dan Greenburg demonstrates through humor the insidious power that comparative thinking can exert over us. He suggests that if readers have a sincere desire to make life miserable for themselves, they might learn to compare themselves to other people.
In her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, which documents the war crimes trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt quotes Eichmann saying that he and his fellow officers had their own name for the responsibility-denying language they used. They called it Amtssprache, loosely translated into English as “office talk” or “bureaucratese.”
We deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute their cause to factors outside ourselves:
We can replace language that implies lack of choice with language that acknowledges choice.
“I have to give grades because it’s district policy” to “I choose to give grades because I want … ” She answered without hesitation, “I choose to give grades because I want to keep my job,”
Communicating our desires as demands is yet another form of language that blocks compassion.
I’ve never seen a lazy man; I’ve seen a man who never ran while I watched him, and I’ve seen a man who sometimes slept between lunch and dinner, and who’d stay at home upon a rainy day, but he was not a lazy man.
I’ve never seen a stupid kid; I’ve seen a kid who sometimes did things I didn’t understand or things in ways I hadn’t planned; I’ve seen a kid who hadn’t seen the same places where I had been, but he was not a stupid kid.
The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti once remarked that observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence.
observe without evaluating;
it is helpful to differentiate between words that describe what we think others are doing around us, and words that describe actual feelings.
When parents say, “It hurts Mommy and Daddy when you get poor grades at school,” they are implying that the child’s actions are the cause of the parents’ happiness or unhappiness.
Depression is the reward we get for being “good.”
Express appreciation when your listener tries to meet your request for a reflection.
The Chinese philosopher Chuang-Tzu stated that true empathy requires listening with the whole being: “The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind. Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.”
Empathy: emptying our mind and listening with our whole being
We give to others the time and space they need to express themselves fully and to feel understood. There is a Buddhist saying that aptly describes this ability: “Don’t just do something, stand there.”
My friend Holley Humphrey identified some common behaviors that prevent us from being sufficiently present to connect empathically with others. The following are examples: Advising: “I think you should … ” “How come you didn’t … ?” One-upping: “That’s nothing; wait’ll you hear what happened to me.” Educating: “This could turn into a very positive experience for you if you just … ” Consoling: “It wasn’t your fault; you did the best you could.” Story-telling: “That reminds me of the time … ” Shutting down: “Cheer up. Don’t feel so bad.” Sympathizing: “Oh, you poor thing … ” Interrogating: “When
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Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.
A difficult message becomes an opportunity to enrich someone’s life.
During the workshop, his wife said to him, “You never listen to me.” “I do too,” he replied. “No, you don’t,” she countered. I addressed the husband: “I’m afraid you just proved her point. You didn’t respond in a way that lets her know that you were listening to her.”
Wife: “You never listen to me.” MBR in role of husband: “It sounds like you’re terribly frustrated because you would like to feel more connection when we speak.” The wife was moved to tears when she finally received this confirmation that she had been understood.
“When … someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good!
When we listen for feelings and needs, we no longer see people as monsters.
I’d suggest the best time to interrupt is when we’ve heard one word more than we want to hear. The longer we wait, the harder it is to be civil when we do step in.
Speakers prefer that listeners interrupt rather than pretend to listen.
