Impact definitely matters. When another person is upset with me, they are probably always right from their perspective. If they are upset, they are in pain and would benefit from empathy.
Living a life based on ethics, morality and following the percepts is useful for my happiness. This allows me to live a life of blamelessness and non-harming.
The missing component for me was that I am not responsible for the other persons feelings. I cannot fix another person. Their mental suffering is their work. This means that I don’t have to feel bad, shameful, guilty, or anything else. I don’t have to suffer. I can be free no matter what.
Another aspect is differentiating between response vs. stimulus. That is, I may have been the stimulus, but I am not responsible for their response. Their mental world is their business — just as my mental world is my business.
As Marshall Rosenberg says to enjoy another person’s suffering we have to release ourselves from two kinds of responsibility:
1) We did not cause the other person’s mental pain, especially if the other person is trying to make us believe we did. One cannot cause another persons’s psychological pain.
2) To think we have to fix the other person - to make them feel better. The more we think it is our job to make the other person feel better the more we are going to make it worse. Empathy is a powerful and healing energy which is blocked when we try and fix the other person. Empathy requires presence with the other person to their feeling and needs. Don’t do something, stand there.
Source: The Basics of Non Violent Communication DVD 2 Part 2
Just because we have good intentions doesn’t mean we should not acknowledge the impact of someone else’s reality.
Empathy as defined by NVC can be very healing since it is a form of resonant language — a way of truly being seen and heard for who we are, in this very moment. That is, when we listen with warm curiosity to the other person and help attune to their feelings and needs - its like we are vibrating with their being:
When two violins are placed in a room if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note
If this is your definition of hope
This is for you
The ones who know how powerful we are
Who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings
Source: from Say Yes by Andrea Gibson
Whenever there is a discussion, argument, or disagreement I like to think of my role as 1) simply to understand the other person, and 2) lean in with a sense of compassion while being unattached to the outcome. That is, we still have a sense of connection and interdependence between one another, but one that is not dependent or attached. This equanimity allows me to simply be present with compassion not be overwhelmed by the situation, nor distant from it.
