It's Not About You - empathy and ego

A few years ago, a friend was assaulted.  She spent days holding the pain in silence, wondering if she somehow caused or invited the violence. 
 
By the time she confided to me over the phone, a few weeks had passed.  I picked up her call while searching for a cart in the sprawling Costco parking lot. 

I listened to her tight, choked voice, shaking with anger and suffused with sadness until a Lincoln Navigator politely beeped; I was standing in the middle of the road.
 
“Do you want me to come up there and stay with you?  I have a bag and I can be there in a few hours.”  I offered. 

I wanted to be close to her, to somehow give her safety by coming through the door with Thai takeout and my coziest blanket. 
 
“No,” she replied.  She didn’t want to see anyone. 
 
There are so many moments, as we grow in empathy and compassion, where our ego looms large and threatens to overthrow our best intentions.
 
Here are a few of the thoughts that began to percolate:
 

•  “Why didn’t she tell me sooner?  I thought we were friends.”

• “I can’t believe that she doesn’t want me to come up there!”

 
Let’s look at each of these egoic protestations, because I hear versions of them from clients too.
 
“Why didn’t they tell me sooner?  I thought we were good friends/colleagues/family?”
It isn’t wrong to feel this emotion.  It is wrong to let this emotion dictate how you respond to the other person.  Remember, this is not about you; they are the one in crisis. 
 
In the final months of my pregnancy with Mercy (our daughter who died at just 8 days old), I went on a trip with my extended family. 

The whole thing was something of a whirlwind.  I was juggling finals in my MBA program, multiple doctor appointments, and packing for two toddlers.  I completely forgot to bring a single pair of pants for myself, arriving at my location with only a jeans maternity skirt for the entire week.
 
In the midst of all of this tumult, I forgot that we were visiting a place where a friend lived.  Never remembered to reach out or try to see her.  And she was kind of pissy and withholding to me for about a year afterwards:  “Well, I just can’t believe that you’d come and not try to see me.”
 
This felt so tone deaf.  I wanted to reply, “My world was falling apart and I was barely holding it together enough to get on the plane. I had zero capacity to give you a polite, social call, so get off my back.”

If you, like that friend, choose to get weird or pouty or withholding because your feelings are hurt, you will be adding an extra burden to the person in crisis. 
 
“I can’t believe that she doesn’t want me to come up there!”
Sometimes, we make an offer of care that the other person doesn’t want or respond to. 
 
The main goal in gestures of support is to show up in a way that matters to that person.  Let’s look at an example from the world of work.  Some people want work shifted so they can have space to process their loss/pain. 

Others view work as a place where they have both competence and mastery when the world is falling apart; they don’t want anything to shift.  If you aren’t sure what your colleague is feeling about their allocation of work, just ask.
 
Sometimes, I hear, “Well, I tried to reach out and even offered to bring them a meal but they didn’t take me up on it.”  This is usually confided to me with a hint of indignation or self-pity.
 
Again, remember:  this is not about you.  There are all kinds of reasons why a person might not take you up on your offer of help in the moment.  Perhaps they didn’t up to seeing another person that evening. 
 
Which means that, maybe, you want to offer the same thing at a different time.  “I know that dinner wasn’t a good fit last week.  But I’m getting DoorDash again tonight and I’d love to send some over to you, if that sounds good.”
 
Or, maybe, you try something different entirely.  When my friend told me that she didn’t want me to come up and visit, I stopped to think about what I could do to show support.  We lived a few hundred miles apart.  I knew that the journey of healing and integration might be a long one…and I sensed that she wasn’t eager to do a lot of verbal processing.
 
So, I went to the store and bought about 21 small items that showed care.  I also bought a big packet of mailing envelopes and some cards.  I wrote out small notes, some funny, some encouraging, and packaged 21 envelopes with the card+item.  Then, I went to the Post Office to meter out the postage (make it easy!).
 
I came home with three weeks of care.  Each day, I dropped one in my mailbox, sending it off with a hope and a prayer that it would encourage her heart. 
 
And although I would have liked to show up for my friend with some Thai food on the day I heard, the right choice was to calibrate my care to what she wanted and needed.