TSHP078: Struggling to Empathise?

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

It is often said that to be empathic you need to have walked in someone else’s shoes for a while to know exactly how they feel. Some are good at this and some not so good. Struggling with it? Fear not, it can be learned (or re-learned).

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

Can Empathy be (Re)Learned?

There are three emotional states that exist when we connect with other people in a way where we can, or we think we can, feel what they are experiencing. Different people will define these word, feelings, or emotions, differently so let me begin with my own definitions so that it is clear what I am talking about.

Sympathy
This is the weakest of three emotions and probably the most common. It is that part of us resonates with what we experience. For example when we watch a movie we may become emotional or tearful through either the joy or hurt by what we are seeing. What is happening is that unresolved emotions within us are vibrating in sympathy to what we see. Other people who do not have the same sympathetic emotions within them will not resonate in the same way. Equally someone else may become upset by something that has no effect on us whatsoever.

Often people will attempt to stop their sympathetic emotion because it is too painful. An example of this would be when someone is upset or crying and we cannot cope with it so we make him or her a cup of tea and attempt to shut them up. Our need to shut down their emotion is because we cannot deal with it in ourself.

Empathy
This is when we have also experienced the same or a similar situation so that we can feel another’s hurt or the emotion. We have no need to close it down because it is not unresolved within us. If anything our empathy and empathic responses will allow the person to get more upset so that they are able to release and resolve their inner emotions. Empathy and empathic interventions are often employed in psychotherapy as interventions to enable the person to get better.

When a self-help group gets together it is empathy at work. The individual members begin to see that they are not alone and that other people actually know and understand their situation and how they feel.

It is often said that to be empathic you need to have walked in someone else’s shoes for a while to know exactly how they feel.

Intuition
This is a completely different kettle of fish because intuition is something that is way beyond cognitive understanding. It is knowing, without knowing. When you know something but have no logical knowledge to base your knowledge on.

Perhaps you are moved to contact a friend living on the other side of the world who, it turns out, is ill or unhappy and yet for some reason beyond logic you were aware of the need to get in touch. Or, you simply walk into a room and know that something is wrong. You are the one who goes up to some one to inquire how they are, if they are ok, while others have been oblivious to the fact that something is wrong.

Ok, so, these three forms of emotional connection are at play all the time but not within everyone. Most people can use sympathy, some people can use empathy but only a few people have intuitive awareness. But, this blog is about empathy and the question that it raises is can empathy be learned?

Can Empathy Be Learned?
The short answer is ‘yes’ however, you need a good imagination. When you have not experienced exactly, or even remotely, what another person has, it is still possible to feel their emotion through having a fluid imagination that can replicate their situation within your mind and your emotions.

Imagined Empathy
If you have ever hit your thumb with a hammer or stubbed your toe, then you can understand the feeling of pain. If you can use your imagination to increase that to the feeling of being hit by a truck you are using imagined empathy. If you have experienced the bereavement or loss of anything, person, animal or favoured possession you can use imagined empathy to feel the loss of a parent or a child. If you have ever felt prolonged hunger you can use imagined empathy to feel the effects of starvation.

Listening Empathy
The key to developing imagined empathy is the ability to listen well, this is known in psychotherapy as ‘active listening’. When we are able to actively listen we can hear what the other person is saying, experiencing or feeling, without allowing the noise from our own feeling to get in they way. When we are actively, listening we know that what we are feeling ‘their’ stuff and not ‘ours’.

Empathy Killers
So what kills empathy? Diminishing, discounting or demeaning other peoples experience about sums it up. We do this by not listening or by devaluing what other people are saying or feeling. But the real killer is when we assume that we know what someone is talking about without listening to them. When this happens we start telling them our story rather than listening to theirs. Or we say things like “you think that is bad just listen to what happened to me”.

So the punch line is if you want to be empathic, listen and use your imagination. And if you are not sure check out if what you are feeling is correct. You can do this by simply saying “was it like this…?” or “it sounds like you were feeling…?”

Last point
Creativity and empathy are close bed fellows. If you have empathy then you will probably have a good imagination, and if you have a good imagination you will probably be able to be empathic.

Take care, be happy and keep listening

Sean x

TSHP077: Dealing With Loss

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

If there’s one certainty in life it’s that, for all of us, there will be an end. Dealing with our own is tricky enough to get your head round but, often, the loss of another can be the hardest thing of all.

Sean and Ed are chatting about loss this week as well as the wider issue of change.

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

Change, Loss and Moving On

Loss assumes that we own something. We cannot lose what we do not have or own. This may seem obvious when we are talking about losing a watch or having a wallet stolen, if our house is burgled or the contents of car taken. Yet, there are many levels of loss that are not material. They may be to do with love or emotion, though with these things we may also feel some ownership.

Status and our sense of self
The loss of face, position or status can leave us feeling diminished or that we have lost something. This is because we tend to define ourselves by what we ‘do’ rather than by who we ‘are’. At the dinner party we turn to the person next to us and ask “what do you do?” This sense of ‘doing’ is often regarded above ‘being’. We tend to value ourself and others by what we do. In your value system is a surgeon of higher status than a dustman?

The way that we see ourselves as a list of what we do tends to come out of when we answer the question “Who am I?” In most cases the answer will comprise this list of the things that we do or the roles that we play. When what we do is seen as more important than who we are things like retirement become big issues of loss because we no longer have a place and a role in society, we have lost our label.

The loss in change
This is why there is often a sense of loss when life changes. The rites of passage as we move through life from, school to, university, job, relationship, children, grandchildren, retirement and so on all describe the loss that is the past and may, to the awake mind, embrace the potential gains of the future that can only come with change.

Change by choice
When we chose to change we may move joyfully towards a new situation. Perhaps the past has not served us well and we are happy or even eager to leave it behind. However, even during the most positive of changes, it likely that there will still be a sense of loss from the broken connections to the past

Imposed change
To have change enforced on us through redundancy, dismissal, divorce, accident, illness and so on will often leave us feeling anger and resentment to those people or circumstances that have brought about the change. Imposed change may effect what we do or what we can do. If we have an accident or a stroke we may lose the physical or mental ability to function as we have done in the past. Such losses change how we see or describe ourselve.

Consider this
If you were to write a description of yourself from ten years ago how different would it be from your description of how you see your self today? You would doubtless see some change that may even be positive. What are the losses that you can see? You might also try projecting forward ten years and consider what changes you would like to see.

Preparing for change
Being aware that change is the only constant, it will always happen, allows us to prepare in advance. Preparing for the loss of loved ones and close family members eases the passing when it happens. A pre-retirement course can minimise the loss in identity that come with the loss of role. Parenting courses can prepare us for the huge impact that children will have on our lives and our relationships.

Preparation for material loss
For most people this means insurance policies that are there to compensate us when we suffer material loss. That may include critical illness cover, redundancy cover, car insurance, house insurance, travel insurance all of which compensate us for loss. In these cases insurance seems like a waste of money unless or until you need to call on the policy after a loss.

Preparation for emotional or spiritual loss
In this I mean loss of relationship though estrangement, divorce, death and so on. The only way to prepare for these is to live in the present. Not to be attached to the past and what was or to crave what might be in the future. To live in the now is to be mindful.

Mindfulness
Because loss is related to change the experience spans the line from past, through the present to the future. The bereavement of loss is the attachment that we have to the past. Many losses will always have a connection to the past, either through nostalgia or sometimes anger and hurt. In Mindfulness we encourage the ability to live in the present to be here now. Dealing with loss is about dealing with our attachment to the past. To live in the present we need to let go of the emotional attachments that we have to what was, enjoy what is and embrace what is yet to be.

When considering how you deal with loss I highly recommend Step one in our book Live In the Present.

Be happy, be lucky and enjoy your life

Sean x

TSHP076: Goal Setting – How High Should You Aim?

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

Goals. Some say they’re good, some aren’t so sure. Does the risk of failure and potential negative issues from that outweigh the glory of conquering that personal mountain? Who know? Perhaps Sean and Ed can shed some light on the issue…

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

How Important is Goal Setting?

Is setting goals worth it?

When we were doing the podcast for this week Ed asked me what my goal was. My response was that to arrive at the end of my life with a smile on my face would be a good goal. I reckon to be smiling at the end would suggest that the journey had been pretty good, and that is the point. Goals are all ok but if we only focus on the end point we miss the journey.

A goal is, by definition, the end of a journey. It could be that from this ending there will come other beginnings. But, any goal that we are aiming is an end point, a conclusion. And yet the goal itself may represent only the smallest part of the journey. It is the journey that is the bulk of the experience that is what really counts.

So, why have a goal at all?

For me a goal gives purpose to my experience of being alive. So I will have a goal for the day. It may that my goal is to do nothing, but then to actively do nothing is actually doing something (if you see what I mean). Goal setting does not mean that we have to engage in endless activity. It may be that we are aiming at doing less, chilling out more and learning to relax.

Often I will see my day as this blank cheque of time, 1440 minutes in the next 24 hours all to be spent however I wish – wonderful. I split my day into segments there is the small pre breakfast segment that is a good time to go running, do yoga or meditate. The morning segment takes me through to lunch time, the afternoon segment through to tea time, the evening segment and then the night at bed time. I often set myself mini goals to achieve in the different segments of the day.

Goals can be bigger events. I have week goals, month goals, year goals and so on. These are not things written in stone, they are things I would like to achieve or get done. If I miss the deadlines or decide to dump or change a goal that is fine.

Often a goal, once set, happens in a time line. The time line defines the process and the sequence of achievements that lead to the ultimate goal. If you think of a goal as a chain that is spread from the present moment to where you wish to get to, then the chain is composed of links. Each link is a step in the journey to the goal. If the goal is the top of the mountain then the journey is the chain. Each step that we take is a link in the chain. If we achieve all the links then we have completed the chain.

Why set goals?

Human beings are energised and motivated by having something to achieve. There is enough evidence in medicine and neuropsychology to confirm that those of us that carryon learning throughout life, however old we get, stay younger and fitter for longer. Those that do not have goals and become static go into decline and they get older quicker. Goals create purpose direction and meaning in life, without goals life can become meaningless.

Be happy, set goals. Remember that New Year will soon be here. Now, there’s a good time to set some new goals.

Take care

Sean x

TSHP075: Learning When to Say No

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

The title of this show is a little misleading as you’ll quickly realise. Sean isn’t a big fan of negative words and ‘No’ is pretty much as negative as it gets.

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

Never Say “No”

“No” is such a negative word. It is short, sharp and creates an ending. When I was trained in the science of Mantra it was suggested that M and N were directly in the middle of the alphabet and that the ‘M’ sound involved closing the mouth and gathering energy in hence the mantric sounds of Om, Aum, Amin and Amen. The “N” sound involves opening the mouth and pushing energy away as in, Negative, Never, Not and NO.

No is the “N” word that should never be used

No, completely shuts down whatever is going on. As soon as we say ‘no’ there is nothing left, no way to move forward, it is a done deal, over and finished. The word ‘No’ ruins relationships, create animosity, starts wars, fights and conflicts.

It could be that the easiest way to say ‘No’ is by saying ‘Yes”

So how do we avoid doing those things that we do not want to do while never saying no?

I would really love to do that for you…

If you ask me to do something for you and I either don’t want to do it or simply don’t have time, I could just say ‘No’, which might lead you to see me as being negative or awkward. If I change that to…

“I would really love to do that for you, I just don’t have the time’

Perhaps it is your manager or employer, who is working you too hard and has unrealistic expectations of just how much you can do…

“I would love to do that for you, which one of these current tasks would you like me to leave so that I can do that one?”

When we do not use the word ‘No’ we are showing willing, remaining positive, always being open, never closing down.

“Which bit of ‘No’ don’t you understand?”

I guess there will be times, in the extreme, when there is ‘No’ option and you may have to follow it with two words of which the second one is ‘off’.

But it is a choice. I have a challenge for you. For the next week listen to what comes out of your mouth and try not to us the word ‘No’. Try and find a positive alternative…

” I’m sure a date with you would be really fun but I don’t think it would really work”
” I know you will find the partner of your dreams, sadly it is not me”
” Thank you for offering me the position, on this occasion I feel I need to decline”

You can have a lot of fun working out ways to not say “No”.

One of the greatest challenges is for parents, especially when a younger child is in the “Why?” phase, or when the children enter adolescents. “No” simply creates conflict. Creatively saying “No” without using the word is an art form.

Take care, be happy and, never say “No”

Sean x