Wellness Calendar: Wednesday 24 December

The twenty-fourth revolution
[Thoughtlessness; empathy]
Hannah Arendt believed that thoughtlessness is the main route to evil and totalitarianism. In her writing she gave us some clues as to how, collectively, we can be vigilant against tyrannical rule.
Evil, she reasoned, was an absence or a deprivation of goodness and requires a deficiency of thought to flourish. How many systems (capitalism and communism, for example) and how many job roles exist today that are devoid of human thought, devoid of humanity? Unless we check in with ourselves, we can easily sleep-walk into dehumanisation – either as an active authoritarian or a passive bystander.
Having watched the trial of Otto Adolf Eichmann, who played his part in the Holocaust, Arendt found his representation of himself as an obedient and law-abiding pen-pusher utterly banal. He, like many others, carried out his role without intent, without moral outrage, without resistance and without thought. Instead of thinking for himself, he let other people do his thinking for him.
Hannah Arendt believed that authoritarian systems mixed with thoughtlessness leads to a landscape where people believe that opposition is futile, where nothing can be reversed, so there’s no point in fighting for a better life. We can avoid this fate by reveling in our humanity, avoiding manipulation and indoctrination and having a healthy dose of rebelliousness. We also swim against this tide with a good dose of empathy.
Empathy is the desire/ability to understand what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. To do this, you don’t imagine or believe you’re correct in your assumptions about them; you do this by checking with them and letting them decide whether or not you’re being empathetic. In essence, you demonstrate your willingness to get to the heart of the person’s very being by enquiring how they perceive themselves and the world around them. You are attuned, moment by moment, to their ever-changing internal landscape.
For example, after a person has spoken, you may wish to show them that you’ve heard them by saying something like:
“Did I hear you right? Did you mean…?” “Can I just check in with you? Is this about…?” Or, “This sounds to me like something you said earlier about… Is there a link there?”
If you haven’t accurately reflected what they’re saying, they have the option of explaining again what they mean. Sometimes, when the other person is talking, it’s enough for you to look at them and nod your head and show that you’re listening and understanding them. Sometimes it helps to repeat back to them what they’ve just said.
At other times you may need to demonstrate your understanding of their non-verbal communications, such as how you’re receiving their body language or the tone of their voice. At other times, when someone has advanced empathy, they’ll be picking up all sorts of unspoken aspects of the other person, and then feed this information back to them.
It’s important to remember that everything you do under the banner of empathy is for the benefit of the other person rather than yourself (although there’s nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself for doing some good-enough work!).
By keeping your focus on the other person, they get a chance to listen to what they themselves are saying. In this way, they get to understand themselves and their problems all the better.
So just to recap, empathy is not just about listening to what another person is saying verbally. It’s what they are saying as a whole: the tone of their voice, the volume, the meaning within the silences, what their body is saying, what’s happening for them emotionally, and the conflicts that become apparent when you become absorbed in their plight.
For example: “I have a sense that you’re on the verge of tears, yet you cannot let them out.” Or, “I get a feeling that you have some real pain hiding behind your anger.” You’ll never truly know what it’s like inside the private world of another person, but it can nevertheless have a tremendous impact on someone when their story is truly heard and acknowledged. As you might have guessed, to be empathic you have to be prepared to take risks and make mistakes.
Empathy is not to be confused with sympathy (pity and sorrow) or compassion (suffering together). These two other qualities are useful tools to have in your locker, but will only get you so far in being a facilitator. This is because sympathy and compassion are all about you and your own feelings.
Being empathic is an incredibly valuable asset for the well-being of our fellow citizens. This is one of the main pillars of how we as humans can help other humans out of distress. You can evidence-base all sorts of new-fangled approaches to wellness, but you don’t need to prove the effectiveness of empathy. It. Is. Priceless.
Yet many natural empaths do not use this highly potent quality, for all sorts of reasons, and we would be the last people to ever judge them for that. But – or rather and – we would still like to playfully engage in a conversation with you, to see if you may consider using this attribute as a force for good at some point in your life.
“You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird