Why we should all stop saying “I know exactly how you
feel”
You don’t. And you’re also steering the focus away from someone who
probably just wants to be heard. Here’s how to be a more considerate
conversation partner, says radio host and writer Celeste Headlee.
A good friend of
mine lost her dad some years back. I found her sitting alone outside our
workplace, just staring at the horizon. She was absolutely distraught, and I
didn’t know what to say to her. It’s so easy to say the wrong thing to someone
who is grieving and vulnerable.
So I started
talking about how I grew up without a father. I told her my dad had drowned in
a submarine when I was only nine months old and I’d always mourned his loss,
even though I’d never known him. I wanted her to realize that she wasn’t alone,
that I’d been through something similar and I could understand how she felt.
But after I
related this story, my friend snapped, “Okay,
Celeste, you win. You never had a dad and I at least got to spend 30 years with
mine. You had it worse. I guess I shouldn’t be so upset that my dad just died.”
I was stunned
and mortified. “No, no, no,” I said, “that’s
not what I’m saying at all. I just meant I know how you feel.”
And she
answered, “No, Celeste, you don’t.
You have no idea how I feel.”
She walked away and I stood there feeling like a jerk. I had wanted to
comfort her and, instead, I’d made her feel worse. When she began to share her
raw emotions, I felt uncomfortable so I defaulted to a subject with which I was
comfortable: myself. She wanted to talk about her father, to tell me about the
kind of man he was. She wanted to share her cherished memories. Instead, I
asked her to listen to my story.
From that day forward, I started to notice how often I responded to stories
of loss and struggle with stories of my own experiences. My son would tell me about
clashing with a kid in Boy Scouts, and I would talk about a girl I fell out
with in college. When a coworker got laid off, I told her about how much I
struggled to find a job after I had been laid off years earlier. But when I
began to pay more attention, I realized the effect of sharing my experiences
was never as I intended. What all of these people needed was for me to hear
them and acknowledge what they were going through. Instead, I forced them to
listen to me.
Sociologist Charles Derber describes this tendency as “conversational
narcissism.” Often subtle
and unconscious, it’s the desire to take over a conversation, to do most of the
talking, and to turn the focus of the exchange to yourself. Derber writes that
it “is the key manifestation of the dominant attention-getting psychology in
America.”
He describes two kinds of responses in conversations: a shift
response and a support response. The first shifts attention back
to yourself, and the second supports the other person’s comment.
Example number 1:
The shift response
Mary: I’m so busy right now.
Tim: Me, too. I’m totally overwhelmed.
The support response
Mary: I’m so busy right now.
Tim: Why? What do you have to get done?
Example number 2:
The shift response
Karen: I need new shoes.
Mark: Me, too. These things are falling apart.
The support response
Karen: I need new shoes.
Mark: Oh yeah? What kind are you thinking about?
Shift responses are a hallmark of conversational
narcissism — they help you turn the focus constantly back to yourself. But a support
response encourages the other person to continue their story. It
lets them know you’re listening and interested in hearing more.
The game of catch is often used as a metaphor for conversation. In an
actual game of catch, you’re forced to take turns. But in conversation, we
often find ways to resist giving someone else a turn. Sometimes, we use passive
means to subtly grab control of the exchange.
This tug-of-war over attention is not always easy to track. We can very
craftily disguise our attempts to shift focus. We might start a sentence with a
supportive comment, and then follow up with a comment about ourselves. For
instance, if a friend tells us they just got a promotion, we might respond by
saying, “That’s great! Congratulations. I’m going to ask my boss for a
promotion, too. I hope I get it.”
Such a response could be fine, as long as we allow the focus to shift back
to the other person again. However, the healthy balance is lost when we
repeatedly shine the attention back on ourselves.
While reciprocity is an important part of any meaningful conversation, the
truth is shifting the attention to our own experiences is completely natural.
Modern humans are hardwired to talk about themselves more than any other topic.
One study found that “most social conversation time is devoted to
statements about the speaker’s own emotional experiences and/or relationships,
or those of third parties not present.”
The insula, an area of the brain deep inside the cerebral cortex, takes in
the information that people tell us and then tries to find a relevant
experience in our memory banks that can give context to the information. It’s
mostly helpful: the brain is trying to make sense of what we hear and see.
Subconsciously, we find similar experiences and add them to what’s happening at
the moment, and then the whole package of information is sent to the limbic
regions, the part of the brain just below the cerebrum. That’s where some
trouble can arise — instead of helping us better understand someone else’s
experience, our own experiences can distort our perceptions of what the other
person is saying or experiencing.
A study from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and
Brain Sciences suggests that our egos distort our perception of our empathy.
When participants watched a video of maggots in a group setting, they could
understand that other people might be repulsed by it. But if one person was
shown pictures of puppies while the others were shown the maggot video, the
puppy viewer generally underestimated the rest of the group’s negative reaction
to the maggots.
Study author Dr. Tania Singer observed, “The participants who were feeling good themselves assessed their
partners’ negative experiences as less severe than they actually were. In
contrast, those who had just had an unpleasant experience assessed their
partners’ good experience less positively.” In other words, we tend to
use our own feelings to determine how others feel.
Here’s how that translates to your daily conversations: Let’s say you and a
friend are both laid off at the same time by the same company. In that case,
using your feelings as a measure of your friend’s feelings may be fairly
accurate because you’re experiencing the same event. But what if you’re having
a great day and you meet a friend who was just laid off? Without knowing
it, you might judge how your friend is feeling against your good mood. She’ll
say, “This is awful. I’m so worried that I feel sick to my stomach.” You’d
respond, “Don’t worry, you’ll be okay. I was laid off six years ago and
everything turned out fine.” The more comfortable you are, the more difficult
it is to empathize with the suffering of another.
It took me years to realize I was much better at the game of catch than I
was at its conversational equivalent. Now I try to be more aware of my instinct
to share stories and talk about myself. I try to ask questions that encourage
the other person to continue. I’ve also made a conscious effort to listen more
and talk less.
Recently, I had a long conversation with a friend who was going through a
divorce. We spent almost 40 minutes on the phone, and I barely said a word. At
the end of our call, she said, “Thank
you for your advice. You’ve really helped me work some things out.”
The truth is, I hadn’t offered any advice. Most of what I said was a
version of “That sounds tough. I’m sorry this is happening to you.” She didn’t
need advice or stories from me. She just needed to be heard.
Source:
https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-should-all-stop-saying-i-know-exactly-how-you-feel/
P.S: The direct sentences are highlighted
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