Who Cares? | Understanding Empathy

[00:00:00] and Melissa Jackson, and welcome to Crossing the Line, a podcast where we talk about those

[00:00:14] times when we lead and live with our head and we cross that line to our heart and vice

[00:00:20] versa. And Melissa, welcome to the podcast and I'm looking forward to a really pretty

[00:00:26] cool topic today. You know, we need to talk about this is the month of May and May is

[00:00:32] Mental Health Awareness Month. So this is a great opportunity to kind of focus on mental

[00:00:38] health and what is mental health to begin with? Yeah, what is it and what is it not? I mean,

[00:00:43] we've come a long way. I remember when mental health carried a stigma with it and today

[00:00:49] maybe it still does in some areas. I don't know. But you know, used to when you talked

[00:00:53] about mental health, people looked at you like you were crazy. And if you were going

[00:00:58] to get help, they looked at you like you were weak. And that's just not the case nowadays.

[00:01:04] You know, there is so many sources and access to services where people can focus on how

[00:01:13] are they doing internally? How is their mental health and learn skills and tools to be in

[00:01:19] a better place to deal with frustrations that they have fears that they have whatever

[00:01:25] that may be. It's an opportunity for them to learn new skills. Well, it is and even now

[00:01:31] we have mental health days. You know, I don't know what this means, but my wife will tell

[00:01:36] me from time to time that I have caused her to need a mental health day. And she probably

[00:01:41] needs to take that when she can and have some space. But that's probably not exactly

[00:01:49] what May is all about. But it could be, it could be. Well, as we think about mental health,

[00:01:57] I want us to think a little bit today about empathy because that not only helps us in

[00:02:05] our mental health, it also really helps others. And so I want us to spend a few minutes and

[00:02:11] let's just kind of jump into the topic of empathy. And even before we define it,

[00:02:17] you know, Melissa, let's look at just some, I'm a stats guy. I love stats and our team has done

[00:02:22] a great job of compiling some stats. And I want to think about that for a minute in terms of

[00:02:30] what does the data say? And the data says empathy course it's easier for us to give

[00:02:36] empathy to those that we're closest to. Data says if there's someone close friends, family,

[00:02:40] that kind of thing, we tend to have more empathy. So we have a connection with,

[00:02:45] there's some kind of familiarity in that relationship. It's easier to show a concern,

[00:02:51] a genuine connection. Yeah, that's exactly right. And the data also says that women in

[00:02:58] general tend to be more empathetic than men. And I don't think that's,

[00:03:04] I don't think that's the hardcore black and white stat, but maybe that's true. What do you

[00:03:10] think about that? You know, I think women have a history of being caretakers,

[00:03:15] of being nurturing and again not saying all women are like that. I think personality comes

[00:03:20] into play as well. But there's that ability to mother, to protect. And so, you know,

[00:03:27] that lends itself towards some empathetic characteristics in relationships. Yeah,

[00:03:34] I think you're just spot on with that. It also says, and this is really interesting,

[00:03:40] I think that those who have empathy, who display empathy are more likely to be satisfied

[00:03:49] in life, are more likely to be to have that fulfillment, that self-fulfillment. You know,

[00:03:55] I think there's a lot too that I think I've watched when we begin to become self-centered,

[00:04:02] when our world begins to focus on us, when everything, we become the center of our universe,

[00:04:07] so to speak emotionally. I've watched as that empathy level goes down, even physically people

[00:04:15] begin to suffer, I think, and emotionally and we become much less content, you know,

[00:04:21] I've watched that through the years. Another study though, and I thought it was very

[00:04:26] interesting, says that when you have empathy in a situation, people tend to volunteer more,

[00:04:35] they tend to want to give, which makes sense. But here's the interesting stat,

[00:04:39] when empathy is increased, violent crime goes down. Violent crime, how about that?

[00:04:45] You know, there's something I think that you're talking about here in these stats that,

[00:04:51] validation, someone being able to validate another person to show empathy for another person,

[00:04:58] it really helps bring that person up. It alleviates some of their thought processing,

[00:05:03] they're spinning, it kind of pulls them out and pulls them in to connect, using that word again.

[00:05:11] But I think there is so much there when someone feels something from someone else.

[00:05:19] You know, I was watching Netflix recently and there's a show on Netflix and if you guys haven't

[00:05:25] seen it, I encourage you. It's a little rough on the language, you don't watch it with your children,

[00:05:31] but it's called Unlocked and the whole theory is that this prison, and I think it's in Arkansas,

[00:05:39] the warden decided to open the doors to this one unit and they were on 23-1,

[00:05:45] they called it 23 hours in their cells, one hour out and he reversed that and opened it 24 hours

[00:05:53] of that. With his thought was I want to teach him, I want to see if the men, if the male

[00:06:00] penitentiary, if they can develop a community of empathy, if the older generation can help

[00:06:07] the younger generation, the younger generation would allow that and help the older generation.

[00:06:11] What would that, now they had, it's very interesting but at the end of the day what they found was

[00:06:15] that incidences in the prison actually went down and they experimented for several weeks

[00:06:22] and at the end of the weeks that experiment they continued, they said we're going to continue

[00:06:26] and we're going to expand it. So very interesting documentary there called Unlocked. I encourage

[00:06:32] you to take a look at it, just be aware, you know, red flag on language, obviously it's a prison

[00:06:38] but it was fascinating to see what empathy did to those guys, just fascinating. We also know though

[00:06:44] if you think about some of the stats that empathy has actually declined by 40% and that was back

[00:06:53] from 1979 to 2016 and in young people, high school and college, they say that the reason for that

[00:07:02] they believe is social media. What are your thoughts? You know, I have a 12 year old and so

[00:07:09] you know I watch and have watched for years now how being on social media or you know watching

[00:07:20] shows left and right and videos and TikTok and all those things that are out there that kids

[00:07:25] can be exposed to. You know, it really begins to cause them to become more narrow-minded,

[00:07:33] narrow-minded in how they feel about other people, their perspective of other people.

[00:07:40] You know, there's a perspective too of you know I've got to do this or I need to look like

[00:07:46] this or you know so there's less on really understanding other people and more of this

[00:07:53] evaluation or you know really trying to be like something else or getting kind of stuck, stuck in

[00:08:02] a space of just watching others that are not showing empathy. It's a lot of different modeling

[00:08:12] out there and I think it does impact kids. I think being disconnected through COVID, being

[00:08:20] you know isolated, I think there's been a recipe that causes empathy to become low.

[00:08:27] Yeah, I think so they say that that social media has caused an increase of being self-absorbed

[00:08:33] and an increase in narcissism and boy I see that I can get there. It's already difficult

[00:08:38] enough to be a teenager. You know that's just hard, hard season of life for anybody but when you

[00:08:44] throw in social media who's teaching them to just exactly what you see. You have to be this,

[00:08:49] look this, do that. It's all about you trying to be someone. I think we can certainly understand

[00:08:55] why empathy for others. They spend less time on thinking about others and more time thinking

[00:09:00] about themselves, bottom line. Yeah and you know something for us to pay attention to is you know

[00:09:08] empathy. Do you, do you grow in that? Is that a nature versus nurture thing? Is it, what is it?

[00:09:17] What facilitates empathy and how does one really hone in on becoming more empathetic?

[00:09:25] Yeah that's a great question and we're going to talk about that in a minute too because

[00:09:30] not only this data we're going over but science tells us that empathy is a skill. Now some people

[00:09:37] like we just talked about women may be more naturally nurture or more natural but that does

[00:09:42] it, that's not an excuse for men not being empathetic and it's not an excuse if you're

[00:09:46] personality, say that's personality driven some maybe you're more people oriented and you

[00:09:50] just have that natural bent for empathy. That's not an excuse for those who are more task oriented

[00:09:56] to choose to be empathetic because you can choose it's a choice, it's not a feeling,

[00:10:02] it's not something that somebody has or somebody doesn't, you can't get it. It's something

[00:10:06] that we're going to talk exactly about about what that is. I think it's important. I think

[00:10:11] it's important on the stage and that we find ourselves today culturally. The data tells

[00:10:19] us that bias has a lot to do with empathy in other words what they tell us is that people that are

[00:10:25] and that goes back to what we said we said the people that are closest to us we tend to have

[00:10:28] more empathy for right well that means people that look like us, dress like us, act like us.

[00:10:33] We could be empathetic. We could be gracious but when somebody looks different acts different

[00:10:39] believes differently has a different value system empathy goes through the floor when we just lose

[00:10:46] it and that's sad but the good news of that is that we can learn to raise that empathy. We can

[00:10:54] learn how to address, deal with, connect with or just respect someone who is different than us.

[00:11:03] I think that is so valuable to really function in that thought process to allow yourself to

[00:11:11] know that it can be something that you learn to become a skill. You know just like in kids you

[00:11:18] learn math, you learn about history. You know how do you learn skills that help you look outside of

[00:11:25] yourself and really understand others and understand the shoes that they're walking in? You know what

[00:11:31] does that look like? No you just nailed it so empathy is if it's not a feeling if it's a skill

[00:11:37] what is it? It is not having a pity party for someone. It is not agreeing with someone.

[00:11:43] It is not feeling sorry for someone. They don't want that. That's not what empathy is.

[00:11:48] Empathy is having the ability to accept someone even when you disagree or don't understand

[00:11:56] or don't align with their behavior. There's a- Which is a hard thing. It's a hard thing to do.

[00:12:02] Because we make assumptions and people assume that if I respect you then I must agree with your

[00:12:08] behavior which it takes a lot of strength to differentiate between those two and say

[00:12:15] and we see this so much. We're going to talk about in a minute but we see this today

[00:12:20] in our politics. We see this today in the racial divide that continues to plague

[00:12:27] our nation so we see this in socioeconomic differences in our country. So that and if you take that

[00:12:36] we have this tendency to judge. We have this tendency to if I if you know if I don't agree

[00:12:41] with you I'm going to judge you that kind of thing and then you pile on the social media

[00:12:45] that's telling us to be narcissistic and stuff absorbed and that leads to polarization

[00:12:51] right. That leads to a divided culture divided country. So empathy is a skill it's choosing to get

[00:12:59] to understand someone based on where they are not whether you agree with them or not and respect them

[00:13:05] whether or not you agree with them or not or whether or not you like them or not it's

[00:13:10] choose so it's a skill to say I don't agree with you but except so how do you let's break

[00:13:14] that down. So what are the components that make up empathy to try to try to dig on that just

[00:13:20] a little bit and a lady by the name of Christy Robinette actually wrote a book called embrace

[00:13:27] your empathy and we took that book you know I think you found that book for us and it's a great

[00:13:32] book. We took that and took some components that she listed in that book and we're going to talk

[00:13:38] about those and break them down right now. Let's do that so the first one that she mentions is

[00:13:43] honesty and so if you think about this this is a characteristic that can lead to empathy

[00:13:49] and so to to think about honesty you know how how can you be forthcoming with someone else.

[00:13:56] So you know we think about we're all honest right I mean we have honesty towards others

[00:14:02] but if you look at that and think about you know how are you open and honest with your

[00:14:08] thoughts and your feelings it is not um you know speaking your mind every time you have a

[00:14:14] thought it's not you know being so direct with someone that it's it's all about your opinion

[00:14:21] your expression and you're gonna you're gonna put that on someone else honesty is being able to use

[00:14:28] some some kind of wisdom around that and knowing how to speak up but knowing also maybe there

[00:14:36] times where you hold back some some thoughts or opinions it's you know really being able to

[00:14:42] kind of function in that middle ground where you can be aware and at the same time you can be

[00:14:49] mindful of the other person and does this help them does this hurt them does it you know does it

[00:14:55] does it help them uh be able to to engage with you at a stronger level does it not.

[00:15:01] Yeah I think that's exactly right honesty doesn't mean verbiaging all your thoughts on

[00:15:05] somebody just because you think or feel them honesty means having the strength to discern

[00:15:10] when to be honest about what you feel but but when to share that and how to share that

[00:15:15] and and to be honest about your feelings is is is much more difficult because many times we

[00:15:21] download anger when we're really feeling fear you know so anyway it's learning honesty is

[00:15:26] an important component as long as we take that honesty all the way to the nth degree and apply

[00:15:31] to what we're really feeling what we're really what we're really trying to accomplish and not

[00:15:35] just what our opinions or our feelings are and then we lash out that's not what it is isn't it

[00:15:40] I think that's important yeah an example here is the other day I was talking to someone and they

[00:15:45] were frustrated with another person because that person you know was not responding to them the

[00:15:51] way that they wanted them to um in a work situation you know they expected something

[00:15:56] and they were not getting that and so we talked about you know recognizing well how are you

[00:16:03] feeling in this situation you know what are you feeling you're feeling frustrated you're

[00:16:07] not getting the work the response that you need from this other person well you know what do you

[00:16:12] need to do with that honesty is you recognize that you're feeling that way you got to decide

[00:16:19] is this one worth going and dealing with with this other person you know do use that information

[00:16:24] and and go have a conversation with other other person are you in a place that you can

[00:16:29] honesty is recognizing first where you are that's really what do you think and what are

[00:16:32] you feeling really good and I think the second component is really important if you're going

[00:16:37] to have honesty you got to have humility and I think we many times think humility is weak

[00:16:43] it is not weak in fact it's incredibly hard it is it takes a very strong person to interact with

[00:16:49] humility and honesty to have both of those it's that I know that I'm imperfect I know I have

[00:16:57] limitations I'm not pretending to have all the answers that humility is self awareness

[00:17:03] that I can't you know I can't solve all things or my judgments may be wrong

[00:17:10] and when we have that humility then that that really leads us to be able to be honest and I

[00:17:15] think you've used this phrase before honesty with EQ that's what humility looks like I think

[00:17:21] I read this other day that you know I was thinking about humility and some of the opposite

[00:17:27] of humility might be perfection and I read the statement the other day that perfection is an

[00:17:32] excuse yes it's just an excuse and so you know humility recognizes that we're not perfect

[00:17:40] it's not hiding from that nor is it on the other end where you know I'm I'm gonna

[00:17:47] you know be curt or I'm gonna be again I'm gonna just tell you what I think

[00:17:52] humility is recognizing that you know I'm I'm gonna do the best that I can I'm gonna be

[00:17:59] aware I'm gonna communicate I'm gonna admit my weaknesses and I'm gonna be open about that in

[00:18:06] order to connect with you in order to you know have a have a commonality that you know we're

[00:18:14] in the space where we'll have to be perfect I love it I used the Tarmic EQ a minute ago

[00:18:19] and that's emotional intelligence we just need to clear that up so you have that honesty

[00:18:23] with humility and and then the third one and I think that it's really important is acceptance

[00:18:30] once again we believe and we accept someone for what they are who they are that we had that we

[00:18:36] agree with them and people I think many times we are fearful especially on social media

[00:18:42] that if we're not judgmental if we're not if we don't draw the line in the sand and you are wrong

[00:18:49] then that then we are compromising or we are or we are vulnerable or we I think acceptance means

[00:18:56] accepting someone for who they are whether you agree with them or not that's not the issue

[00:19:01] it's accept that's there's letting them own what is theirs to own and you own what's yours

[00:19:06] to own right and you accept them for who they are whether you like it or not

[00:19:12] I know that in parenting this is really hard because children make decisions that we don't

[00:19:17] agree with children make decisions that break our heart but accepting them for who they are

[00:19:24] is an incredibly important path to having empathy which is an important path to having a healthy

[00:19:29] relationship which leads to the next one and that's tolerance so I think acceptance and

[00:19:34] tolerance kind of go hand in hand a lot of times again tolerance doesn't mean that I become like you

[00:19:40] it doesn't mean that I lose my identity or what I think or what I stand for tolerance means that

[00:19:48] I'm going to allow you to be who you are you know I'm gonna understand you to the best of my

[00:19:56] ability I don't become you that's right I'm not gonna you know become different just because

[00:20:02] you you have a different perspective but I'm gonna allow you to be who you are and I'm gonna

[00:20:07] have an understanding a tolerance to let that take place we did a podcast some time ago on political

[00:20:14] differences between parents and children and and I did that with my daughter and and we we were

[00:20:21] on different spectrums different different ends of the political spectrum if you will but it was

[00:20:27] the whole point was that that's okay I can accept who she is without agreeing with what she believes

[00:20:34] or without agreeing with behavior or our choices politically she can accept who I am without agreeing

[00:20:40] with with my stance over my political preference if we can get there I think it used to be that

[00:20:47] way a lot more than it is now but that tolerance for someone I think goes a long way for empathy

[00:20:53] and then one of my favorite pieces of empathy is gratitude I think that component is essential and

[00:21:00] I don't know I just think that we have a lack of gratitude today I think we're it's just hard for

[00:21:05] people to truly show gratitude to be gracious in that to look for ways to to show grace to others

[00:21:13] to be grateful if you will for things that maybe even the small things but we get we get so

[00:21:21] I'm going to use the word I think we are we are an entitled society and I think we're teaching that

[00:21:26] entitlement to our children to the generations behind us I think that we have instead of gratitude

[00:21:33] we have expectations and you can tell that's a bit of a pet peeve from me Melissa well when

[00:21:37] things are all about us you you know you can't have gratitude we're focused on yourself focused

[00:21:44] in word you're not thinking about another person this is something we're working on

[00:21:49] very strongly at home showing gratitude and talking about it doesn't matter if you like it or not

[00:21:56] it doesn't matter if it's what you want or not it's important to show appreciation to someone

[00:22:03] else that gratitude to give gratitude because ultimately gratitude is not about yourself that's

[00:22:09] right gratitude is about the other person how are you giving back to the other person I mean

[00:22:14] I think that's exactly it and another component that I think is important in the author brings

[00:22:18] out is faith now now in my mind faith is believing in something that's stronger than you believing

[00:22:23] in something that is beyond what you can accomplish believing in someone that is great

[00:22:28] you both of us are believers and in faith means one thing does it may not mean that to everyone

[00:22:33] listening but but she says the author says in order to to really show empathy you have

[00:22:39] to realize that there's something beyond you and and to have that faith and to to share that faith

[00:22:46] or exemplify that there's a component that it's and that is the inverse of narcissism faith is

[00:22:54] you may be seeing you know believing in something that's greater than ourselves and I think that's

[00:22:58] important she defines it clearly as believing in the goodness you know that there's something

[00:23:04] good in the other person sometimes even beyond how they act or how they present themselves

[00:23:09] there's something behind them that is good in there and you get a chance with empathy to bring

[00:23:16] that forward there's a possibility to bring something out and someone else that that maybe

[00:23:20] they haven't experienced or exhibited love it I love it and the next is is hope and I think

[00:23:27] it's so important that that we allow people to have hope that we that we facilitate hope that

[00:23:35] that we you know when you have a hopeless society hopeless culture then you do get very selfish very

[00:23:42] self-centered very negative um culture so I think showing empathy um allow someone to have

[00:23:50] that hope that hey she she she may not agree with me but but I've been heard and that leads me to hope

[00:23:58] I think she saved the best and maybe one of the hardest ones for the end here and that is the

[00:24:03] last one and that's forgiveness and so empathy has to have forgiveness in it because empathy

[00:24:12] cannot be I'm only going to give that to you or demonstrate that to you if you are right on

[00:24:19] track with me and you do what I want you to do you know forgiveness is being able able to offer

[00:24:26] something to someone else beyond maybe what you've experienced with them beyond how you feel about

[00:24:33] them it's extending yourself in a way that's very unique to be able to let go of something

[00:24:40] to let go of something incredibly important when and what a great word so just to recap this as

[00:24:45] we wrap this up empathy it's it's not feeling sorry for it's not showing pity it's it's being able to as

[00:24:53] you said um walk in someone's shoes and accept them for who they are and the components of that

[00:25:00] that we've been talking about honesty humility acceptance tolerance gratitude faith hope

[00:25:10] and forgiveness what a goal for all of us and and I wrap this by saying

[00:25:15] all of these things if that's what empathy is all of these things are a choice

[00:25:20] empathy is a choice you either choose to grow your skill and choose to demonstrate empathy

[00:25:25] or you choose not to it's not easy it's not comfortable but it's the right thing to do

[00:25:30] and if we had more empathy in this world today I think this this world will be a better place

[00:25:34] I think our country would be in a better place I think we as individuals would be in a better

[00:25:38] place so I'm going to give you a last word on empathy and then my favorite part of the podcast

[00:25:44] well I think as we were talking about these that you know if some of these characteristics here

[00:25:50] can expressions of empathy can be easier than others for us and so it really gives us some places

[00:25:57] that we can lean into and work on and um and lean into the areas that that we do a better job

[00:26:05] so that we're more well-rounded and understanding what empathy is and being able to demonstrate

[00:26:10] that to others and speaking of empathy as we go to the dad joke of the day we need to have empathy

[00:26:18] for this for this little boy Melissa are you ready I'm gonna get in that space and get in

[00:26:22] the space are you ready okay here we go empathy talking about empathy I always like for my jokes

[00:26:27] to you know kind of correlate what we're talking about yeah we gotta have empathy for this little

[00:26:32] boy why did uh why did this little boy why did the little boy get a new butt oh my

[00:26:45] some thoughts are coming to mind I'm thinking about my 12 year old what she would say

[00:26:49] but you go right ahead well why did the why did the boy because his old one was cracked

[00:26:56] right I'm track that was a little edgy wasn't it I wanted to bring it to empathy I thought

[00:27:07] I thought I did a nice job there you did a very good job hey guys thank you so much for hanging out

[00:27:13] with us we hope that you took away some things that would help you as you continue to develop

[00:27:19] your relationships and grow your relationships remember empathy is a choice thank you so much

[00:27:24] for joining us today and crossing the line thank you for making a difference in the lives of those

[00:27:29] you love live with and leave