How to create mental space for empathy when getting irritated

Being empathetic and looking at a particular situation from someone else’s perspective can help us decrease conflicts and give and receive feedback more effectively. But when you’re seeing red, it’s harder to shift gears and be motivated to think about what someone else might be thinking. 

To allow ourselves to look at potential conflicts through the lens of empathy, I’ve found four strategies of self-awareness: 1) don’t trust your first emotional reactions; 2) question your interpretations; 3) your standards of behaviour are different than others’; 4) appeal to humour to laugh at yourself.

It was a beautiful Summer afternoon when my husband and I were in the car, driving around to do some errands. In the following second, we could see a biker stopping in the middle of the road and starting a talk with the driver in the car in front. It was a narrow street. In addition, some cars were parked on one side, thus making it impossible to overtake. We had to stop the car, watching two strangers having a good time talking.

“Outrageous!” my sense of righteousness got activated. Our car seemed to have been invisible to the two men.

Moments of potential conflict like this are good opportunities to practice empathy. The problem is that there is little room for perspective-taking when the brain is loaded with the unconscious interpretation of the situation and overwhelmed by negative emotional reactions.

A tiny spark of awareness shone light on the feeling of fury for what was perceived to be unacceptable behaviour. A shy voice whispered, “How about your commitment to empathy?”. A choice had to be made.

To honk?

To shout at them to get out of the way?

To make a neutral observation about the fact that the two individuals were blocking the traffic?

To wait quietly?

To get out of the car and ask if I can help them in any way?

To get out of the car, join them and crack a joke about the situation?

As my husband and I were debating which course of action to take, the biker and the driver continued on their separate ways, freeing the road.

Had the conversation lasted longer than it did, my commitment to empathy would have probably been overridden. The impulse of teaching the two strangers a lesson of politeness would have been too strong to control. Most certainly, I would have honked.

Thanks to this incident, I could experience how self-awareness and emotional control are prerequisites for perspective-taking. To be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, first you may want to sort out the emotional reaction engendered by how you yourself see the situation. Here are four strategies of how to do that:

  1. Be aware of the anger, anxiety or irritation you may feel. Stay present with those feelings but try not to trust them too much. What is it about you that makes you react the way you do? In this story, the expectation that traffic rules must be observed was not met. Anger is one way to react. What would another person you have high regard of do in a similar situation?
  2. Behind any emotional reaction, there is an unconscious interpretation of a particular context and we quickly jump to conclusions. Try not to take for granted those conclusions, i.e., two men are intentionally messing up the traffic. There are many assumptions involved in the interpretation, which may not reflect the true story. Maybe the two strangers were discussing an urgent topic. Maybe they hadn’t seen each other in a long time and were thrilled to meet by chance, on the road. Who knows what drove them to have the particular behaviour?
  3. Your sense of respecting rules is different than others’. Assuming the interpretation of the situation is right to begin with and we had crossed ways with two inconsiderate human beings. Would any outbursts help them change their ways of behaving? It would be like shouting at a mosquito that its bites cause an itchy sensation and irritate the skin and expect it’s not going to bite you or someone else next time.
  4. Humour can be a great saviour. You may reframe your interpretation and emotional reactions in a way that makes you laugh at yourself. Laughter enables the limbic system of your brain cool down faster.


The biker had a content face as he was biking one meter distance from our car. He didn’t look our way. Let’s face it. Sometimes you just can’t understand why others do what they do. Wish them well and hold onto your commitment to practice empathy.

 

How to act empathically in conflict

Research done at the Greater Good Science showed that empathy has a genetic foundation but as you experience life, you can enhance or restrict your natural empathic tendencies. Generally, the more empathy you feel, the more you are able to take your partner’s perspective into consideration. Yet, how can you still listen to the voice of empathy in times of conflict when other negative emotions may keep you focused on what you want from the other one?

Empathy, shortly defined as the ability to put yourself in other’s shoes, is for me the fundamental ability on which all the other abilities that make us human are built – compassion, kindness, sensitivity, love, positivity, etc.

Emotions researchers at The Greater Good Science Center define empathy as “the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling”.

Acting with empathy can bring benefits, such as:

-Helping others;
-Managers who show empathy have subordinates who get less sick and declare greater happiness at work.

In social and organisational situations when there is emotional distance between you, as the person acting based on empathy and the person to whom the empathy is directed, it may be more natural to follow the voice of empathy.

Empathy can have benefits in relationships as well by increasing the intimacy between partners and help them solve conflicts. The challenge in a love relationship is that due to close intimacy, you may feel more vulnerable and may get either into a very defensive or very offensive mindset.

When your mind is clouded with anger, it may be hard to remember even the word empathy, so much less how to use your empathy. Let’s say you’re arguing with your partner about how to parent your kids.

This is a great moment to practice taking your partner’s perspective even when you may not feel like it. To get motivated to start considering your partner’s emotions, it may help to think that both of you want the same thing: the happiness of your children.

When you accept this common starting point for discussion, you can try to let go of your feelings of anger and frustration, and focus your attention on the partner’s facial expressions and behaviour. How does he feel about this debate? Is he equally irritated? Is he talking in a higher tone of voice? Is he more open to compromise or is he trying to enforce his own point of view?

He may be more willing to start talking about a “meet me in the middle” solution if he realises that you try to understand him. So, how about asking him why he thinks that his way of parenting is better?

What is his main motivation for adopting that particular parenting style? In what style was he raised by his parents – more free or more dictatorial? What did he like about that style? And if he didn’t like it, what is it that he didn’t like about that style?

Listening to the answers can make you forget about your anger and frustration that he does not understand your point of view. When the anger and frustration are out of the way, only then, it is a good time for you to explain how you see it fit to raise your children. Some mutual compromises may be required but what’s most important is that overall, both you and your partner feel more satisfaction about the solution you came up with.

After each conflict resolution, you can consider what went well and what went wrong from the point of view of empathic listening during the discussions. If you are anything like me, it may be that you need to work more on anger management. In this case, you may think of a few tricks that you can apply to keep your anger under control in the next conflict.

You can also ask your partner opinion’s about how you handled the discussion. At the same time, you can let him know how he handled it. Remember to mention the things he did good in your view and what he said or did that made you feel that you’re not being listened to.

Eventually, both partners need to attune the empathic abilities to each other so that they can dance each other very tenderly and very long to the end of love, as Leonard Cohen sings in “Dance me to the end of love“.

Summing up, whenever you’re having a conflict with your partner, try to enhance your empathic abilities by:

1. Thinking of a common motivation that you both have for the respective discussion;

2. Detect your partner’s gestures and mood;

3. Ask questions to help you see what hides behind his openly stated arguments;

4. Express your feelings, thoughts and intentions;

5. After the conflict, muse on the aspects you are satisfied with and also those that you would like to work on further;

6. Ask your partner if he was hurt by something you did or said during the conflict.

7. Inform your partner about what he did that hurt your feelings during the argument.

8. Remember the lessons for the next conflict.

 

You may also like reading:

How can we understand others better

Why we should be more careful about judging others

The art of helping through conversation

What Does It Mean To Be a Parent?

Risking to enter the vegetative state?

Some people, like a former work colleague, do not even want to have children. This ex-colleague of mine believed that having children turns the parents into vegetative beings whose only role is to serve their offspring. I was quite taken aback when he stated his view.

For more than one year, I have experienced motherhood and continuous sleep deprivation. I must admit that there are days when I am in a vegetative state. But this mood is only the shell of my inner being. Deep inside, each day brings into light a new layer of the love I have for my little one. Furthermore, until now, I have figured out that parenthood is a mysterious journey, which can’t be anticipated.

What does love for our children mean?

It is easy to love my child when he smiles, when he is playful and funny. The challenge comes when he is cranky, whining, screaming and lying on the floor in protest – he has such behaviours even if he is only 15 months old. In those moments of “family crisis”, deep inside I love him equally and even more but at the surface, I am faced with negative emotions such as anger and irritation. And that’s when the challenge lies. Keeping the calm and finding ways out of these moments of crisis are must-to-develop skills for me and any other parent, most certainly.

We all want to bring up healthy, balanced and loving children, who have happy and meaningful lives. It is though so tempting to expect from our children to live the life we want them to live. And here, there is another challenge of parenthood: letting our children grow into adults and avoiding to burden them with our expectations.

My son’s uncle brings him toys and says, “He’ll be an engineer”. Sometimes I look at my son and I think, “He’ll be a dancer”. Few seconds after, I correct myself, “What are you thinking, woman? He’ll be whatever he wants to be.”

I don’t need to decide on his behalf what will make him happy. Instead, I need to make sure he is loved and we are present for him when he needs us.

Torn between love and setting limits

When he thinks he needs to climb on the kitchen cupboard, I say “No”, and he cries. It hurts so much more than I expected. But this is the journey of parenthood, rich in unexpected experiences and feelings.

A father’s confession

BTW. I stumbled upon a father’s confession about the inner changes that happened in him after his first baby was born. He realised that his individuality was turned into “duoviduality”: http://frankmartela.fi/2012/01/birth-of-a-child-or-when-you-expand-from-an-individual-into-a-duovidual/

It is revealing to hear some testimonials from the world of fathers in the Western societies as well.