When your wheels are spinning … (engage with empathy)

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

Romans 12:15

Every single morning it was a scowl.

He would pad down the stairs in his footie pajamas, rubbing his eyes, then collapse on the couch and curl into a sleepy ball.

(No, not Jeff … Dutch.)

Every morning I would persevere in cheerfulness. I wanted our home’s atmosphere to be one of joy, so I refused to let his morning mood set the tone. With my best, widest smile and most enthusiastic voice I’d greet him every day, “Good morning, Dutch!”

He’d scowl. 

I’d close my eyes and pray for patience. Why is everything difficult with this kid? For a long time this went on. I could effectively modify his behavior by forcing him to speak the obligatory words, “Good morning,” but nothing could remove his inner grumpy-gloom that seemed to cloud our mornings. My strategy, then, was to prove that I could be more cheerful than he was grumpy. I would smile bigger. Make my voice lighter. Greet him more enthusiastically. By golly I was going to be HAPPY and then he’d catch on and get happy too, right?

Wrong. It seemed the happier I was the grumpier he got. Obviously I was missing something. What was it?

Empathy.

One little word that changed my perspective and is slowly changing my life. 

See, I thought my responsibility was to lift the spirits of those around me. (And that’s partially true.) I wanted to help my son get a happy heart. I wanted to teach and train him to choose joy. But somehow it wasn’t working. It felt like spinning my wheels. Then I realized I was spinning my wheels.

Why do wheels spin?

Because the gears aren’t engaged.

Gears can turn and turn and turn, working hard and moving, pulling up, up, up, but if they aren’t engaged in another wheel, they will just spin without accomplishing anything. I had skipped a step in wanting to improve my son’s attitude–engaging his gears. 

How do we engage someone’s gears?

By getting down and locking ourselves into where they are. In other words,

Empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share in the feelings of another. Essentially it is to enter in to the feelings and emotions of another. It is to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15).

Because I am a glass-half-full girl and my son tends to be a glass-half-empty boy, I was frustrated by his tendency toward negativity. I didn’t want to be part of it, and wanted to help him rise out of it, so I just ignored it. My mantra became: “I will persevere in cheerfulness if it kills me!” But instead of engaging in his feelings and listening, showing empathy and understanding, I was just aggravating him and making him feel more and more unheard. The happier I made myself, the grumpier he got. 

See the cycle?

So I tried an experiment. When he got up the morning, I pretty much ignored him. Not in a mean way, just in a not-ridiculously-cheerful-way. I say, “Hey babe,”  in a off-handed, low-key way and then just let him be. To my amazement, a few minutes later after he’d shuffled around the house quietly for a few minutes, he came to me, looked up with sleepy eyes and said,

“Mommy, I love you.”

Was it really that simple? Could it be my “morning monster” was just, quite simply, not a morning person?  Rudeness, of course, is not acceptable, but could it be that a dose of empathy from me was really all it took to help him feel understood and accepted? I tried this in other areas, taking more time to listen, look him in the eyes, show empathy, and compassion, instead of just scolding him for a poor attitude or complaining heart.

More often than not, it worked. As soon as he was heard, understood, shown empathy, he would be over it. I noticed the same with Heidi. I noticed the same in other relationships. Sometimes all it took for someone to find hope, peace, comfort, was simply to be heard and understood.

Yes, there is a time for pulling others up, but we cannot pull up unless we have first engaged them with empathy.

In his book The Lost Art of Listening, Michael Nichols says that empathy is the essence of true listening:  “Shared thoughts and feelings are a step toward each other. Empathy is the bridge.”

I’m beginning to think empathy might be the secret to truly showing love to those around us. Listening long enough to understand. Choosing to suspend our own thoughts and feelings in order to enter in–engage the gears–of those we love.  I have so far to go in this area, but am excited to grow …

{Who can you listen to today? How can you show empathy by putting yourself on the same level of another? Who can you weep with? Rejoice with? How can you   “engage the gears” of your children and seek to understand how they feel? Thanks for growing with me; thanks for reading.}