Nicole (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trickykitty) wrote2011-03-12 08:13 am
trickykitty) wrote2011-03-12 08:13 am
Entry tags:
Editing the Code
I started responding to badbookworm's comment on my DW post and realized that what I was saying would actually make a good follow-up post on it's own. So here it is after much expounding.
This is the biggest crux of most of my issues, so the more I can spell it out and the more I can uncover about it the better.
Ok, to be fair, I'm sure most of the water cooler-type people really and truly are that interested in what I call the fluffy stuff, and they probably aren't faking interest and empathy just to save face. I have known some people who will, though, especially in an environment rife with office politics. I have to force myself to get even remotely interested in those kinds of conversations. The big thing I see is that both getting involved in a fluff conversation and being able to actually empathize seems to require much of the same mechanisms: paying attention to the person, actually caring about what they are saying and why they are spending time saying it, and making a (low level) emotional connection with the person through empathy. I've been putting this into practice recently when I make my daily bank runs - the bank ladies are fluff conversationalists galore. What I've discovered when actively interacting with them is that I am starting to actually feel that connection that true conversations naturally afford us. The result is that I am engaging, I'm finding my brain actually thinks of pertinent questions to ask in order to find out more information that I might not otherwise be interested in, and I'm relaxing. In an analogy, I'm stopping to smell the rosemary (I actually do stop to smell the rosemary bushes that are growing out front of the bank), only in this case the rosemary represents the simple, plentiful interactions with people I see on an almost daily basis.
Yes, you probably do this naturally. I do not. Discovering this just proves to me that I don't need anti-anxiety pills. This IS my anxiety, and I'm facing it head on.
I do ache inside when I hurt (aren't turning on emotions great?), and I find that I can empathize really well with someone with whom I have a strong emotional connection. It's the every-day friends, co-workers and other sundry acquaintances that I have a hard time empathizing with. I understand what they are feeling, but I don't usually feel it in return. I know that I have had co-workers and friends go through hard times or lose loved ones, and I was too busy thinking about myself and what else I could be doing to ever feel empathy for their situation, even though I logically knew that I needed to say a couple of kind words. When I do this, it's obvious to others and I come off as a cold, heartless bitch. In truth, if I'm not feeling it, then at least the heartless part is accurate. My attempts to say anything at all is why I don't think of myself as cold.
This actually became seriously noticeable just in the past couple weeks. A co-worker's mother was going into the hospital and was in serious condition. He needed to take off work for a couple of days and was on the verge of tears when he was making the request. (I was meeting with our mutual boss at the time when he walked in to make the request.) I logically understood how he felt, but I was quite numb to it. I was in work mode and concentrating on the meeting. I didn't really think that much of his dilemma other than, "Man, that sucks," nor did I consider my lack of reaction to it at the time.
Then my own grandmother passed away. The day I came back to work (this past Monday) I had a few people offer their condolences, and each time it made me tear up. One tech teared up himself while I was relating the viewing and funeral time line from the previous week - he was on the verge of crying more than I was (Momma Bear). Another co-worker in the room offered his condolences as well upon recalling why I had been off work the previous week. He was much less empathetic (Pappa Bear), and this was noticeable only because it was in stark contrast to the overly emotional tech that I thought I was going to have to console. Then, a bit later, the same tech that previously had to deal with his own mother came into my office and I could feel the warmth of his condolences - it was like Baby Bear in it's level of empathy, and it was just right. For the first time, I stopped and considered how much that really meant to me right at that moment in time, and how much I felt like a heel for my own lack of sympathy just a few weeks earlier.
These are learning experiences for me. These are interactions in which I am finally paying attention and making those connections both in my own brain and towards those around me. I'm lighting up those pathways.
badbookworm's comment on my DW post and realized that what I was saying would actually make a good follow-up post on it's own. So here it is after much expounding.This is the biggest crux of most of my issues, so the more I can spell it out and the more I can uncover about it the better.
Ok, to be fair, I'm sure most of the water cooler-type people really and truly are that interested in what I call the fluffy stuff, and they probably aren't faking interest and empathy just to save face. I have known some people who will, though, especially in an environment rife with office politics. I have to force myself to get even remotely interested in those kinds of conversations. The big thing I see is that both getting involved in a fluff conversation and being able to actually empathize seems to require much of the same mechanisms: paying attention to the person, actually caring about what they are saying and why they are spending time saying it, and making a (low level) emotional connection with the person through empathy. I've been putting this into practice recently when I make my daily bank runs - the bank ladies are fluff conversationalists galore. What I've discovered when actively interacting with them is that I am starting to actually feel that connection that true conversations naturally afford us. The result is that I am engaging, I'm finding my brain actually thinks of pertinent questions to ask in order to find out more information that I might not otherwise be interested in, and I'm relaxing. In an analogy, I'm stopping to smell the rosemary (I actually do stop to smell the rosemary bushes that are growing out front of the bank), only in this case the rosemary represents the simple, plentiful interactions with people I see on an almost daily basis.
Yes, you probably do this naturally. I do not. Discovering this just proves to me that I don't need anti-anxiety pills. This IS my anxiety, and I'm facing it head on.
I do ache inside when I hurt (aren't turning on emotions great?), and I find that I can empathize really well with someone with whom I have a strong emotional connection. It's the every-day friends, co-workers and other sundry acquaintances that I have a hard time empathizing with. I understand what they are feeling, but I don't usually feel it in return. I know that I have had co-workers and friends go through hard times or lose loved ones, and I was too busy thinking about myself and what else I could be doing to ever feel empathy for their situation, even though I logically knew that I needed to say a couple of kind words. When I do this, it's obvious to others and I come off as a cold, heartless bitch. In truth, if I'm not feeling it, then at least the heartless part is accurate. My attempts to say anything at all is why I don't think of myself as cold.
This actually became seriously noticeable just in the past couple weeks. A co-worker's mother was going into the hospital and was in serious condition. He needed to take off work for a couple of days and was on the verge of tears when he was making the request. (I was meeting with our mutual boss at the time when he walked in to make the request.) I logically understood how he felt, but I was quite numb to it. I was in work mode and concentrating on the meeting. I didn't really think that much of his dilemma other than, "Man, that sucks," nor did I consider my lack of reaction to it at the time.
Then my own grandmother passed away. The day I came back to work (this past Monday) I had a few people offer their condolences, and each time it made me tear up. One tech teared up himself while I was relating the viewing and funeral time line from the previous week - he was on the verge of crying more than I was (Momma Bear). Another co-worker in the room offered his condolences as well upon recalling why I had been off work the previous week. He was much less empathetic (Pappa Bear), and this was noticeable only because it was in stark contrast to the overly emotional tech that I thought I was going to have to console. Then, a bit later, the same tech that previously had to deal with his own mother came into my office and I could feel the warmth of his condolences - it was like Baby Bear in it's level of empathy, and it was just right. For the first time, I stopped and considered how much that really meant to me right at that moment in time, and how much I felt like a heel for my own lack of sympathy just a few weeks earlier.
These are learning experiences for me. These are interactions in which I am finally paying attention and making those connections both in my own brain and towards those around me. I'm lighting up those pathways.