Uncontrolled empathy
This is the second in my series on Empathy as a Skill, and I want to talk about balanced and grounded empathy.Part one is here: https://buttondown.email/SelfCareBackpack/archive/empathy-as-a-skill-part-1/
To review, this is the definition of empathy I’m working from:
In empathy, the empathizer (1) understands, (2) feels, and (3) shares another person’s world (4) with self-other differentiation.
Definition from here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738399120304493
Let’s talk about that last factor - self-other differentiation. This is feeling with someone but being grounded in your own present. In the words of Carl Rogers: it’s ‘as if’ you feel that way. It’s not you feeling what they’re feeling, because you can never have the exact same experience as another person, but you can be feeling what they’re projecting.
This is a really important distinction, because I think it helps keep that distance and that control.
Uncontrolled empathy will have you lost in other people’s emotions, entirely ungrounded. This means while you’re being with someone, you’re not providing a space for the other people to feel their feelings, especially if you are exhibiting these feelings.
Here’s a story:
My partner is trying to get back into making sourdough, after a long break when we lost our first starter moving house. It’s been a frustrating learning curve, because he was excellent at it a few years ago, but he’s had a few false starts. I want him to not be frustrated, obviously, I want him to succeed. I feel his frustration, and sad that he's not yet re-found joy in a hobby he used to love. This is empathy.
This frustration sitting with me for hours after the fact, or me wanting to help alleviate that frustration or to ‘fix it’, is an over-identification. Those feelings are draining me, maybe even more than they are draining my partner. Fawning over my partner might make him feel condescended to, or that him expressing his frustration is painful for me, so he won't be as open in the future.
This over-thinking, or over-identification can come from many places. It may be a learned response from growing up, or previous jobs. Autistic and other neurodivergent folks especially can experience this lack of balance or distance in empathy, which can lead to burnout. Gendered upbringings, culture, society, and all sorts of other things can affect how you experience empathy.
The result is the other person may feel unsupported, or that they’ve hurt you in some way. You’ll feel wrung out, burnt out, and exhausted.
It’s really unhelpful.
The Centre for Greater Good at Berkeley has a really good article on Avoiding The Empathy Trap, which I highly recommend, but I found the reflective questions in the article really interesting. The article asks you to consider these questions, and if you answer yes, you may find you have trouble balancing empathy:
Do you spend more time thinking about your partner’s feelings than about your own?
Do you focus your attention on what the other person is saying during an argument, to the exclusion of what you want to say?
Do you often get so caught up in the feelings of someone you love when they are depressed or hurting that the feelings seem to become your own?
After leaving an argument, are you preoccupied with what the other person was thinking?
Do you spend more time trying to figure out why someone let you down than deciding whether their reasons outweighed your feelings?
These are really good for you to start thinking about how you experience empathy. I definitely see parts of myself in these questions still, because this is a long term journey.
There are two ways to cope with this, from my own experiences and from talking to others: in the moment, and long term.
Let’s talk about ‘in the moment’ tools first. Most advice on this starts at grounding, keeping yourself in the present rather than getting lost in someone else's'.
Finding ways to ground yourself in your actual present is really important, and something I’ve had to work on a lot in training.
The basics in counselling is SOLERB, or SOLER in some places:
Sit straight,
Open body language,
Lean forward slightly,
Eye contact,
Relaxed body language,
Breathe.
This functions as a reminder to ground ourselves in the moment, but also to be aware of what signals our body language can give to the people we’re talking to.
This is very basic, and not the most accessible: my textbook says ‘eye contact (appropriate)’, like that’s a given definition that exists in the world.
There are so many ways to ground yourself. Some are more involved than others. The 54321 method is a way of invoking 5 senses to ground you in the present. It’s not necessarily something to do mid-conversation, but it can be a practical, useful way to practise grounding, and you might be able to do some of it subtly.
I’m a fan of tactile grounding. I wear rings, and while I never outright fiddle with them in a session, I will touch them to remind myself to keep myself in the present space and time. It’s a way of keeping myself in the room, with my client, and letting them take the lead in any given session. Maybe you have something similar, something you can use to physically ground you in your present. Maybe it’s noticing something in the room, or a mantra to say in your head. Maybe it’s taking a deliberate breath.
Practising is key here. If you only ground when you need it, it’s going to be more difficult. Whenever you find yourself between tasks, try to take a moment to ground yourself. Try different things, see what resonates with you. Just spend a moment in the present and now (this is a great opportunity to check in with yourself and see if you need anything), and then move on with your day. The goal is to make grounding something you can reach for when you need to, and you don’t have to think about the technique, but focus on the process instead.
The longer term solutions are around self-awareness, and engaging with yourself with empathy and curiosity. I’m going to cover this more in depth in the next part which will cover turning empathy inwards. To give a taste though, here are some ways to help work on kind self awareness, especially when it comes to controlling and balancing your empathy.
Reflect on empathy as a subject. What does empathy feel and look like for you? Why is caring for others' feelings important to you?
Build self-compassion. What has made you proud and excited recently? Write about it. Where, and in what people or activities, do you find your happiness and fulfilment? Write about it.
Pay attention to your own feelings. This could be through regular journaling, mood tracking, or practising gratitude in order to spend time in positivity. Maybe think about how your emotions feel in your body, and get to know them. You can use an emotion wheel or the zones of regulation to assist here. On a side note, I discovered the zones of regulation a few years ago when I did a workshop with an ex-teacher, and I think adults are missing a trick here. It’s a really easy way to point to how you’re feeling physically when you’re not sure what’s happening mentally.
As a side note, I’d love to hear other people’s experiences of having too much, or uncontrolled empathy. I have some experience but not for a while, and googling leads to a lot of…less than scientific tools to help (some people decided grounding means selling actual mats to help you connect better with the earth? I’m not sure what that’s about). While I have a whole bunch of crystals and I sling tarot cards occasionally, I really want to find some more grounded (lol) experiences and things that work for people in the moment as well as long term. Please feel free to comment or email me gem@gemhill.co.uk <3
Part three, self-empathy: https://buttondown.email/SelfCareBackpack/archive/self-empathy
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