When Empathy Feels Like a Trap: Inner Work for HSPs

Todd: By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how to be empathetic without enabling negativity.

Todd: Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

Todd: In this episode, you’ll discover how to be with someone who is being negative without getting sucked in, hoax you into their pain and how to sidestep it, and why empathy is not the same as codependence. Today is another edition of Open Session Wednesdays. You bring your [00:01:00] questions and stressful situations, and I facilitate you in the simple, powerful process of the work of Byron Katie.

Todd: As always, I share the unedited recording so you can experience the open session just as we did.

Client: I have a list and on, on that list is something with my mom. But I’m gonna read it because that’s easier for me when it’s in English. So I prepared it long time ago, actually.

Todd: Okay, great.

Client: And because it’s reoccurring every time, I think it’s a good thing to, to look into that.

Client: It remains wonderful how much softer my mom and I have become with each other. I’m now talking about the winter months. Some winters I move in with her for three or two, four months like I did last winter, and I will again this winter. And I found something to do the work on. During our meals together, she sometimes starts to stir [00:02:00] up her painful memories, say traumas, around her mother and her brother and other people.

Client: And I noticed that I cannot deal with the strong bitterness and sadness. With which she keeps telling and feeding the same things about them over and over again. The way I react is that I don’t say anything anymore, don’t look at her anymore, and instead I look at my plate or at what I’m eating. I’m basically ignoring what she’s saying, which feels quite harsh to me, considering her lonesome pain.

Client: In those situations, I feel very uncomfortable and powerless with so much unprocessed and apparently or seemingly unprocessable pain. I can’t give her a hug then, that would feel quite artificial, but who knows, one day it might be authentic. And for that hug to be able to be authentic, I’d like to do the work on this [00:03:00] situation and I’m already looking forward to see what will happen this winter.

Client: I especially want to work on my resistance against her repeatedly telling about her traumas the way she does. I’d like to find the strongest underlying stressful thought that causes my resistance against this kind of situation, as I’m even too resistant to apply some active listening. One of the thoughts is, I’m afraid that my mom will never stop doing that that she will feel encouraged to continue doing that when I show empathy.

Client: It also have to do with a feeling of injustice or powerlessness because she didn’t listen or see me when I was a child. And it almost feels like I’m now doing the same to her. Anyway, I’d like to explore more and find more thoughts like this one so I can find the core thought or at least the strongest.[00:04:00]

Todd: Okay, great. Thank you for bringing this. And it’s very relatable to me anyway. Yeah. So let’s think about it. What are the, you mentioned a few thoughts that could be questioned. Let’s just brainstorm for a minute or so and think what is making this stressful for you when she stirs up her painful memories and like strong bitterness, maybe against her mother and other people.

Todd: What is she doing to you in that moment? I think one of the biggest things is My feeling of being powerless in that situation, because if I would have been able to, with a magic wand, take away her pain, I wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be stressful at all. I would just take it away, [00:05:00] and

Todd: And as you say that, it just makes me think Like you started with saying she feels, it makes you feel powerless.

Todd: And then when you said with the magic wand, it’s basically saying, where’s the want? The want is I want to be able to take her pain away or something like that. And then when I,

Client: yes,

Todd: that gives the feeling of powerlessness. So that could be a potential statement to question. And then what else you were thinking just as we’re brainstorming here?

Client: It’s it’s indeed what I already mentioned, that I’m afraid that she will never stop doing that if I show empathy, or that she will feel encouraged to continue or something. Man.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. I

Client: can’t really look forward to that.

Todd: Yeah, that’s a tough one, right? Yes. So [00:06:00] that’s another, it’s a separate belief, a separate thought that’s equally stressful in this situation.

Todd: So I see two main ones that I’m hearing so far is I want to be able to take away her pain, and the second, she will never stop doing that if I show empathy, or she will feel encouraged to do that if I’m empathetic. Of those, what do you feel is something that feels closer to the stress that’s bothering you.

Todd: And then they most, they both may play a part, but if you had to choose one, what would you look at?

Client: Yeah, I feel the second one is. Much more emotionally charged.

Todd: Perfect. That’s what I like to trust when I’m doing this work. It’s like when I’m looking for what to question Where’s the emotion if there’s a this emotion will show me exactly what I need to work So I heard two ways of phrasing it.

Todd: Which one is has the more [00:07:00] emotion She will never stop doing that if I show empathy or she will feel encouraged to do that if i’m empathetic She’ll feel encouraged Yeah. I think, yeah. Okay let’s do the work. And can you find a situation where, maybe from last winter, where you were sitting with her in the meal, at the meal?

Client: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I, with my very momentaneous memory I don’t remember the real, the details or anything, but it’s something that reoccurs often at the table. So yeah, I just, sure

Todd: that’s good enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So put yourself back at that table and that situation and. And she starts stirring up those painful memories with all the bitterness.

Todd: And so if you are [00:08:00] empathetic, she will feel encouraged to keep on talking that way. Is that true?

Client: I don’t know for sure. So I guess it’s no.

Todd: What does it feel like? Does it feel like a yes or a no?

Client: If I stay in my resistance, it’s definitely a yes.

Todd: Okay. Yeah. And is that where you feel you are in that resistance? Is that like, where are you?

Client: It feels when you ask that question, and I [00:09:00] was really in that situation, I was really, uh, imagining that I would do that showing empathy. And I couldn’t.

Client: It could be that she would continue that way but I couldn’t be sure. So it was like, I was sitting there and I don’t know. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. So I don’t know, maybe truer than than it is. True.

Client: Yes. Yes. And then, of course, the second, the answer to the second question would definitely be no.

Client: I cannot know for sure. Sure.

Todd: That one, I can see you’ve already, that one’s really clear, even the way you’re answering this question. But I’m just sitting in the way to answer this question. It’s like you’re looking around and it’s a discussion between, emotion, and.

Todd: And [00:10:00] thinking, it’s almost like heart and mind a little bit. And sometimes one is saying this and the other saying the opposite and it’s a discussion. So it can be challenging to come up with a yes or no. But. But I think the way you’re thinking about it is right on. So if you had to, just in question one, is it true, had to land on a, the closest that, that the closest to what your experience is, What would you land on, yes or no?

Todd: If she will feel encouraged, if I’m empathetic?

Client: I think it would be no. Okay, cool.

Todd: So how do you react? What happens when you believe that she will feel encouraged to keep talking this way? [00:11:00] if you show empathy.

Client: I totally close down towards her. So as I already described there in the intro I will just look at my plate.

Client: I will avoid looking at her. I will almost act as if she’s not there at all. Overwhelmed. I feel, I can’t, I feel really like I cannot deal with this. I also feel And that has to do with the whole relationship with my mom. I feel like there’s nothing I could do right in that situation, whatever I would do which I know while I’m saying this it’s not necessarily true, but that’s how I feel in that moment. [00:12:00] And I also feel guilty because the way I am responding to what she’s saying I really don’t want to do this. I don’t want to shut myself off. of her. It’s something that happens out of powerlessness, and I don’t know how to come out of that towards her. So the guilt is very strong as well.

Client: It’s, it feels so unjust. It feels it’s not right to, to deal with it this way towards her.

Todd: Yeah. And that’s the power of a thought when you’re believing she’ll feel encouraged. If you’re empathetic, then you cannot be empathetic. It’s like the,

Client: yeah. If you want

Todd: to be, you cannot.

Client: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Todd: [00:13:00] So like you mentioned that feeling of guilt. How do you, Are there any other aspects of how you treat yourself when you think that she will feel encouraged if you’re empathetic and then as a result you’re not empathetic?

Client: I’m actually angry at myself that I cannot deal with this. I’m talking about love all the time.

Todd: Yep.

Client: And doing the work, and doing the work, right? And then I can’t even look. Yeah, it almost feels like in my head. In my life aside of my mom, I’m almost, it almost feels like spiritual bypassing or so. Yeah. So I’m really angry at myself for that.

Todd: I get it. [00:14:00] Yep. Yep.

Todd: Yeah. Do you see any images from the past when you think she will feel encouraged to keep on talking like this? Yeah. if you are empathetic?

Client: I realize that I probably have never been or have never shown any real empathy towards her when she does that. On the contrary, me and my sisters and brother have told her at some point, mom, you have to stop it. You’re just feeding it. And then she she did it a lot less for quite some time or even not at all anymore, which was for us like, finally but of course for her, it’s still and since I’m there a whole winter.[00:15:00]

Client: I think it’s almost inevitable that she starts talking about all these things again. So I can see

Client: also when I was a child, I didn’t have a real connection to my mom. She was a bit distant in a way that, that is, how should I say that? I think a small child. experiences closeness differently from an adult. And I didn’t experience her close to me because she never played with me. She even, I can’t remember any time that she would bathe me or so it was always my dad who did that.

Client: And so there is already, there has been a distance all the time. And [00:16:00] some traumatic things. That like that she didn’t, I did the work on that once too that she locked herself behind the door. I was about six or seven, I think. And I needed her to comfort me because I don’t know. I remember I came out of the.

Client: sandbox in the garden and ran into the house. I don’t remember what had happened, but I needed her and she didn’t show up. She didn’t want to come out of the locked room. And she only said, go away. So that, that was for me, again, that distance, that was, strengthened in that moment. And a lot later when I was an a teenager, I think I was about 15 or 16.

Client: It’s, it started to, um, I started to realize that she was probably depressed, but as a child, you don’t [00:17:00] know, you do, you only see and experience what is happening in that moment. And and so that, that’s what is ingrained in my cells. I, I feel very unhandy with my mom actually, because we were never really I actually, about 10 years ago or so I taught her how to hug.

Client: And now she does that. She does give a hug when I arrive or in, and I can feel more and more actually, maybe because she’s getting really old now more and more that she really needs that too. And so it’s all very yeah, it’s, I realized that I never built any. warm relationship with her.

Client: A really, a real close, warm [00:18:00] relationship. And I taught myself later when I got my own kids understand how she could become so cerebral because she had to, with all these traumas that she had in her youth. She had to protect herself and she did the best she could with us on a very mental level.

Client: And

Todd: so how does this tie in with this experience sitting at the table and she’s and the thought that she will feel encouraged if you are empathetic?

Client: Yeah. It feels. Uncomfortable or so, because I’m not used to have that kind of relationship with my mom. So it’s um, maybe that’s even the core of the pain that I missed that as a [00:19:00] child.

Client: And that I’m somehow, I want that but I don’t know how.

Todd: Yes, and then when she’s stirring up painful memories and bitterness and it’s making you feel separate, then you’re missing again connection with your mom.

Client: Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I have no problems doing that with some good friends or, no prob, it’s just my mom.

Client: Yeah. And maybe people that have the same kind, that I would have the same kind of pattern with, probably.

Todd: Yeah. So any other reactions when you think this thought? sitting with her, that she will feel encouraged to keep on talking about these painful memories if you are empathetic?

Client: Yeah, I can feel in my body that everything becomes tight, especially [00:20:00] in my breasts.

Client: And in a way it feels like the fight and flight, I’m freezing actually. I want to fly to to get away from the situation and I can’t. So yeah, and I can really feel that in my body in that moment. So

Todd: imagine now that you’re sitting with her again in the same situation and she starts talking about the painful memories and. But this time, imagine that you didn’t believe that she would feel encouraged to keep doing this if you were empathetic.

Client: Who would

Todd: you be?

Client: I would just be empathetic. [00:21:00] Yeah, I can really I can imagine me saying to her, oh mom, I can hear that this is really still bothering you so much.

Client: Because you keep stirring that up all the time. So it must be really something that you don’t know what to do with it or whatever. And maybe I would even ask how can I support you in whatever way in this, actually, it makes me curious about what she would say then

Client: it would be I would feel from my side, at least. I would feel a lot closer to her.

Todd: Yeah.

Client: Especially, that’s also something, I have my traumas too, of course. But [00:22:00] we cannot talk about that. So that’s interesting, because she cannot talk about her traumas to me, too.

Todd: Interesting. It’s a perfect match. Yes.

Todd: Yeah.

Client: Yeah, and I really want to actually it feels to me, I want to break that pattern before she dies. She’s 89 now. It really feels like I shouldn’t wait too long anymore.

Todd: So who would you be sitting there? What, where would you be looking? What would you be focusing on if you weren’t thinking that she will feel encouraged? If you’re empathetic

Client: my body language would be totally different, but I cannot imagine what it would be like. It would be more towards her. I would probably look at her but I don’t know because it’s really a big [00:23:00] step. It’s a big difference. Yeah. I don’t know how far I could go there.

Todd: Yeah, and you don’t have to go anywhere, but just notice where your inclination is without the thought.

Todd: If you’re not thinking, you’ll feel encouraged. Yeah.

Client: Yeah, definitely towards her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: That’s super good to see because it shows again that the thought is what keeps the distance. It’s the thought that makes you look at your food and away from her and want to run away from there.

Todd: And without the thought, don’t know how far you’ll go with it, but it’s an inclination to move towards her as opposed to away. Yeah.

Client: Yeah. And I can imagine If the step would be too big for me, it can also be too big for her.

Todd: Of course. Yeah.

Client: Yeah. Exactly.

Todd: Like [00:24:00] sometimes these distances that we want to break down they also serve a purpose and we can’t rush them.

Todd: We can’t push it up and from inside, from both sides.

Client: Yeah, and especially since I am one of her children, if it’s very emotional, she might back off because that’s what she tells, like she would never go to a funeral because then she would start crying and not stop. And then we go, but mom, that’s what funerals are for.

Client: You can do that there. It’s normal, but she cannot, she, I think she, she feels like she’s losing control then or so.

Todd: Sure.

Client: Yeah. So I don’t want to be that empathetic that she feels that she’s losing control or something. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah.

Todd: Okay. So [00:25:00] how would you turn the thought around? She will feel encouraged to keep on talking like this about her painful memories. If you are empathetic, how would you turn it around?

Client: She won’t. Oh man, that’s a long sentence.

Todd: Just the short version is she won’t feel encouraged if I’m empathetic. That’s the short version.

Client: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She won’t feel encouraged, encouraged when I’m,

Todd: How could that be as true or truer?

Client: I can imagine that she that she would feel some relief that her pain is recognized in that moment

Client: and that in itself is healing. So it might be that she doesn’t feel the need anymore to continue or that it changes. [00:26:00] the way she tells about it.

Todd: Yeah, very possible. It’s like we yell louder and louder, and we keep on talking about something if we’re not being heard. But sometimes just being heard is a different thing.

Todd: Okay, I have nothing more to say now.

Client: That’s the only thing I needed.

Todd: That’s all I needed.

Client: Yeah, actually I have that kind of experiences for myself, why not her? The same kind of thing.

Todd: Yeah, because the other way that you tried only worked for a little while anyway. Okay, stop doing that. Then she stopped, but then it came back. Yeah, that’s right.

Client: Yeah. And that’s just the surface. Yeah, it hasn’t healed anything on the contrary probably. So

Todd: just okay. Suppress it.[00:27:00]

Todd: Keep pushing it down.

Client: It didn’t bring us closer together. Yeah.

Todd: Okay. Any other examples? That’s a pretty strong one. But is there any other examples of how she won’t necessarily feel encouraged to keep talking if you are empathetic?

Client: I don’t see anything special there.

Todd: Yeah. Do

Client: you? Not particularly.

Todd: No. I think that, that example you found just really resonates and maybe nothing more is there. So is there another turnaround? She will feel encouraged if I’m empathetic?

Client: She will feel de[00:28:00]

Client: couraged? Discouraged?

Todd: Discouraged,

Client: yes.

Todd: And this is really similar to what we just found. It’s she will feel discouraged to keep talking about painful memories.

Client: Yeah, exactly. Yeah she will feel encouraged if I empathize? If I’m not, ah, yeah, if I’m not showing empathy.

Todd: Okay. How could that be?

Client: That’s that’s the effect of being ignored and you feel like you have to talk louder and more and more to be heard. So yeah, I can see that

Todd: makes sense again, fits right in with what we were just seeing in that first turnaround.

Client: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. It’s counterintuitive because we tend to think if we want something to go away, we should stop it.

Todd: We should control it,

Client: not

Todd: encourage it. But ironically, in the world of the [00:29:00] mind, everything works in opposites a little bit. And you and sometimes encouraging. Or sorry being empathetic towards that, those pain, that painful speech can actually relieve it and make it feel, make it slow down. So turn it around to yourself if you can find anything there.

Todd: She will feel encouraged if I’m empathetic.

Client: I will feel encouraged when I’m empathetic towards myself. Yeah,

Todd: and encouraged to keep talking about painful memories Something like that.

Client: I think that happens when I

Client: when I actually feed it all, I think.[00:30:00]

Client: So

Client: I will never stop doing that when I’m, when I show empathy.

Client: But maybe I, doing that, it depends on what.

Client: I will never stop doing that when I show empathy. If that is trying to come closer to myself and to others, to my mom in this case,

Client: which I like actually, I hope I will never stop doing that.

Todd: Yeah. Maybe the encouraged part is you’ll feel encouraged to. Keep going closer to [00:31:00] your mom if you’re maybe that makes more sense than

Client: yeah,

Todd: you’ll encourage to keep talking about painful memories.

Client: I

Todd: don’t know. We have to feel our way with these.

Todd: Sometimes turnarounds don’t always exactly make sense. And You may have to play with it a little bit. So I’m holding this one kind of loosely, but there could be something along those lines.

Client: Yeah. And to the other I will never stop when she shows empathy.

Todd: Yeah. It doesn’t seem, you know what I think the problem is this if thing.

Todd: The if I’m empathetic is the situation, right? It’s the first condition. And so she will feel encouraged. Yeah. I don’t know. I can’t, I was going to say, what I was going to say, it doesn’t make sense. [00:32:00] So I love that. So yeah, anything that makes any sense that you can find here, otherwise we’re just

Client: I think there is something, but let’s see.

Client: Can you say this, the turnaround again? So the original was, she will feel encouraged basically to keep stirring up her painful memories if you’re empathetic. And the turnaround is I will feel encouraged maybe to keep stirring up my painful memories

Client: if

Todd: she’s empathetic. Or

Client: if we stay with with that other interpretation, I will continue trying to come closer to her.

Client: Okay. How does it sound then?

Todd: I will continue to be coming closer to her if She is empathetic, or if I am empathetic. Oh

Client: yeah, that makes sense.

Todd: Huh.

Client: So I have to, with these turnarounds, I [00:33:00] have to stick with what I’m doing there.

Todd: Yeah.

Client: Doing something. I’m trying to come closer to her.

Todd: Yes, she’s talking about painful memories, that’s what she’s doing. You’re trying to come closer to her. Yes, exactly. Yeah, okay.

Client: Yes.

Todd: So I will Yeah. Yeah.

Client: I will never stop. I will feel

Todd: encouraged to keep coming closer to her if I’m empathetic. And I will continue to feel closer to, wanting to feel closer to her if she’s empathetic.

Todd: So yeah. Yes. Yes.

Client: Yes.

Todd: I get it.

Client: Yeah that’s obvious. I think.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. Cool. We can we take it apart and put it back together. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t reminds me of my great grandfather story. My grandmother told me that he went to the the family went off to church and he decided to stay home like he was sick or something and then he spent the whole time taking [00:34:00] apart the family clock and he took it apart then he put it back together and there’s one piece left over but it’s still wet.

Todd: So sometimes it’s not perfect. Wow,

Client: that’s special.

Todd: Yeah. It’s funny. Anyway. Thank you for this work. Thank you for bringing this. Really good. And, oh, and also it is, as you mentioned, could be some great work on some of those old situations of wanting connection or missing connection with your mom, those situations that you brought up.

Todd: Those can be very good for future work at any point. Thank you. In this episode, we looked at how to be with someone who is being negative. Without getting sucked in and what we found is that it all depends on how you’re viewing them and how you’re engaging with them. If you think that [00:35:00] you need them to be positive or if you’re trying to change them in any way, it’s going to feel powerless and it’s so easy to get sucked in.

Todd: If, as we saw in the turnaround, the idea that she may not even be encouraged if I’m empathetic. In fact, it might release something allowing her to vent. Suddenly that negativity becomes less negative and becomes much more tolerable to witness. We also looked at what hooks you into their pain and how to sidestep it.

Todd: And what we found is that it’s the desire to take away their pain or the desire to have a connection that, is causing it to be more difficult than it has to be. If those thoughts were also questioned, which could be a separate inquiry, you could end up being there without any real needs of your own, and you can really be present with [00:36:00] someone who is in need.

Todd: clearly venting and going through something challenging. And finally, we looked at why empathy is not the same as codependence. And what I mean by that is codependence is encouraging or is enabling somebody. And there’s a difference. Empathy is very neutral. It’s just listening and seeing it from a neutral standpoint, knowing that someone It’s having to go through something, letting them express whereas codependence is it could almost be encouraging that or doing something that would be yeah egging them on.

Todd: When I’m in that neutral place, I can be around negativity much more. It still has its effect, it’s still, it’s still negative, it’s not my favorite thing in the world, but I can handle it so much better. when I’m not involved with it. So thank you for listening, and thanks [00:37:00] for being a part of this podcast.

Todd: I look forward to more sessions with you, and in the meantime, have a great rest of your day.