Lessons

Lesson Info

Empathy and Stress Management

all right. Empathy, empathy, eso we dug into affectionate forgiveness and now on to empathy. Empathy, of course, means being able to relate to how another person feels. Which, by the way, if you practice empathy, that is incredible. Way to find a door that opens to forgiveness, right? To try to figure out how another person felt when they did what they did. Um, I think that I want to clarify the difference during empathy and sympathy. Because of my own life, I have found quite a difference. Empathy is understanding and feeling another persons feelings for yourself. Sympathy is feeling compassion for another, but not necessarily feeling their feelings. Specifically, it's the difference between I feel so sorry for you. And that sounds so frustrating. I understand why you're upset. Doesn't that feel differently to you? An extreme example. Let's say you're scuba diving and you're running out of air in your tank and you're ascending the people on the boat looking down at you might feel real...

ly bad. Well, I was stuck to be down there right out. I feel for him. Empathy. Is there someone right next to you with Justus much oxygen in their tank and they can completely feel how you're feeling, because either in on it with you or they've been there before or they have the ability to understand what that could feel like. Empathy is a relationship tool that is really powerful between two people sympathy can bring in. When I talked earlier about annoyance and irritation, when you're irritated with somebody, you changed the dynamic, the level I'm here today with you and your annoying I feel so bad for you down there. That's empathy versus sympathy. And it's an important distinction in a relationship because no one wants to be with somebody. Just this old poor thing. Shut up! Um, being a highly sensitive person, has anybody ever heard this school thought the highly sensitive person or an M path or very empathetic person? Have you ever heard of some of this? This is an area and science that's come out that's discovered. Um, I think the number is something like 15% 15 to 20% and it's a higher percentage in the creative field, like a lot higher of people are classified as very sensitive people or highly empathetic is the term, and there's actually book out there called the highly sensitive person. Elaine Erin wrote this, and it basically says that you take the idea of empathy to the next level. Like, do you not only feel when on the person feels, but if they're down, you feel down? If they're high up and frenetic, you suddenly feel all jazzed up. You can bring in your highly sensitive to what they're feeling and that can become part of you in a way that can drain you. That can upset you. That could make you feel manic. And you don't feel like you have a lot of control over that. If that sounds somewhat extreme, I think a lot of creatives actually tap into that. When they connect with other people and do work, there's a lot of upside to it in the ability for another person to feel like they're understood and heard. There's some beautiful up sites, that relationship, and when I go back to saying, you know, scientifically, you look at the research, they say it's present in your nervous system from birth. That's how far back they go to say of more highly sensitive person or a very empathetic person. It is a different way of seeing the world and connecting to other people. Some of the sidecars to being highly empathetic are very sensitive or things like you find yourself very sound sensitive. Don't know. I'm starting with this one. You find yourself very sensitive to sounds, and others don't seem affected by, like, chewing or to smells that other people seem to barely notice. Or you need private, displaced private space to replenish. People may know you and as an extra extra vert by nature, but you must shut a door being a quiet room and get your energy back. Um, a lot of times, if you're out in a setting where it's a cocktail party or something, where it seems like a lot of superficial buzz and a lot going on, you can feel drained Fairy quickly, very drained very quickly, and horrible news stories or photographs that other people can joke about seem too painful for you. They don't seem funny, and they seem cruel things like that. That's more of a highly sensitive person, if somebody else. If you're in a room and one person feels insulted, you feel it so much and you just want to make them feel better, whereas everything else feels like you can take care of it. It doesn't mean they're not an empathetic person. They just don't have that highly sensitive. When you're in a relationship with somebody who isn't super highly sensitive, you tend to feel their emotions and their nonverbal and the way they come at you energetically more than anything they say There, you're almost saying Amen. This'll share this. I'm curious there. I know. I think that we have this conference or maybe I well, conversation share all the time with him. Um, he sometimes get stressed out very easily. Yes, and he'll come in and I'm already I'm like, in a happy place doing something, and he'll, like, come in and you feel like you. Yeah. Yes. And then that's actually will cause the argument. And you're like that I didn't do anything right? Yes, it gets back to what you're talking about earlier. Just self awareness, Guilty. If you worked, that would not be a problem in your relationship. And if you were, it would not be a problem in your relationship, but because one of you is super sensitive or highly sensitive or highly empathetic And remember, we grew up learning that you're too sensitive. It's a bad thing. You have to stop it. No, it's not a bad thing. There's incredible gifts in that. It's incredible gifts. I relate to you. There's incredible gifts, but there's also becoming more and more aware that everybody doesn't see it the way you see it. And obviously everybody doesn't see it the way you see it. I've had a mirrored conversation with Steve. I'm like, I don't even know the words you're saying because all this is coming into my booth stress and the anxiety and the frustration and the and he you Brian, I'm imagined. Sometimes you feel like I'm not doing anything. Yeah, explain that share open, Yeah, I mean, I guess it's it's simply that I don't even realize a lot of the times that I'm I could be walking around with a scowl. Yes, it's right or wrong. It's like my natural face at that time. I don't know, not even I'm not even aware of it and by But I get it now, you know, just kind of coming in the room and literally and yeah, it's just the funds funds soaking up to find a way. I realize that. I'm admitting that five. Yeah. Um, so yeah, but you become more aware over time, and that's something that they were still working. I'm still working on that. Yeah. Yeah, well, so you know, a couple techniques that have been very helpful and you guys might want to try is when you are in a relationship with somebody and everything, for the most part, you've got a lot worked out. But that is something that you, too can never really see The same, um, a lot of what his advises to it for the the highly sensitive person, obviously, to become more aware that and explain it and share it so that he does understand and for the other individual to try to give yourself more transition times and which it sounds like you're doing with the run and stuff. But if you're about to walk in the room to force yourself to take three minutes and sit on the porch for a second and breathe and and recognize that you have to be somewhat responsible for the energy you're bringing into the space because you're aware of how it's perceived on building in those transition times more and more in a lot of different places. You can have a massive effect on those around you, especially if you are surrounded by highly sensitive people, which is often likely that the Children of high sensitive people tend to be highly sensitive. It's that's how it goes. You can. But it does, and then so being able to obviously that's where we talked about communication, how that becomes such a significant thing. Most people who are highly sensitive don't recognize that not everybody is the same way until much later, and being able to kind of tune into that and get it. You allow yourself to protect yourself a little bit more and have more boundaries in place so that you are at the whim of the energy of everybody around you, because that that's kind of a recipe for disaster. Like, how're we all feeling today? Um, OK, Another area in the tool kit is shared values. What do you met? What matters to you? What do you value at a very core fundamental level? Do you share that about you? And when you talk about what do you care really about this was the number one predictor in relationships is if you guys cared about the same things and you knew what the other person cared about deeply. It wasn't just that you knew what your core values are. You have to know there's and their dreams, their aspirations and how they feel that things. This doesn't mean having the same hobbies mess out with shared value means it means that you both care about the same things, and it doesn't have the exact same things. Let me explain all right here. It's not what the difference in your values are. It's how much they fundamentally matter to you. So if the difference in your values is religion, maybe one of you is highly religious and the other one isn't, is agnostic and doesn't even know how much that might matter to them. It doesn't matter that you don't share that value. It matters how fundamentally deeply you hold that value and the difference between the two of you. So you're deeply religious and the other person, I think religion is a testament to start with. I'm going to start without light habits. Let's say you're somebody who's an early bird and the other person is a night owl. Why should you just come? Opens? Ages are going through you. You're an early bird and you're a night owl. It doesn't matter that you don't have the same life habits. What matters is how fundamentally you must hold on to that in a way that doesn't allow for some compromise between the two of you to be able to live together. Well, that's the key difference. Focus on work. One personal relationship might be extremely, and this is very true of entrepreneurs extremely passionate about the work. They do love it, love everything in that industry. Industry can't wait to fall. Everybody in on social media and the other person's like I just do my job and then I leave. That's a big difference in shared values in terms of what you care for. Um, obviously, the way you look at your family, your physicality, whether one person is a fitness nut and the other person is ice cream on the couch. Not that you can't be both, but it has to do again, not with what the differences are between your life habits and your shared values. But how fundamentally deeply you hold on to them. And if you can't find some compromise from a day to day basis, if your life habits are extraordinarily different and you can't find, um, a way to compromise and make peace with that, that is a major predictor and two people not staying together um, stress management. Here's another big big one. Um, I actually did a whole article on this, and I believe this is available on the download. Five Ways to manage Stress in a relationship. It's pretty long article, actually. But just touching on the fact that, like if you look at the idea of stress, if you're out in a park and you're going for a nice walk in a mountain lion shows up, you're kind of stress lies. Maybe that's your first feeling. And what your body does is it does exactly what you're supposed to do. Every cell in your body heightens to the response of I must either with a fighter flight, I'm gonna have to punch this mountain lying face. We have to run a spastic Ken. I don't have to run faster. Just have that run. Everybody around may, but once the mountain line disappears or you run home, the danger disappears. And what's supposed to happen physically is that that stress calm and it goes away. That's how stressed this supposed to work in our body, and it's a good thing for us. Unfortunately, what happens today in our modern life is we get the kids ready for school and rushing out the door and then race to work and jump right into a meeting and go to this and go to that and take a phone call and go, go, go and then get home, put dinner on the table and check the homework, but the kids to bed and then I'm done. We're stressed all the time. We never allow for that break often. And if you're in a relationship where you're so busy doing everything and they are so busy doing everything and you're not turning towards each other, you're not managing stress Well. As a couple, you're in fact finding the other person to be one more person, causing stress in your life versus the person who could be your sanctuary and the one you turn to for comfort that can be extraordinarily damaging to a relationship, Um, in terms of looking at that, being in a constant state of stress and making joint efforts to help each other and find ways to provide more of that space to each other. The conscious decision is to step through these five steps and have just all conversation. This isn't something you do all the time, but have a conversation to get on the same page and say when we're in a situation where it's morning and we've gotta leave in 12 minutes and oh, the kids need lunches and the shoes are on the roof and I have a presentation that I didn't finish. I have to email it and the Internets dropping and a first and foremost make a decision up front because you can't do this in the stressful moment. You can't say, Let's sit down, dear and acknowledge or stressors that doesn't work. You have to basically start out for the most part of saying that we we both feel overwhelmed. Check, check. Um, and I don't want to be somebody who only sees my own stress and business. I would acknowledge that you feel that way to have you. Have you ever talked to somebody and you're You're in a stage in your life where you have so much going on and you're really slammed and you get on the phone and they say, Oh, my God, So busy. You have no idea. Have you had that conversation? What does it feel like to you? Frustrating. Frustrating? Yeah. And do you feel like, wow, this person really cares about me and wants to see and hear me? And No, not really. What do you feel? Well, you know, they're kind of coming at you with their negative energy a little bit, and you're already feeling that negative energy. So it immediately puts you in a place that you don't really feel comfortable with, right? So it's it compounds it. Yeah, And plus, it doesn't seem like that person's really seeing you are asking how you're doing or saying just trying to tell you you don't even know. Yeah, exactly. So it's the idea of making a point of asking about and then acknowledging how the other person is doing overall in the stage of your life right now, um, and making a pact that I'm never gonna get the point where I feel like I'm so slamming. You wouldn't get it because I have told me, Not only do you get it, you feel it yourself and and we make the other person feel shut out and unheard and underappreciated when we don't acknowledge that they are feeling something similar, even if it's not what we would feel stress about. That's something I think you know. I personally have experienced. There's things actually OK, so I was about to come under greater life for five days on. I've been building materials 1st 6 months, E. I mean, like a lot more than that. If you take into count helping energy, but quite a lot. And I sat down and seems like what you doing is like, I'm building my part, So join us for, like, 15 20 minutes tomorrow. Okay, well, it doesn't. I have focused like you have a hard time building contract. You're taking some time. It's stressful. So it's just because he feels that he's like, you understand? You could get on and just talking, talking, talking. I don't have prepared. This feels weird to me. This feels really uncomfortable, and if I were to step into his body and be empathetic, I'd say, Oh yeah, this is stressful because we're looking at what Public speaking We have a whole different filter about public speaking feels like So it's the idea of understanding that it's not just acknowledging that the other person has stressed acknowledging that we don't feel it the same way. And it doesn't have to be the same amount of stress rolling in for to be a stressful response. Um, number to communicate with stress looks like so toe one person stress might be Holy freaking crap. There's a mountain line for another person. Stress might be all right. There's no way don't exhibit the same behaviors. We don't showcase the same behavior so literally having a time to understand that we both do that differently. If I were to hammer my thumb. If Steve hammers his thumb, we all know it for blocks with all kinds words of the kids say, Dad, you said the duck word, but with a different letter. That's how we know he has some. If I hit my thumb, I just go silent like people talk to me like eso. We just We show it in different ways. Okay? I wish you could have his view of Fair Bride. They're both this whole time. Number three maintain this goes back to the affection. This is a really critical part of stress. Management is maintaining a consistent, high level respect for each other. Many believe people believe the notion that the people that are closest to them they could do whatever they want with them, when in fact from a stress management respective is actually showing respect at a time where you're also feeling stress, which is difficult to dio. It doesn't have to feel respect. You could sit there and say really know that, but you can show her respect. Number four differentiate the problem slash stressors from the relationship. This is huge, especially if you happen to be in a household with Children, you can often associate the chaos of the home with the other person. And you can say things like, you know what? I'm gonna go away for two weeks just for quiet, because everything about this is stressing me out and the other person who say I'm stressed to I'm not part of this. I just happen to live here with you. I also find this very stressful making that differentiation of not saying everything in here so stressful and dumping the other person in with that. But going ahead and isolating the person from the stressors around you, does that make sense? Um, and then stating and showing that you have each other's back This is a major one for making the other person feel protected and safer in the idea that you know what? I'm gonna turn towards you when this all goes chaotic and I'm gonna watch you and you watch me. And I know we have that for each other. That's a great way to be able to manage both your stress. At the same time, genuine connection and demonstrated demonstrated support. Not just like, you know, I have your back. You didn't show me that can really ward off a lot of evil. I have showed this statistic before. Ah, Mayo Clinic studies show that 80 to 85% of their patients were ill, directly or indirectly because of mental stress. I have showed this statistic before at numerous presentations, and nobody ever shows an ounce of surprise. That's in a warming statistic there, there, with multiple bypass love of others and breakdowns and I mean, how many physical ailments are the result of stress and stress is not like I feel weird. Stress means there's chemical changes in my body that aren't healthy, my body and they're eroding the inside of me. Stress is destroying me from the inside, physically changing my body inside. That's how powerful stresses. Um, this 80 to 85% stat should phase you. It should be alarming. But it's not because we all just think stresses like another component in life. Will you gonna get stressed? So research show that the overwhelming response to constant stress, which is what a lot of us feel, is that you feel powerless, hopeless, fatigue, drained, frustrated. These are the feelings that come along with constantly feeling stress, significant depression. Depression is a major byproduct of feeling stress that most of a still consider. We go on medication instead of managing our straps. And by the way, I'm not saying if you you guys know I'm talking specifically, if one of the resulting effects of having major stress on you at all times is depression, a very low state, that doesn't seem to lift that you didn't have before you were not highly stressed space. It makes sense to look at that. Just a couple of thoughts. One is from Jill's Photo Love. How would you handle a situation when those who are close to you don't value the need to change to improve relationships? That's a great That's a great question. So you feel like you're the only person who's willing to do the work right? That was very similar to how I felt very similar high felt several years ago in my relationship. I felt like I was the only one trying to make things better. And I felt if you'd asked for it, then, well, you know it is. You know, I'm sick. No, he's not E. I don't feel like he's kind of seeing me here, Steve, if you're watching, I'm not throwing you into the hand. But that is how I felt at the time. What I learned later was we were not speaking the same language. I was saying these words and it was going over here and he was saying these words, it was going over here and I was saying, Well, we're not connecting, which we were not. But it had more to do with the fact that we were looking at and we had different fears. You know, I had a fear of being in a relationship that was no longer meaningful and more contractual by nature. He had a fear of several things that place his fear was, If you don't honor the commitment first, how do you find the connection to me? I was like, Why bother with the commitment If you don't have the connection? Not why bother? But the connection was a part that mattered over the commitment, and he was more focused on the commitment over the connection. And that leaves you that being an entirely different place. You guys see that? Do you understand how that different? We're both kind of fighting for different things, thinking the other person doesn't care. So what I would say is to step back and try to look at the language you're using and see if there's any chance that you're coming at it from totally different perspectives. Like we talked here with Sarah Brian, you guys have said that you've acknowledged that both of you felt like you weren't doing anything wrong and you felt like the other person was kind of coming at it that way.