Become a Better Advocate for Conversation by “Supporting”, Not “Changing”
The last time a friend told you how busy they were, did you say “OMG, SAME”? Otherwise, you could be what one sociologist calls a “ spoken narcissist, ” and that could ruin your relationship.
People often empathize with others based on their own experiences. Stuck in traffic this morning? Let me tell you about the EPIC traffic jam I experienced a couple of months ago! When we do this, we often mean good – we are trying to show that we understand how the other person is feeling. But, as author Celeste Headley discovered, we often don’t know how the other person is feeling and inadvertently minimize their own emotions by covering them up with ours.
She tells this story in her book We Need to Talk: How to Have Important Conversations , an excerpt from which was taken from HuffPost (and which I found through Extraordinary Routines ):
A good friend of mine lost her father a few years ago. I found that she was sitting alone on a bench near our workplace, not moving, but just looking at the horizon. She was completely distraught and I didn’t know what to say to her. It’s so easy to say something bad to someone who is grieving and vulnerable. So, I started talking about how I grew up without a father. I told her that my father drowned in a submarine when I was only 9 months old, and I always mourned his loss, although I never knew him. I just wanted her to understand that she was not alone, that I had experienced something similar and could understand how she felt.
But after I told this story, my friend looked at me and said sharply, “Okay Celeste, you won. You never had a father, and I had to live with mine for at least 30 years. It was worse for you. I think I shouldn’t be so upset that my father just died. “
Headley’s response to his friend is what sociologist Charles Derber calls a “shift response” rather than a “support response.” We shift the focus of the conversation back to ourselves instead of encouraging the other person to continue with their story.
The easiest way to “support” rather than “budge” is to ask an additional question, rather than say something like “oh yeah, me too!” This is what it looks like in practice, Headley says :
Shift response
Mary: I’m very busy right now.
Tim: Me too. I am completely shocked.
Support response
Mary: I’m very busy right now.
Tim: Why? What do you need to do?
Shift response
Karen: I need new shoes.
Mark: Me too. These things are falling apart.
Support response
Karen: I need new shoes.
Mark: Oh yeah? What are you thinking about?
Using support rather than changing the answer is especially important when someone you know is grieving. “I’m sorry” and “This sounds very difficult” never seem enough when someone you love is in pain. But giving them the opportunity to talk about their pain – and showing them that you are truly listening – is more healing than making them compare their grief to yours.