Self-Empathy

"Empathy is second nature to us, so much so that anyone devoid of it strikes us as dangerous or mentally ill." --Franz de Waal in The Compassionate Instinct

What are the skills we can employ to practice self-empathy?  They are the same as we might use to increase our empathy towards others.

The most important skill is to "step back to move forward."  Psychologists refer to this as the practice of "perspective taking."  This practice involves two elements.  The first is to move back far enough from the other person (in this case myself) in order to see the larger picture.  The second element is to use my imagination to see the world and the problem at hand through that larger picture.

We know how to do this for other people.  Someone I love says something that hurts my feelings.  I take a few breaths before I react and I think to myself, "I wonder how in the world those words arrived in the conversation?"  I step back in order to move forward.  I step back from the immediate pain and distress I feel in order to move forward in the relationship.  I use my imagination to see myself in the role of the other.

That empathetic response keeps me from reacting in anger.  It changes my physiology from fight/flight/freeze to reflective appreciation--lowered heart and respiration rates, moderated blood pressure, and different hormonal responses.  It allows me to "stop and think" (as our friends in AA would say to us over and over).  Empathy is the path toward a deeper relationship through conflict rather than the path toward a broken relationship because of conflict.

Now, how can I use that skill for myself?  Here's a scenario familiar to all.  In a hurry I reach for the glass water pitcher in the refrigerator.  It's hot out and I've been working in the yard.  In my sweaty hands, the pitcher slips, hits the floor and shatters.  After I recover from the momentary shock, I think to myself, "You stupid idiot!  Now look what you've done!"  I am now primed to beat myself in a variety of ways.  If anyone else is in the emotional blast radius, they will get a nearly equal dose of my angry reaction.

How about a little self-empathy?  Well now, that wasn't a very good thing, was it, to lose that pitcher?  But let's first make sure that no one was hurt.  Then let's get on to the important task of cleaning up that broken glass.  These things happen, you know.  It's just a water pitcher--not something over which you ought to ruin your day or even your hour.  Focus on what needs doing now and be a little nicer to yourself, Hennigs!

That's not a really big deal when it comes to a broken water pitcher.  But what if the issue is that I should have done more, I think to myself, to save my dying wife?  Or I should have done more to care more my grieving children?  Or I should have done a better job of managing the money or selling the house or doing my job or making plans for the future or....or...or...

Without the skill of self-empathy, the remainder is going to be self-recrimination.  That is one powerful path toward post-loss depression, at least in my experience.

Developing the skill of empathy toward others does improve our capacity for self-empathy.  So that's one thing we can do to make ourselves more resilient in the face of potential loss.  We can also simply do a better job of having real empathy for ourselves in the small things so that we are well-practiced in that skill when the big stuff comes along.

Grieving is an experience that follows emotional paths of least resistance.  The best way to prepare for the unavoidable losses in this life is to create healthy response pathways in our daily experiences.