How Not to Get Pulled Into the Problems of Others
Empathy is when you imagine what it must be like to be in their situation. People struggling emotionally don't want you to fix their pain; they want to feel understood.
Mindlor
What's it like to spend all day hearing other people's woes? Do you not tyre after a while?
Sincerely, I have trained myself to be in the room with my clients and take responsibility for my actions without internalising their emotions. You may assume that the folks I encounter are stressed out, ill at ease, disoriented, lonely, depressed, angry, and traumatised. When times are tough, people often confide in me about their deepest, darkest thoughts. It's only human for me to empathise with their suffering. Since I have plenty of opportunities to practise, I have gotten better at controlling my reactions when I see the pain on the faces of those around me. Furthermore, keeping my head on straight is beneficial to both my business and my clientele. All of your relationships can serve as training grounds for developing the skill of self-control in the face of the stress and turmoil caused by other people.
Listed below are five techniques that I have found useful in understanding and addressing the difficult emotions of others. Your ability to maintain composure in all of your relationships, especially the ones that matter most, will benefit from your learning to practise and hone these skills.
1. See Emotions as a Symptom, Not as a Problem to Get Rid of
It's human nature to blame the person whose feelings we care about when they're anxious, upset, or frustrated. We feel compelled to take action, convinced that their difficult feelings must be attended to and remedied as soon as feasible. When the people we care about are angry, we tend to provide counsel and attempt to "solve" their problems.
I'm sure you've learned the hard way that coaching someone who is really worried rarely works. What if we reframed emotional distress as a warning sign that something more serious is going on with the person experiencing it? Their feelings are serving a function, therefore we shouldn't strive to fix the issue but instead learn more about it through curiosity.
When we see another person's negative emotions as a problem, we reinforce the idea that emotions are bad. When we identify a problem, we tend to think it has to be solved right away. But if we frame it as a symptom, we automatically adopt a more inquisitive frame of mind. Most people who are going through intense feelings of emotion need us to validate them and be empathic towards them, and we can better do this when we genuinely want to know how they're feeling.
2. Try to Remember a Time When You Felt the Same Way
The ability to empathise with another person's feelings requires mental recreation of their experience. Among the numerous benefits of practising empathy is the ability to keep your cool while another person is experiencing emotional distress. Don't just try to put yourself in someone else's shoes; think back to the times when you actually did.
Think back to a period when you had to deal with intense feelings. Understanding the difficulties that another person is going through in light of one's own life is a priceless gift. Your chances of being really helpful and sympathetic, as well as less reactive and emotional yourself, increase the more you can relate to their issues.
3. Practice Reflective Listening
Emotionally troubled people don't want you to make them feel better; they just want to be heard. This frees you from feeling like you need to offer a solution to the other person's situation and instead just listen to them. So how can we stop thinking of problems as things to cure and start making people feel heard? Develop your skills through reflective listening. When you listen with the intention of reflecting back what the speaker has said, either verbatim or with your own interpretation, you are engaging in reflective listening.
When you repeat what someone else has said, you demonstrate your empathy and your presence in the conversation. When you put yourself in another person's shoes, you provide them with something much more precious than advice: a sense of belonging.
4. Validate Your Own Emotions
Anxious people might be difficult to be around because of the strong feelings they can provoke. It's difficult to navigate our own mood and another person's when we're deep in a spiral of difficult feelings. Because of this, our responses to the emotions of others are often counterproductive. Validation helps us become more self-aware, which in turn allows us to better manage ourselves in the outset. To validate is to recognise and reassure oneself that one's feelings are acceptable and warranted.
Recognise that you're feeling annoyed or frustrated because you're around an anxious individual, and tell yourself that it's normal and healthy to feel that way. Think about what might be the best next step later.
5. Remember It's Not Your Responsibility
Taking on the other person's emotions is a common pitfall I observe when people are trying to solve the difficulties of others. To sum up, you are not accountable for another person's emotions because you cannot influence them. A fundamental misunderstanding of what is actually under our control is the root cause of so much pointless struggle, conflict, and energy.
It is incredible how much vitality can be reclaimed once unnecessary responsibilities are no longer carried. When you release the burden of trying to improve another person's mood, you are free to focus on making a true connection with them and offering genuine support.
It's challenging to cope with our own painful feelings, let alone those of the people we care about. Even if you can't "fix" other people's emotional problems, there are certain things you can do to be more supportive and helpful. Self-validation and reflective listening are two skills that can help you remain calm and objective in the face of other people's issues, rather than reactive and impulsive.
