Shifting Perspectives Through Empathy

I have been reading a lot lately about relationships, communication, and love. Communicating with others in a loving way is something that does not come naturally to most of us, as we aren’t taught it in society. We are encouraged to express ourselves, which is only half of the communication equation. We are rarely encouraged, much less taught, how to hear others as they express themselves. In order to hear others, we must have an open heart space. We must come to the conversation with the assumption that the other person is not out to get us.

This is something that I am always working on when it comes to communication with my closest people. I was programmed early on, through the majority of my childhood communication experiences that people are, indeed, out to get you. I fight believing that when people say hurtful things, they know they are doing it, they do it with a mean spirit for the purpose of hurting others. This is not really the case. Most people, when they speak in an emotionally or psychologically violent manner, are doing so out of their own programming. Perhaps they have an avoidant personality attachment system, which makes their ego work to disengage and distance them from intimacy. Perhaps they feel attacked themselves, and are therefore attacking back. Perhaps it is none of these things, and it is my underlying assumption that they are coming from a hurtful place and therefore I choose to take it hurtfully.

I was recently bemoaning to a friend about my feelings of wanting to give up my writing. My works are niche pieces, dear to my heart, but not to others. I don’t get a lot of reviews for them, as they aren’t widely read. I didn’t know this going into my writing career, but I know this now. My lack of sales and feedback was making me very upset, and along with an almost debilitating depressive episode, I was in a very low place. 

My friend said something that was not very helpful at all. In fact, it was the opposite of helpful. It was downright hurtful and disparaging. “Isn’t that how humanity and life have always been?” she said. “You work your ass off and never see anything come of it.”

“That’s not worth living for,” I answered, my depression getting deeper.

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “And yet you keep on going.”

I abruptly ended the conversation with her and cried, thinking, What a cruel thing to say to someone who is already upset that their hard work isn’t seeing any success.

At the time, I saw the comment as something to bring me farther down into the dumps than I already was. It was hurtful for no reason, kicking a person while they were already down.

But I can choose to perceive that experience in a different way. Perhaps this is her actual take on life, and she felt she was just passing it along to remind me that this is how life really is. Perhaps my friend was empty herself, and did not have the emotional stores in her to support me in my time of need. Perhaps my pain was too close to her own pain, and the only way she knew to respond was to lash out at me in the same way she lashes out at herself. Now that I have some distance, I am able to examine the experience from a different perspective.

I am able to choose a different perspective and give my friend the benefit of the doubt. If I can do this when this experiences, how many other painful experiences can I soften by changing my perception of? How many can you?