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Written by Joan Eison
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Do you remember being nine or ten and having a friend who had the
absolute coolest shoes? I remember swapping my
plain Mary Jane’s for my friend’s velvet flats in the girl’s
bathroom. Do you think that it even occurred to me that my feet
would get blisters?
Just as wearing someone else’s shoes can make your feet hurt, so can
taking on someone else’s worries. Has someone ever told you about their
sore throat and immediately afterward you began to feel bad? Has
a co-worker’s dialogue about their dysfunctional family turned your
entire day gloomy? Although your responses to these friends are
certainly well-intentioned, are you aware of the damage they do to you?
They are as potentially painful as dime-sized blisters on your big
toes. Try to think of your good intentions in a concrete way. You have
a heart-felt desire to be a good friend; but, can you really feel bad
enough to make someone else’s sinus infection clear up? And, even
though your stomach churns on hearing that your neighbor is three
months behind in his house payment, will your sadness make a sack of
money suddenly appear on his doorstep?
One of the greatest gifts in the world is friendship. Yet,
sometimes, friendship should be pulled back in order to serve all
concerned. This would be an opportune time to distinguish between
empathy and sympathy. The act of being sympathetic includes
projecting or accepting someone else’s emotional state onto
yourself. In other words, you wear it. Empathy, on the
other hand, involves recognizing it, but not taking responsibility for
it.
Try this experiment. When you go out to lunch, observe other diners and
just listen without commenting to people who are talking at length
about an unhappy topic. For their entire lunch time they could be
pounding on their unhappy subject; but, regardless of the words they
use neither of them would be able to change something that had already
happened. They could have been talking about poor Agnes whose
roof has a hole in it from a fallen tree limb. Though they could not
change the fact that Agnes’ roof had a hole in it, both people may have
begun to feel bad because of their negative collaboration.
You have the greatest impact on how you feel. So, let’s say that
you woke up feeling great this morning. Arriving at work the
first thing your co-worker says to you is, "You won’t believe what
Reginald has done, now! I have already cried my mascara off three
times this morning!"
What would happen if the two of you spent the next hour re-telling
events and dragging up similar situations? The damage to you would be
equal to having dumped your great-starting-day into the trash can. To
collaborate rather than agitate, don’t try on her shoes. Try expressing
empathy, "I’m sorry that you feel bad. I would like to help you get
your mind off of it; so, let’s get started on our project that’s due
next month."
Adjust the heat of your co-worker’s anger and turn down the temperature
of the moment. Your friend may look a little crest-fallen for an
instant; but, if you stick to your new plan everyone concerned will
benefit from the positive change. Not only will you reject the
idea of taking on her bad mood; but, you will also maintain the
positive feelings that launched your day. And, if your co-worker
can’t handle your redirection, she will move on to someone else who
prefers circling the wagons around negativity, rejection and criticism.
So, choose your environment and your companions wisely. They have
a huge impact on your sense of self, your well-being and the tone of
your day. Huge quantities of information pour over us each day,
some of it painful and some of it positive. It is tremendously
important to purposefully select and sift through this barrage.
Recognize the personal benefits of limiting and filtering out dialogues
that are potentially destructive. You can’t choose for anyone
else; but, you can make your own path clear. Maintain your own
glow and move forward in the shoes that fit you best.
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