Empathy is Not Something You Practice.
In a recent talk, I unraveled the topic of human relationships and asked if we have a relationship at all? The subject of empath and compassion arose, yet again!
[This is from Dialogue 1: Relationships - book here]
GC: The experts and famous psychologist are going to disagree with me here. That’s okay. Now you come to me, show me all these wonderful training programs and statistics of how you’ve created empathy at work. Now I turn around and tell you, if empathy and compassion truly existed, your company wouldn’t.
Audience: [Silence]
GC: Are you waiting for me to say more :) ?
Audience: We are waiting for your explanation.
GC: Yes. But I am not going to explain a thing. Before we go into what I startled you with, may I suggest we take a closer look at the problem of relationship and dependency, together. Not me sitting at the end of the table as some kind of father-figure, but all of us at the table, questioning the very essence of human relationships and why we depend on each other in life. Are we together?
Audience: Yes. Let’s do it!
GC: What is attachment and what is its relationship to me and you and love?
Audience: I don’t love you [laughs]. Maybe not yet! [laughs]
GC: Indeed! I can see we will have fun today! Let’s start with what is attachment?
Audience: Something I hold on to.
GC: Okay start there. Something I hold on to. Here we are talking about relationships - specifically the psychological dependency on somebody. Is this okay for us to proceed?
Audience: Sounds good!
GC: So may I ask, can there be love when there is dependency? I depend on my spouse to cook and clean and look after the kids. I depend on my child to study hard, grow-up to be smart and successful so that s/he can make me feel proud and carry the family name with honor. Here at work I depend on certain team members to fulfil their work on time and good quality, I depend on them to obey the rules, I depend on them not to say anything that would embarrass me. Sound familiar to anyone? :). I depend on my manager to help me, recognize me, and maybe give me a pay-rise :). I depend on the people jammed in trains to comply with the rules and generally not cause any “meiwaku” we say here in Japan or trouble. So my relationship with my spouse, my children, my colleagues is a state of psychological dependency isn’t it. And I am afraid of the state I would be in if there was no dependency.
Audience: What about the cell phone?
GC: Oh yes, my goodness - the phone is also a dependency isn’t it? When I am afraid to be in a state where there is no dependency, then what do I do? I depend on the cell phone to give me information about how to live in society, about relationships and dating, about the daily weather and whether I should wear a coat or bring an umbrella. My goodness where would we all be if these things didn’t exist? I depend on the cell phone to keep my children from crying on a train - this one is common these days. The parents are so concerned about how they look when their young child starts crying in public - these are very young children 2 or 3 years old - and rather than address the cause they slip them a gaming device or cell phone to keep them quiet and for the parents to save face. Therefore, do you see that dependency?
Audience: How about status?
GC: Yes status - I have a position and therefore, I depend on that position for some kind of security. Or I depend on the marvelous experiences I have had in the past - the various countries I’ve worked in, the people I’ve worked with, the success I have had, and so forth. If one relies, or I should say, one’s relationships are based on this psychological dependence, which is in a way giving me a sense of security, then isn’t that sense of security based on fear?
If you take the time to see this, not to judge it as this is good or bad now how to do not become dependent. Not the fact of the words that I am. Not to deny it and come-up with reasons why you do it - we can discuss it later if you wish but right now, just seeing the very fact of this dependency - can you see it for yourself? That we depend.
Because if it is a fact, then this psychological dependency on people… I just heard somebody say jobs, okay hold on. Let’s put it this way, if you are depending on your job to bring you income or success because you are afraid of losing something, that’s psychological dependence and that dependence is breeding fear. This is why we are here, or rather why you called me here to talk about relationships because as long as there is fear, we can’t really understand what relationship means.
Audience: Are you saying that dependence is hindering relationships?
GC: Isn’t it? If dependency breeds fear, isn’t your relationship with someone based on fear? As long as there is fear, how can there be love? How can there be freedom? Not that I am saying dependence is hindering relationships - be careful, I’m not the authority here. One must look inside themselves and see this for themselves. I cannot tell you a thing because it is not possible for me to know what your life is to this point. What is in your memory is not the same as another. So you need to look inside and see if indeed you are depending on others out of fear of the lack of security.
That is why in relationship with another, if you look at it, can you observe your self? Can you observe the way you talk to your colleagues, or what I think of as getting a promotion?
Audience: What do you mean about promotion?
GC: Promotion - moving up the ladder. Are you interested in promotion because of the seeking of a better title? Perhaps a Director means more than a Senior Manager in terms of titles - whatever that means for you. Maybe you think it sounds better and besides, it comes with more money!
Audience: laughs
GC: Perhaps you can observe how you react to work on a Friday night. Do you rely on Nomikai (social drinking) to relax and socialize and drink away the stress of the day? Is the first thing you do when you go home is tell your spouse how difficult a day it has been? Can you observe the way you insist on your opinions throughout the day or push for your idea to be implemented? Can you observe how you hold-on to your knowledge, your traditions, your ways of thinking… all of these things will reveal bit-bit-bit all the dependencies you have. Observing my self throughout one day, I begin to awaken to this whole mess - wait I won’t call it that - this whole revelation of knowing yourself.
Audience: How do I remove the fear of dependency.
GC: Ah sorry, you’ve missed the point.
Audience: [laughs]
GC: No please don’t laugh this may just mean I didn’t explain it well, please. The person asks, how do I remove the fear of dependency? For others who were listening, did you follow, can you explain it?
Audience: [laughs] Now we’re in trouble!
GC: Well at least we’re having fun today! It’s okay with me, you are paying me to be here :D
Audience: [laughs]
GC: I have a story I suppose I can tell it it’s nothing funny but it’s related to what we are talking about and everyone is in a good mood so even if it’s not funny I’m sure you wouldn’t mind :D
There was a person walking on a path out in the country that was confronted by a ferocious bear that was running towards him/her. Rather than run off, the person took out their cell phone and searched for “how not to be afraid of an attacking bear”…
Audience: [laughs]
GC: You may laugh at the stupidity of this but this is what we are all doing! And do you know what the search engine return as an answer?
Audience: Run? Scream? Pray? Offer it honey?
GC: haha! Quite right - pray was one of the suggestions!
Audience: [Laughs]
GC: So did you get the “moral” of the story? How to not be afraid is not important in observing one self. It’s easy to forget fear. You can drink it away, indulge in some fun activity, run to the top of a mountain for 6 weeks or 6 months or 6 decades, but you can bet that fear is right there waiting for you to face it again. Fear only stops when you start seeing how you are related to every thing and that observing your self is the key to that understanding. How you treat each other at work, how you approach your conversations, what you say and don’t say - especially in what you don’t say. Relationship is reflected in others and if you look carefully, you will see yourself as you are. If you can do this without judging yourself, putting yourself down, trying to be better, trying to “overcome”… we love that word don’t we, “overcome”. One of the most overused overstated words in modern language. If you simply and frankly see yourself then fear “falls away” if I can put it that way. It’s not a matter of putting a stop to fear but letting it fall away because you are observing yourself as you are.
Audience: So does that mean I can stop buying books on “how to cultivate empathy at work” because many people don’t feel they have that connection, that care at work including some of us here I’m sure.
GC: Yes if you’ve understood that relationship is not something that is cultivated whilst you are afraid. Cultivation is based on planting something that you, me, we all already have. From the “falling away” of that fear comes about the incredible sense of love. In cultivating, you are simply implementing a practice (like meditation), or a program that you want to perhaps instill into someone who is full of fear and then inside that person starts a war of who they are and who they are supposed to be. That comes with extraordinary confusion not to mention it is not compassion at all! Why do that to people? When fear “falls away”, there will be no need to practice compassion and empathy at work, such qualities are ours already but as long as one depends on others for their psychological reassurance, then it is impossible for the wonderful qualities of love, empathy, and compassion to be.
Audience: But some of the top professors in the world suggest meditating for compassion, loving-kindness…
GC: When one is looking to implement someone else’s words, someone else’s process, someone else’s ideas, you have become a copy-paste human being and that is the most dangerous way of living. When you find yourself looking at things, can you look without what the experts say, what some book says, what I say?
Love and light,
GC