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We are all becoming familiar with loss in the era of the coronavirus pandemic. The loss of the trip you were looking forward to.  The loss of the marathon you finally signed up for.  The loss of community, of touch.  The loss of alone-time to process.  The loss of a loved one you couldn't say goodbye to in person.

You can't grieve discounted losses.  All the little things you have told yourself are not important enough to grieve.  All the compound losses that others invalidate because they're not "big" enough losses to count.  You can't grieve them until you name them.

Invalidating and discounting your losses will not help you get over them.  You have to go through them.  You have to name them, grieve them, and find space for gratitude and humor.  Grieving is not an obstacle to gratitude.  Grieving makes way for gratitude.

One of my major losses during the pandemic was the loss of any alone-time to process.  I have that back now that my daughter's daycare re-opened.  And now I have time to acknowledge my losses and grieve them.  As you have the space to do so, I invite you to do the same.  Name your losses.  Also name the things that are keeping you going.  You need both to be whole.

If you'd like to explore this further, you can listen to the podcast that inspired this post.  It's geared towards therapists but I think applies to all of us. If you'd like to process and name your losses in person, please contact me for a session.

We all want to feel more self-confident.  We do our best to face scary situations bravely whether we feel brave or not.   We try to be true to ourselves and trust our intuition.

I want to give you a way to open up, face life, and feel less afraid.  I want you to feel strong, to feel safe, and to face life with arms wide open.  We need times of retreat and comfort, but we also need times of reaching out to embrace all  life has to offer.

Today I am offering you a way to experience self-confidence on a bodily level.  A way to tune in to yourself.  A way to open your heart.

I first experienced the power of embodied confidence through a yoga class I attended years ago designed around the theme of heart-openers.  Just like our thoughts and beliefs affect our feelings and actions, our bodies also affect our feelings and actions.  It is the place we hold stress and trauma.  Trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has written about this in his book The Body Keeps the Score.  He talks about how body practices like yoga can release the trauma that's stored in the body.  You can listen to him talk more about this here.

Yoga is one tool for living more embodied lives.  And it is the tool we are using today to make confidence feel more real and alive to you.  Try them all out.  Then you can create your own sequence of your favorite poses or pick one favorite one to do each morning.  I hope you are able to experience an increased sense of confidence just as I did when I discovered these resources.

Some mantras you can think about while you do these poses include:

• I am strong
• I am whole
• I am enough
• I am loved
• I am confident
• I am brave

Heart-opener Poses for Self-Confidence

Thank you to therapist, yoga instructor, and wellness speaker, Melissa Garner, LMHC, RYT, at Self-Haven for collaborating with me on this post.  See is the one you will see in all the photographs below demonstrating the heart-opening poses.  Reminder before you try these poses: Only do poses that feel comfortable for your body and positive for you emotionally.  Let's get started.

Seated Poses

Spinal twist (do both sides)

Seated back bend

Reverse plank

Table-top

Kneeling Poses

Camel pose - variation

Camel pose

Gate pose

Standing Poses

Mountain Pose

Back bend

Low lunge with back bend - arms up

Low lunge with back bend - arms back

Humble warrior

Reverse warrior

Extended side angle

Extended side angle variation

Wild thing (From downward dog, lift one leg into 1-legged dog, then "flip your dog" by allowing that foot to open up and find the floor. Extended your free hand over your head.)

Dancer

Goddess

Child's pose

Child's pose

Child's pose - variation

Laying Poses

Cobra

Sphinx

Locust

Bow

Fish

Fish - legs raised

Bridge

Resting pose (with bolster perpendicular to body)

Resting pose (with bolster parallel with body)

Seated goddess

Seated Meditation

Mudra of unshakable trust (This mudra represents unshakeable self-confidence, inner strength, and faith in something greater.) Take a few minutes to be still, focus on your breath, and reflect on your inner strength. Thank yourself for taking the time to do this practice.

How do you feel?  What was this experience like for you?  Which poses were your favorite?  Choose some to do on a regular basis.  Also identify ones that you can use throughout the day to reset and tune in to your strength.  I'd love to hear your favorites and how they helped you.  You can reach me at catherine@cqcounseling.com.

If this was helpful and you want more options for yoga poses, you can access yoga poses for depression here.

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Do you find your self apologizing all the time - for things that you don't even need to apologize for?  Do you measure the validity of your actions by others' reactions?  Do you feel like you need to fix the problem even when you weren't the cause?

You're Not Alone

If you feel this way, you are not alone.  So many of us default to this pattern without even realizing it's happened.  I want you to think about whether you're happy with the status quo.  I invite you to think about what you gain and what you lose by living this way.  Take a minute to think about or jot down what you gain and what you lose before you continue reading.What did you discover?  How did examining this pattern affect your outlook on yourself and what you want in life?Here are some of my thoughts on what you might gain and lose by continuing this pattern:

What you might gain:

• Holding on to a relationship
• Avoiding conflict in an interaction
• Avoiding tension in a relationship
• Feeling like you've gained some control by taking on the responsibility

On the other hand, what have you lost?

• You don't know who you are anymore
• You're exhausted from trying to make things okay for everyone else
• You don't feel heard or valued
• It's hard to get your own needs met
• You feel resentful or trapped

We usually resist change until we discover that it feels like we're losing more than we're benefiting.  I invite you to consider empowering yourself by letting go of some of the responsibility.  You can be valued and heard.  Your opinion and voice matter just as much as someone else's.  It's not your job to make things okay for everyone else.  You can be nice and stand up for yourself.  They are not mutually exclusive.  It's not always your fault or your responsibility.  You have the power to be assertive.  You only need to take responsibility for your own feelings and actions.

When you're starting to make this shift, you can examine your thoughts and reactions to help you know where you are on the responsibility spectrum, then move yourself towards the middle where you are only taking responsibility for yourself.

You will be most likely to find yourself reverting to taking on all the responsibility when you are dealing with someone who wants to absolve themself of all responsibility and put it on you.  If you come in contact with someone like this frequently, it can be helpful to write down this person's common phrases, and think through what is really true and what you would want to tell yourself and them in those situations.  Some example statements that indicate the person you're talking to is in the "it's always your responsibility" camp:

• I wouldn't have been doing _______(insert relevant phrase: e.g. driving home drunk) if you had just ________(e.g. woken up at 3 a.m. to get me).
• If you had done ________ differently, I wouldn't have had to yell at you...
• It's not my fault. You know how I am.  If you had just _________, I wouldn't have done ________.

Now, review those statements and replace what's true - using the lens that you are only responsible for your own feelings and actions.  You can use this to not fall into the trap of making excuses for them and going along with their BS.  Make sure you're safe before you express this out loud to the person.  Evaluate whether it's worth staying in relationship with someone who is frequently trying to place all the blame and responsibility on you.

Next steps:

• Learn more about why you take on too much responsibility and what to do about it.
• Consider individual therapy if you would like support on your journey.  You can reach me at catherine@cqcounseling.com.  

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Where do you fit on the spectrum of who's responsible?  Sometimes it depends on the situation, but often we gravitate towards one end of the spectrum or the other.

Have you noticed yourself taking on responsibility for everyone else’s feelings?  Or at least certain people’s feelings?  You might feel that you have more control over a situation if you take responsibility: "If I was more careful, xyz wouldn't have happened to me."  "If I calm so-and-so down and tell him he's right, maybe our relationship can go back to normal."  This is the hyper-responsibility end of the spectrum.

At the other end of the spectrum: Do you blame everyone else for your problems so you can avoid any responsibility?  So you can uphold your ideal view of yourself as strong, invincible, successful, in control, never wrong, etc.?  Blaming others is the obvious sign of this stance.  However, defensiveness can be a more subtle clue that this is happening for you.

Which one fits you most often?  For today's post, I'm going to focus on the hyper-responsibility end of the spectrum - why it happens and what to do about it.

Why do I take on all of the responsibility?

This tendency to take on too much responsibility can happen for a variety of reasons:

1. Kid-logic: If this tendency started when you were young, kid-logic probably has something to do with it.  Developmentally, kids assume everything is about them.  That's why even if you tell kids the divorce is not their fault, it's difficult for them to believe that without further processing.  Anything that happens is because of them or related to them.
2. Ingrained messages: This is compounded if you lived with (or had a close relationship with) someone that was on the blame end of the spectrum and either told you directly, or implied, that things were always your fault.
3. A way of feeling more in control: If you lived in an unpredictable environment, it might have felt better to assume responsibility so that you could feel some measure of control.  For example, "if I was a better kid, my dad wouldn't have left."  Or "If I get all A's, my mom won't have a reason to yell at me.
4. Personality: Enneagram wisdom posits that there are 3 different stances in the world: aggressive, dependent, and withdrawn.  I hypothesize that if you are in the aggressive stance you are more likely to be on the blaming end of the spectrum and if you are in the dependent stance, you are more likely to take on too much responsibility.  (I'm not sure if the withdrawn stance is predictive of either one.)  No matter your stance, you have the opportunity to find balance: taking responsibility for your own feelings and actions, and only for your own feelings and actions.  More about that later.
5. To feel good about yourself: If I'm the one taking the blame, I'm not the mean one dishing out the blame.  If I take on the responsibility, it means I'm altruistic, noble, a helper, mediator, etc.  If I don't, I feel mean or uncaring.
6. To protect your view of an important person: Taking responsibility is also a way to protect your ideal view of another person.  Especially when you are young, it's hard to acknowledge that someone has both good and bad aspects to them.  If you need to preserve your view that your mom is loving and protective, and you can't reconcile her actions with that view, you might take on all the responsibility to keep her as all good, and you become all bad.

How untrue beliefs can affect you

Unless these beliefs and patterns are corrected, you may spend the rest of your life seeing the world through the lens that you are bad, defective, unlovable, or powerless.  These are the kinds of underlying beliefs that can keep you stuck if they are not identified and processed.  EMDR is one effective framework that targets these beliefs so that you can be free.  You don't have to see the world through the lens of "I'm bad" anymore - looking for evidence that others believe you're bad too, disbelieving anyone that tries to tell you otherwise, or trying to prove to yourself and others that you are not bad.  You can let that go and just be you.

The Goal

The goal is to find a happy medium where you can take responsibility for your part and let others take responsibility for their part.  Your feelings and actions are your responsibility.  Others' feelings and actions are their responsibility.

Explore resources for building assertiveness and setting boundaries. Consider individual therapy for personal support in building these skills.

The benefits of empathy

Empathy is powerful.  It benefits not only the recipient, but also the giver.If you are wondering, "Why should I care about empathy?  What kind of impact can it have on my life and the people around me?" here are just a few of the benefits of empathy:

1. Increased satisfaction
2. Increased happiness
3. Can inoculate you against depression*
4. Helps you adjust to new circumstances
5. Builds bridges and connections
6. Reduces stress

*Note: experiencing empathy cannot prevent depression but it can potentially lessen its prevalence and intensity in your life.

Standford psychologist and director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, Jamil Zaki, explains some of the benefits of empathy this way:

"In many cases, empathy benefits all parties involved.  So for instance, patients of empathic doctors are more satisfied with their care but are also more likely to follow doctors' recommendations, which is important for things like preventative care.  And spouses of empathic partners are happier in their marriages.

But one thing that I think people don't realize as much is that people who experience empathy for others also benefit. It's not just receiving it, but giving it helps us too.  So people who are relatively high in empathy, for instance, are less likely to become depressed.  Feeling empathy for others reduces our stress.  And adolescents who are able to pick out other people's emotions accurately are better adjusted during middle school" (Zaki, Hidden Brain podcast Empathy Gym 7/29/19).

What is empathy?

Okay, it sounds like empathy is a great thing.  But, what exactly is it?

I would colloquially define empathy as caring about and understanding others' feelings and experiences.  There are actually different facets of empathy.  The following are the three types of empathy identified by psychologists:

Types of Empathy

1. Emotional Empathy: feeling others' feelings with them
2. Cognitive Empathy: understanding what someone else is feeling and why they're feeling that way
3. Compassion: feeling concern for others' and desire for their well-being to improve

Each of them is important, and can balance each other.  For example, if you have emotional empathy for everyone you meet and everyone you see suffering on the news, you will quickly develop compassion fatigue.  And compassion fatigue can lead to not caring at all because you have no energy left to care, and possibly no hope that things can improve.  Or, you might become so overwhelmed by feeling the other persons' emotions that you shut down.

Emotional empathy does not mean that you are responsible for picking up others' feelings and feeling them yourself.  This can lead to unhealthy boundaries, such as enmeshment, and leave you feeling depleted, anxious, powerless, or responsible for managing the other person's feelings for them.  A healthy way to practice emotional empathy is to be emotionally present with the other person's feelings but not take them on yourself.  You can learn more about how to give the gift of being present here.

‍Cognitive empathy is one way to balance out emotional empathy, so you can take a step back and understand where someone is coming from, and display compassion by caring what happens to them without depleting all of your emotional reserves.  If on the other hand, you only show cognitive empathy for a partner or friend, that person may not fully experience that you care about them and what they're going through.

An important part of cognitive empathy is understanding others, and this is considered by some experts to be the first element of empathy (Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence).

‍Compassionate empathy is the fruit of these two types of empathy.  It is effective empathy in action.  This might take the form of a caring word, a shoulder to cry on, or practical help.  It is important to be aware of how the person wants to receive support and help.  Emotional and cognitive empathy can help you identify this so you're not over-helping, or helping in a way that the person doesn't want.  For example, you may want to help by giving practical solutions while the person just wants emotional support before figuring it out on their own.  When you are ready to put compassionate empathy into practice, don't assume you know what the person needs.  Ask them before acting.  This is a way of giving them respect.  A great Christian resource for compassionate empathy is Henri Nouwen's book Compassion.

Which type of empathy do you gravitate towards?  Is there one you shy away from?

"Different brain systems support emotional and cognitive empathy and empathic concern.  And different groups of people struggle with different flavors of empathy.  People with autism spectrum disorders, for instance, struggle sometimes to understand others, their cognitive empathy, but don't struggle as much to share other people's emotions or care about what other people feel.  Individuals with psychopathy have the opposite profile.  They're often perfectly able to understand what other people feel, but they don't share those emotions" (Zaki, Hidden Brain podcast Empathy Gym 7/29/19).In summary, we could say the three types of empathy are:

1. Understanding others
2. Sensing their feelings and emotions
3. Taking a genuine interest in them and their concerns (Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence)

Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/understanding-others.html

How do I develop empathy?

Understand feelings

To care about and understand others' feelings, it is helpful to have a basic understanding of feelings.  Some people have a good understanding of their feelings.  Some have a better understanding of others' feelings, but less awareness of their own.  And some people would rather not bother with emotions at all.  No matter which of these categories you fall into, feelings are an important part of what it means to be human and it is imperative to have an understanding of common emotions.  You can find a great diagram for common emotions here.

Perspective-taking

It is also important to develop the skill of perspective-taking.  We commonly refer to this as "putting yourself in someone else's shoes" in order to understand their perspective and feelings.

A great way to learn to do this is by reading novels.  You are seeing the world through the protagonist's perspective - their interpretations, feelings, etc.  I keenly remember reading The Good Earth by Pearl Buck as a child and really understanding on a visceral level what famine means.  I learned the inner workings of an emotionally hurt child by reading the Elizabeth Gail series.  Before that, I might have interpreted the child's lashing out as being mean, but after seeing things from one such child's perspective, I understood that she wanted desperately to accept the love and support offered to her, but didn't know how.  Such books helped me consider the perspective and needs of kids I met in person.

A more extroverted way to experience a similar perspective-taking is through participating in a drama class or play.  You get to take on and act out the feelings of different people.  You create your own inside view into another's experience, and get to feel what it's like for others to react to you in this space as well.

Poetry is another way of increasing empathy.  As Tuesday Ryan-Hart shares: "Poetry is one of our most vivid channels for empathy.  It helps us reckon with the human experience and figure out how to live among each other.  It grapples with unanswerable questions and, in all its forms—lauded and richly-awarded books, ferocious spoken word performances, beloved songs and historic speeches—it rallies our attention."

Understand the impact of identity and belonging

We are more likely to be empathetic towards people we consider like us.  We are less empathetic towards those we consider "other."  This is often called the "us vs. them" dichotomy.  You may be able to increase your compassion for someone if you can find a way to put them in the "us" category.

A study Zaki references in his talk gives us a helpful example.  Soccer players who wrote about why they loved their team showed increased empathy for someone who was on, or supported, their team.  This was helpful, but still limiting, since they did not show compassion for soccer players from other teams.  However, when they wrote about why they loved soccer in general, their empathy expanded to include all soccer players (Zaki, Hidden Brain podcast Empathy Gym 7/29/19).

Writing (or even thinking or talking about) what you have in common with or like about group of people can increase your identification with them, and your compassion for them.  However, you will need to be aware that it might make you less likely to be compassionate towards people outside of that group and compensate for that.

Communication skills

Learning good communication skills is also important for developing empathy.  The steps pertinent to empathy are:

1. Active listening
2. Clarifying
3. Reflecting

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply" (Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change).  

‍Here is how you practice these skills: one person expresses everything they're thinking and feeling about a particular situation.  The other person's only job at that point is to listen intently (active listening) and be able to express back to that person what they heard (reflecting).  If helpful, the person can also ask clarifying (non-judmental) questions.  The goal is for the listener to be able to convey what the speaker said in a way that the speaker agrees that they are heard and understood.  Then, they can reverse roles.  This is a far cry from the listener forgoing listening in favor of coming up with their rebuttal, devaluing or dismissing the speaker, or becoming defensive.  This activity can build bridges of understanding, respect, and connection and I invite you to practice it with someone in your life with whom you want to improve your connection.  You can learn more about these communication skills here.

Meet your needs

Empathy is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  The sense of belonging and identity referenced in the soccer example (identifying as a team fan or as a soccer-enthusiast) is a few rungs below empathy, and important to develop first in order to develop empathy.  If you are secure in your sense of belonging, you will be able to extend empathy to those inside and outside your group without feeling threatened or reverting to tribalism.  Confidence is on the rung in between belonging and empathy, and also important to develop in order to have empathy for others without feeling that your own well-being is threatened.I have seen so many people have a dramatic increase in perspective and empathy after doing EMDR on a painful memory.  Once their pain was addressed, they had the space to consider the perspective of others involved.  Having empathy requires addressing your own feelings, pain, and needs in the situation.In sum, meeting your own basic needs is an important step to developing consistent empathy for others.  You can read more about how to do this on my blog series on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which starts here.

An Obstacle to Empathy (and how to overcome it)

Empathy is not the same as agreement.  I find that too often people withhold empathy because they are afraid of communicating that they agree with someone's position.  You do not have to agree with someone to give them the respect of hearing and understanding where they are coming from.  By giving them that respect, you are building a bridge of understanding, communication, and compassion.  For example, if you are able to recognize that someone holds a certain view because they feel threatened or fearful, you can have cognitive empathy and compassion for them, and want them to not feel that way anymore.  You might even find some common ground.

To study empathy further, you can read Zaki's book "The War For Kindness: Building Empathy In A Fractured World."

‍If you'd like to explore how to parent in ways that promote empathy, I will be speaking on "Raising Kids to Choose Empathy and Authenticity" at First United Methodist Church (Pensacola) on Wednesday, September 25 at 6pm.

I look forward to continuing this conversation about empathy with you.