This is such a common default move: to offer people education and advice on how they could have – or should have – avoided the situation in the first place.
While the (potentially) good intentions beneath this move may be wanting to support our learning, our insight or our self-empowerment, when we bypass or dismiss the suffering arising in the moment, it simply comes across as invalidating and painful.
So often, we rush to fix or prevent the pain we’re feeling, instead of empathizing with it.
Perhaps we worry that by empathizing with a feeling, we will make it worse.
Perhaps we worry that leaning into the feeling with amplify the distress.
Perhaps we just don’t want to connect to that feeling ourselves, and want to distract from its presence.
Counterintuitively, however, the act of becoming fully present to our feelings, allowing them, naming them and feeling them, is were the real relief and inner freedom will be found.
Empathy and presence actually supports our ability to metabolize our distress and transform our suffering into growth and inner peace.
On this week’s podcast, we walk through ways of leaning into distress instead of trying to fix or avoid it, cultivating a deeper connection for both people.
Listen to us dive into the situation, or jump to a particular section:
- 2:50 If all I get is blame, why should I even try to have the conversation?
- 7:03 How to ground a discussion in a micro moment
- 10:03 Scripts that help “waking up” feel pleasurable and not painful
- 12:05 Doing the inner work necessary for successful conversations
- 15:15 A script for getting to “Yes”
- 22:54 “I’m not trying to change you.”
- 24:24 The role of our defensive system
Interested in reading more on how to provide empathy and not advice? Empathy vs. Advice: How to Navigate Human Distress is only a click away!
Where do you struggle with blame? I’d love to know. Leave a comment below.
