THE EMPATHY PROCESS: A Healing Technique
Empathy was not part of my early life experience. I grew up in a house of pain, one where everyone was too intensely consumed with their individual survival to see or empathize with another. There was no space to attune to each other’s internal experience, no interest in holding the space for each other’s feelings. We were blind to each other’s inner landscape, strangers sharing the same physical space, simply trying to stay alive.
In my late thirties, something shifted. I became more conscious of empathy as both a healing tool, and a way of being in the world. It served me in my efforts to stop personalizing the behaviors of others. If I could get inside their journey, I could see where they were coming from and stop making it about me. And it served me in my efforts to be understood by others. After an early life riddled with hurtful judgments, I relished the feeling when someone was taking in my experience with an open and receptive heart. And being accepted and received in my humanness was remarkably transformative.
Not long ago, I took empathy to the next level. As a result of an unprecedented combination of misinterpreted communications, personal losses and triggers, a dear friend and I fell into a dark, disconnected place. We stopped talking altogether until making the mutual decision to attempt a healing and re-connection a year later. When we first got back together, it was clear that there were many unresolved feelings and assumptions in the field between us. Talking was helpful, but it didn’t seem to cut to the heart of the matter. We couldn’t see one another, nor could we stop projecting our assumptions onto each other. We couldn’t heal the rifts.
We needed something else—something more than a back-and-forth dialogue where each person tries to convince the other of their perspective. We needed a technique that would allow us to get out of our own stuff and deeply see and hear one another. We needed a healing modality. Building on a technique I employed when I was doing personal work around my family dynamics, I crafted a process for us to work with. I call it, quite simply, The Empathy Process. After two sessions employing this technique, we were able to drop considerable amounts of emotional armor, and see one another’s actions independent of our projections and assumptions. We were able to heal much of the pain that existed in the field between us, and remember why we had been dear friends for over twenty years. This is not to say that every element of the connection was worked through, but it is to say that this process has worked wonders.
Simply put, this simple technique can transform relationships. And I do not believe that it has any limit with respect to its application. It can be utilized with friends, lovers, family members, employees and employers, co-workers and colleagues, conflicting nations and agendas. It can be practiced in diads, triads, and in groups. It can be woven into our school system, so that children have an experience of empathy at an early age, particularly supportive for those children who are not having that experience in their own family environment. In a world where conflict is often sourced in our inability to truly walk in the other’s shoes, The Empathy Process can pierce through the veils of relational blindness and change our world. It can be utilized over and over in the most challenging situations, until the expressor feels truly empathized with. And, it can even be of tremendous benefit in situations where there has been no conflict. In a world where so many of us never feel seen or attuned to, this process can transform lives even when it is experienced between strangers. In fact, one has to wonder if the concept of unity consciousness will ever land in real time if we do not develop a protocol for empathizing with seeming strangers. If we can practice empathic response with everyone, we will surely pierce the veil of our seeming differences and remember that we are all here, together- walking hand in hand down the trailways of transformation. Just when you thought you were all alone with your challenges, you do The Empathy Process and realize that you aren’t.
For the purposes of this process, I define empathy as the experience of walking in another’s shoes. That is, the ability to experience what the other person is or was experiencing at a particular moment in time. At the heart of it, The Empathy Process is: “Take me inside of what that feels like for you.” It’s a getting inside their journey so that you can feel some- or all- of what they went through. It is not simply being compassionate, not simply feeling for them. It is a feeling-into their experience, as though it is or was happening to you.
THE EMPATHY PROCESS:
The Empathic Expressor (EE) is the individual who is sharing their experience. The Empathic Receiver (ER) is the individual who is empathically receiving their transmission.
*Note- although the following description primarily applies to a Diad (a one-on-one sharing), this process can also be done in a larger setting- with one EE and more than one ER. If so, modify the instructions accordingly.
The Vow
The process begins with a vow from the ER to the EE. The wording can be modified, depending on the context, and with particular regard for what the EE needs to hear before they will feel comfortable fully sharing their experience. Given how poorly many of our sharings have been received in this world, it is especially important that the EE knows that the ER will hold the space for their sharing with kindness, non-judgement, acceptance, presence and an assurance of confidentiality. It is a very vulnerable thing to share our experience with others. It is important that the Empathic Expressor be held safe, and not re-traumatized or brought back into their memories of feeling unseen and unheard.
This is an example of “The Vow.” You can re-word The Vow to fit your unique circumstances. It is important that the ER reads The Vow aloud to the EE. There is power in speaking The Vow, to create the space for the EE to safely share.
‘As one you have blessed with the opportunity to receive your sharing, I promise that I will hold the space with as much kindness, genuineness, acceptance, and openness as I can. This process is not about me. It is about my receiving your experience. It is about my empathizing and walking in your shoes. I will do my best to remove any biases, judgements, hard feelings and projections from the field so that I can be fully present for your experience. I will not attempt to re-frame your experience, nor will I judge you for it. And I promise you that I will not share any of the details of your sharing with others, without your express permission. This is your process. It is safe here.’
Guidelines for the EE
If you are the EE, the ER either sits in front of you, or lies down comfortably, and you do the same, getting yourself in the state you need to in order to transmit your experience most authentically.
As the EE, you set the framework for your sharing. You determine the setting and physical location. Be sure it’s an environment that you find appropriately soothing and comforting. Decide on a physical position for you to comfortably share and express from. You can be sitting, standing, moving, or lying down. You can be on the floor, in a chair, or wherever you feel most at ease. You can then dictate where you would like the ER to be, in relation to you. Do you want them looking at you face-to-face, at your side, across the room?
It is also your decision if you want the ER to have their eyes opened looking directly at you; or to have their eyes opened while looking away; or to have their eyes closed. It is your choice how you wish to be received. You can also decide if you want your own eyes opened or closed. Also, you direct the ER as to whether you want them to move and express as you do- that is, to mirror reflect your experience- or simply to lie in stillness and silence, and just receive what you are sharing. In addition, there can be a pre-determined time limit on each sharing, if that serves your process (if so, it may be helpful to set an alarm). Or, the timing can be left open-ended. Either way, you set the terms of the session before you begin, based on what you feel is best for your unique expression.
Then you begin to share your felt experience with the ER. That is, you speak, sound, hearticulate, emote—whatever it is you want the ER to empathize with (memories, events, experiences, perspectives). You begin to share, in as vivid a detail as you can, using words, sounds, tears, anger, movement to fully embody and express yourself. Whatever is required. It can be as articulate or inarticulate as necessary. It can be confined to a specific memory, or more. It can be your present experience here and now, or an experience of your past. It is more effective to focus on one or a small number of events/memories/experiences in each Empathy Process, so you can feel fully received, and not overload the ER.
The purpose of the ER is to really feel into what you have been through so you know you have been heard and felt and connected with by a receptive human. The important thing for you is remaining fully in the process of expression for as long as you can, going as deeply as you can, unearthing and revealing as much as you can, so that you feel fully expressed.
When you feel complete, you have a number of choices. You can ask them to leave the space. You can ask them to hug you if that’s appropriate. You can ask them to come into silence with you. Or you can ask them to reflect back in words and/or movements what you shared. If you simply need to know someone witnessed you, then you may not need that, but if you benefit from the assurance that someone really FELT and attuned to your experience, then a deeper reflection can be helpful. Many of us go through our whole lives never feeling heard and supported, so simply hearing another reflect back our experience can help to create new pathways of possibility around authentic support and attunement.
Guidelines for the ER
As the ER, your role is to be present and to witness the experience of the EE, to attune to, AND to FEEL them fully. To empathize. To share in. To co-experience. TO EMBODY.
As you are receiving, really hear this other human being before you. Hear them deeply, and also feel into their presence. Really feel what they have been through. Let your heart truly listen, as if you are meeting and hearing this human for the very first time. Meet their words with an open curiosity. If you feel yourself becoming contracted or judgemental about something they are speaking – simply relax, and return again to putting yourself in their shoes, in their eyes, in their body, in their unique experience. This is not about you – this is all about the human being before you. For this brief time, put your own experiences aside, and let your awareness identify with the experience of this wondrous being who is sharing.
The Empathy Process can be done with those who know one another, or those that don’t. If your Empathy Process originated in a conflict between the two of you, you may need to do more than one EP before you feel resolved. If so, the important thing is that you stay true to the guidelines noted above, so that both of you feel fully received and expressed. The moment you stop sharing and listening, you undermine the healing journey. The truer you are to this format, the more you will accomplish. Once you reach a stage where the energetic charge around the conflict has dissipated, you can follow the process with a dialogue of what you went through together-- now through a broadened and empathic lens. If the EP teaches us anything, its that the practice of listening before speaking, can become a way of relating that ultimately shields us from conflict altogether.
WORKING WITH WRITERS!
I have been doing a number of personal sessions with people who are either writing a book, or wanting to write a book. Sometimes they need support in their already active process, sometimes they need support because they feel blocked and can’t get writing at all. Either way, I really enjoy the opportunity to engage with writers (and writers-to-be), and help them to fulfill their calling to write! If that is you, I invite you to book a personal session and let’s explore the process together.
And my upcoming ‘Writing your Way Home’ course, which begins October 10th…
Writing Your Way Home Workshop
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Here are some of the highlight interviews from my first season of the Enrealment Hour Podcast. Enjoy!
A conversation with IFS Founder Richard Schwartz
Discussing Empathy and Vulnerability with Judith Orloff
The Clearing Method with Shauna Quigley
A conversation with Author/Astrologist Rob Brezsny
Trauma as a subjective experience with Sheena Grobb
A conversation with TRE Founder David Berceli
A dialogue with Embodiment Teacher Philip Shepherd
A conversation with author Toko-pa Turner
Blessings to your path, Jeff
Appreciate that you shed a light on empathy in a world were not a lot of it exists. Notice that you device a technique on empathy and was wondering if you are interested in other techniques/practices and people practicing empathy?
Have you ever heard of Non Violent Communication? There are a lot of practices, teachers, practice groups and a community of people practicing empathy and expressing