Intro

Welcome to the Freedom from Empty Podcast: Building Strong, Effective, Resilient Leaders and Humans. My name is Booth Andrews, and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. 

Transcript

We have a new baby at our house. The four-legged, furry kind. His arrival was “fate” so to speak. He is gnawing a rope (in lieu of the corner of the couch) as I write this. When I come up the stairs in the morning, this little fuzz ball comes running toward me, SO excited to see another human. The back half of his whole body wiggles with excitement. Last night, I watched him chase fireflies. It is fun to watch him explore the world. If you have ever had a puppy you know that a puppy is much like a toddler. If you let them out of your sight, calamity may ensue. But not because a puppy or a toddler are inherently “bad.” They are just new. Pure in spirit. Sometimes rambunctious. Sometimes they do things that make you want to pull your hair out. And sometimes they make you laugh. Sometimes your heart is full of overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity to see the world through new eyes. When they lose their way, most of us will have the grace to gently guide them back to where they need to be in order to stay safe, healthy and out of harm’s way. 

Watching the newness of everything through a puppy’s eyes and in contrast to the pain that is boiling over in our world right now, I am reminded that one of the ways in which we have learned to deflect and disassociate from the pain of other humans is by rationalizing all of the ways they “deserved” what happened to them. This strategy has been deployed and frankly weaponized against victims for years. Here are just a few examples (and I am intentionally disclaiming an all encompassing list here because it is so very important to me to honor the very real pain of other people–but I cannot possibly name all of the ways–here are just a few examples): victims of sexual assault, racial violence, gender-based violence, and the violence that is perpetrated against immigrants . . . and when I say violence against immigrants, I mean the separation and caging of families at the border and the raiding of homes and tearing families apart in the middle of the night. 

Two quotes strike me in the heart here, both from Glennon Doyle: 

“Be confident because you are a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is too.”

And the next quote . . . 

“There is no such thing as other people’s children.”

So here is my observation from the experience of spending a lifetime disassociating from my own pain, then living in the trenches with my pain for a number of years, while noticing others’ discomfort with that process  . . . when we have not done the work to acknowledge our own traumas and to process our own pain and suffering, it is easier for us, perhaps even an automatic defense mechanism, to disassociate from and deny the suffering of other people. So where did this observation come from? I will share a couple of experiences here. 

I started this episode talking about our new puppy. And now I will share with you that I used to not like dogs. Yep. And you might say, how could you not like dogs?!?! Or you might say, “Yeah, me neither. I am totally a cat person.” And please let me preface by saying that if you do not like dogs, I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with you!! This is only a story about what I have observed in my own life.

When I was at the height of my disassociation from pain and overwhelm in my own life, all I noticed about dogs was the smell. They wanted me to pet them. And that was going to make my hands smell. And I have a “thing” about having any sort of strong scent on my hands be it pet or perfume, much like I have a “thing” about having dry hands or no chapstick. So I would try to ignore them and not make eye contact so maybe they wouldn’t want me to pet them. And I didn’t really didn’t think about it much more. Until . . .

I was living in an apartment building downtown after my divorce and we would see dogs on the elevator and on the sidewalks and in the square. And I noticed my attitude was shifting. I wanted to say hello to them. To acknowledge them. To pet them?!?! Now I cannot say for sure if part of what influenced me was watching my kids’ excitement every time they saw a dog which was OFTEN in our downtown. But what I did notice was this–this shift occurred in me at a time when I was getting really up close and personal with my own pain. And now that I have done this work, I am no longer overwhelmed by their puppy dog eyes asking something of me that I feel like I cannot give. I have also found that dogs can tell that I am greeting them with an open heart because they “lean in” to me. For the record and for all you cat lovers out there, I have two cats too. 

It took me about 4 years of leading a cultural, strategic and operational transformation of an organization to have the next ah-ha that I am going to share with you. I still remember the day I realized that my calibration was “off” in terms of acceptable human behavior. Part of the cultural transformation included a large volunteer base, some of whom had been in the organization for decades, along with thousands of parents. I had spent the first 3-4 years of this change trying to make my organization (and the people within it) bulletproof. When I use bulletproof in this context I mean this . . . if we were going to hold others accountable to a different (arguably higher) standard, then we had to be “blameless” in our own adherence to  that standard. I thought we had to be essentially perfect before we could ask other people to adjust their own behaviors. And then one day, after reading reams of “feedback” from our own stakeholders, the light switch flipped. I had a relatively young, talented, passionate and committed team of staff in the room that day. And for the first time, I SAW the impact the behavior of these stakeholders was having on my team. It was dimming the light in their eyes. And then I realized this . . . because I was “bulletproof,” I wasn’t affected in the same way they were. But here was the real ah-ha: we didn’t have to be perfect to demand better. We didn’t have to be “perfect” before we could ask our adult members and volunteers to treat us with kindness, respect, transparency and authenticity. We didn’t have to be “perfect” before we advised people that we were not going to allow them to cuss us out on the phone. We didn’t have to be “perfect” before we asked people to deal with conflict constructively instead of passive aggressively through snarky emails and facebook groups. Does it seem obvious to you? I hope so. But it wasn’t to me. Because I had been conditioned to believe that if I wasn’t perfect, and someone didn’t treat me well, then it was MY fault, not theirs.  And how many times do we look at someone else who has been mistreated and say “well . . . they weren’t ‘perfect’ . . . so they must have done something to deserve what happened to them. News flash, we shouldn’t have to be perfect to deserve being treated with kindness, respect, transparency and authenticity.

Speaking of “deserving” things that happen to you . . . I may have told this story before, but it wasn’t until I looked my then 5yo son in the eyes one night that I was able to fully integrate a life-changing awareness . . .

But let me give you a little more background. My abuse at the hands of a caregiver began sometime between the ages of 3-5 years old. And as with most abuse, the clear articulation from that caregiver was that I was causing the abuse because I had done something wrong and therefore “deserved” the “punishment” I was receiving. And 4 years into therapy decades later, as much healing work as I had done, I was still not able to fully release the belief that had been woven into the fabric of my being that somehow, I should have been able to prevent what happened to me if I had just been a “good girl.” What I knew in my head I couldn’t absorb into my heart. 

And then, one night, I was looking into the eyes of my high-energy, smart, sometimes rambunctious, giant-hearted son, and it finally hit me. THERE IS NOTHING THAT I COULD HAVE DONE AT THAT AGE THAT JUSTIFIED WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD I HAVE RESPONDED TO HIM–EVEN GIVEN THE EXACT SAME STIMULUS–THE WAY MY CAREGIVER RESPONDED TO ME. 

Aundi Kolber writes, “Paradoxically, as we engage our own deep emotional work, we love each other in the most alive, empathetic ways. We do not see the people in front of us as tasks or obligations. They are the Imago Dei and we see and feel with them.”

In order to bear witness–truly bear witness–to the pain of others, we have to have done the work inside–to bear witness to our own pain. It is only in becoming intimate with our own pain, and learning that we can stand in this pain with resilience and strength, that we increase our capacity to experience true empathy with others. 

We each arrived here in the image of god with innocence and purity of vision and spirit. Much like a puppy. Is there something in your life that you can see with new eyes? The next time you come across another human being, can you look them in the eyes and see them as the person they were born to be? If you find yourself holding yourself back or if it just feels like too much, then I encourage you to turn inward and see if there is unrecognized or unacknowledged pain that needs to be witnessed on your own behalf so that you can witness the pain and suffering of others. I will be holding space with you there.

Outtro

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I look forward to being back with you next time!