Empathy not solutions, you emotionally inept buffalo

At 10pm on Friday, having just returned from the gym, I received an unexpected email from a family member with whom I have a complex relationship. We shall call this family member Clive.

I knew the email was likely to cause a cascade of nervous system dysregulation and probably a migraine. There’s a lot going on for Bloody Good Husband and me at the moment — among other things, moving house — so I decided not to open up Clive’s can of email-worms until another day.

My ever patient therapist husband asked if he could read it instead, so I passed my phone over.

“Should I read it now?” I asked, seconds after he’d started reading.

“No, I don’t think you should.”

“Is it helpful feedback or is it a personal attack?” I asked him.

“Definitely a personal attack. Wait til tomorrow to read it.”

Naturally, half an hour later Bloody Good Husband found me sitting at my computer in my pyjamas, email open, physically shaking with anger and hurt.

I didn’t sleep until 5am.

Neville was FAR too busy.

He set about composing lengthy, angry rants in my head, laying out all the reasons why the email was unfair, manipulative, and frankly in parts, completely absurd.

New to the blog? Neville is a grumpy fecker my mind.

When I’m triggered, my best first course of action is to write everything down in an “angry AF response letter” that I will never send.

I let Neville unleash all of the hurt, all of the bitterness, the past resentments, the swearing, the unfair retorts, — the greatest comeback letter of all time — to help expel some of the rubbish from his head.

Triggered Neville is like a feisty old goose, flapping his wings aggressively and biting everything within reach.

Anger is his go-to, especially when deeply hurt or sad.

If I don’t write Neville’s rants down, he repeats them over and over in my head at random moments throughout the day and night. Writing it all down makes angry-goose Nev feel like he’s had his (highly irrational) concerns heard. It often calms the goose, if only momentarily.

I don’t tell Nev that his email won’t be sent.

Clive has recently received a diagnosis which is devastating for all of us, and is awaiting more info. Instead of only showering Clive with empathy (which I did initially do), Neville and I accidentally did what we do best: we went full-manic-research mode, and peppered Clive with possible solutions, which he appeared to be receptive to.

My intentions were helpful, but — as is my MO when I don’t pay close enough attention to my mouth — my delivery and method were not.

Clive *could* have seen that I was misguidedly showing care by trying to be helpful. The whole conflict could have been avoided with a quick text along the lines of:

“Empathy not solutions, you emotionally inept buffalo!”

But that’s not what happened. It seems I triggered something deep.

So instead, Clive pulled on his Keyboard Warrior 4Lyfe beanie and typed up a personal attack under the guise of helpful feedback, accidentally revealing bucketfuls of unspoken resentment and judgement in the process.

It was really rather upsetting.

“Never waste a good trigger” goes the age-old saying that everyone on Instagram attributes to themselves but was probably said by someone who doesn’t have Instagram.

Life is masterful at teeing up exactly the experiences we need to jab us right where it hurts.

Mrs Life is not doing it just to be a dick. She’s doing it to give us opportunities to heal old wounds. Or so I reckon.

If we ignore the opportunities, we get more and more of them. How wonderfully fabulous.

“Gosh”, Mrs Life thinks to herself smugly. “I’ve really outdone myself this time.

“Andrea must be immensely grateful for all these opportunities I’m sending! She must surely have spotted the incredible artistry of the complex relationship dynamics I’ve woven together to create this trigger.

It’s a pattern she’s seen before, but this time in a completely different form! It hits precisely on one of her deepest wounds! It’s the perfect storm! I might even submit this one to the Venice Biennale.”

She pats herself on the back and grabs a chocolate biscuit from a nearby cloud.

This time, Mrs Life hopes, I’ll feel the feelings rather than shoving them back down.

“The fastest way to freedom is to feel your feelings” said Gita Bellin.

Yep yep yep, but shut up about it, Gita.

I don’t want to feel these feelings. They are not nice. I only want to feel nice feelings.

Annoyingly, Neville and I have learnt that numbing bad feelings also numbs the good.

Yet I still avoid painful emotions like I avoid cucumber.

Eventually — for the 872nd time — I remembered that avoiding my emotions makes them hurt more, not less.

So reluctantly, I lay in bed and moved my attention from the angry goose’s rants to the sensations in my chest. The mad thing is, every time I remember to do this, my emotions are never as bad as I think.

The feeling of hurt is not “OMG I’m so hurt, this sucks, how could Clive twist things like that, why did he misunderstand me, wahhhh,” as it pretends to be.

The feeling of hurt is: a pressure in my chest. A sharp sensation in my sternum. A churning sensation in my gut. Tightness in my throat. Pressure behind my eyes. Oh yep, I’m crying.

This is all emotions are. A collection of sensations: movement, heat, pressure, tension, lightness, dullness, sharpness…

All the rest is Neville’s commentary and completely made-up meanings.

After literally only a few minutes of being non-judgementally, compassionately present with my feelings, I felt lighter, calmer, and more at peace.

Decades spent avoiding, minutes spent feeling.

When my emotions start to dissolve in the light of my attention, they don’t always disappear for good. They’ll often come back up, in which case I just repeat the process. Sometimes.

Sometimes I go foraging for chocolate mousse.

Eventually there comes a point where I become so comfortable feeling the feelings and allowing them to be there that Mrs Life sighs with relief. Takes out her whiteboard marker. Marks her objective: Complete.

Some time down the track, I’ll look back and realise that the trigger that once sent the angry-goose flapping to the moon, barely even wakes Neville from his nap.

Once this happens, I often find that where there used to be judgement, there is now compassion towards both myself and others.

I’m not there yet with this particular trigger, but much feeling of feelings is occurring.

I’m just over here, eating a lot of unapproved snacks, moving house, and taking my wise friend Rach’s advice: “Feel your feelings, don’t think your feelings.”

x

Andrea

PS — On the subject of not accidentally sending emails that threaten to burn down relationships, I’m developing a new workshop for one of my corporate clients: How to Have Hard Conversations: Giving and receiving feedback in a way that lands rather than destroys.

I’ve been pondering whether I might run this workshop for you too. Click here to let me know if you’re interested. If you couldn’t give a flying parsnip, click nowhere.

PPS — Photo: A dog we were housesitting for giving me a hug because I was sad.

3PS — Enjoyed this blog post? Fab. If you reckon a friend might enjoy it too, send them this post