Empathy

Life is a Ride

Gillian Cornwall, c. Spring 2015

Re-posted, selfishly as a reminder to me more than anything. For those of you who have not read the article, I do hope you enjoy it. 

Empathy - I have been thinking about how we behave on a daily basis in our personal and professional lives.

Leaders and colleagues may have a void of empathy for those around them. In a professional environment, this lack of understanding can have disastrous results, not the least of which is the alienation of a team and their emotional divorce from an organization. This can be the first crumbling brick between working groups, friends, institutions, teams or businesses.

Everyone can benefit from coaching in the process of empathetic engagement. Primarily, it takes desire to learn how to acknowledge the problems or difficulties of a friend or colleague. It takes development of emotional intelligence. It requires a comprehension of your own emotional issues and learning how to express them in the best ways and at the best times. Packing your emotional stinginess into your lunch kit everyday into a sarcasm sandwich may not be the best option.

Certainly, it is unwise to climb into the crevasse with someone when they are trapped in the dark without a visible means of escape. If you are both in there, how will you be able to help the other out? Who will hold up the light to show the path and point out some options for footholds?

It is essential to first acknowledge that the person is in a crevasse and that you are aware that they may be uncomfortable, hurt and afraid in there. If you skip this step and proceed to, "Hey, at least the crevasse wasn't bottomless!" or "Don't worry, you'll get out." and walk away, it becomes entirely apparent to the person within the crevasse that you wish you had never come across the discomforting scenario of finding them in the first place. It appears that coming across them in this state of distress is an embarrassing inconvenience and that their predicament has been engineered to inconvenience you on what would have been an otherwise enjoyable day. "Crevasse person" should have quietly withered away to nothing without disturbing you. Obviously, this is not the way to assist with recovery and healing.

Once you have acknowledged the situation, as an effective leader, you can offer direct assistance if you are able; this too, is a form of empathy. If you are out of your league with a situation, it is still essential to acknowledge its existence with the person. Once you have made your acknowledgement, if you are uncertain in how to direct the person, you can tell them you will get back to them with resources (give details, such as date, time and format) and make sure you follow-up! Be real and be true.

If you are in a position of empowerment, entitlement or leadership, your position makes your time no more or no less valuable than that of the person in the predicament. The amount of money you are paid to do your job is irrelevant in this scenario. Time taken to work together on problem-solving is an investment in any relationship, organization or group. Remember that the people with whom you work are your colleagues, fellow humans, all worthy of respect. They are not your employees; rather, they are employed by the organization and you have been hired to lead them.

Know your responsibilities as a leader.

Know the resources of your organization.

Know the rights and benefits of those you have been asked to lead.

If you do not know, find out before the next scenario arises.

Do not make assumptions about the person's experiences or feelings based on your own history.

Once you have held up that light and helped guide the person from the crevasse, set a time to follow-up and talk about the experience. This will involve listening and it may involve redirection to other resources. Keep your judgements to yourself and be clear about the time frame and methodologies you have with which to assist. Be empathetic and kind. The people with whom we work are the employer's "human resource." Think about these two words carefully. Think about them together and separately. Think about their meanings and implications. Be honest - both with yourself and with the person you are engaging.

It is not your responsibility to "fix" whatever is happening with the person. It is unlikely they need, nor want, "fixing." As Oprah said on her last show, "...every single person you will ever meet shares the common desire. They want to know: 'Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?'..."

Try it. See people. Hear them. Acknowledge what they have said to you and let it flow through you without judgement nor personal need. You needn't carry the trauma of others, but hold up the lantern and let folks know you are willing, as a fellow human, to offer light and guidance as each of us makes our way out of the crevasse we find ourselves in from time to time.

-Gillian Cornwall, c. July 30, 2017 

edited and re-posted from June 22, 2014

Resources:


The following articles, books and scripts have been helpful to me on my journey towards empathy and along my path towards emotional and social intelligence.


Psychology Today - I Don't Feel Your Pain - Overcoming Roadblocks to Empathy by David F. Swink


The Four Agreements - A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz


Change We Must - My Spiritual Journey by Nana Veary


Solomon's Tale by Sheila Jeffries


A Glimpse of Heaven - The Philosophy of True Health by Dr. Glen Hepker


The Laws of Thermodynamics - A Very Short Introduction by Peter Atkins

T-Shirt painted for VSAC event

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2013

Let's Talk

The Hands of Time Sculpture - By Crystal Przybille

at The Empress Hotel - Victoria, BC

There is little in this world that can top a great conversation with a friend, new or old, over a cup of tea, coffee, ...beer. There is something powerful and comforting in the verbal exchange between two people. It can be likened to a restoration of the mind, a revitalization of our systems and our souls.

Lately, I feel like I'm down a pint, running low on this front. First of all, it seems absurdly difficult just to find time with a friend or acquaintance. Secondly, I wonder if it is becoming a dying art? Is it? Are simple, in-person, one-on-one conversations going the way of the Dodo and the hand-written letter? I sure as blazes hope not!

While I am no less an avid social media hound than the next person, there is nothing that can match the feeling and energy exchanged between two, free-thinking people in an open, passionate conversation. It is akin to mental love-making and meant to leave both parties inspired and rejuvenated.

I know that it can be terribly satisfying to hold a conversation with someone who sees your point of view and agrees with you on all fronts. I have enjoyed this experience many times and felt oh so vindicated through the nods and agreement with my own perspective but what of the exchange that challenges and takes you where you have never ventured?

I will never forget the first conversation I had with someone well-versed in quantum physics. This one was over a pint - which helped me open my mind, I'm certain. I remember how great it felt to be taken to such a foreign world, a world beyond my knowledge but not beyond what made sense to me on a cellular level. I remember how, the very next day, I was scanning the shelves of my local book seller, eager to purchase a 'beginner's guide' - naive, perhaps, but I did find something to get me started. I read many web sites on thermodynamics and quantum physics and slowly ploughed through the book I purchased, having to read each page a dozen times before it made any sense to me.

This one conversation reminded me, for the gazillionth time, that the world and its possibilities, my possibilities, are unfathomable, how with each word, each encounter, we grow and move and learn.

Conversations expand and excite me. They keep me guessing and wandering down the path that is my life. They are undeniably necessary to my existence, my growth and my quality of life. Conversations are irreplaceable.

Coffee and a chat, anyone?

-Gillian Cornwall, July 23, 2017

Original Post, c. July 27, 2014

Cornerstone Cafe - Fernwood

Gillian Cornwall, Victoria, BC c 2014

Fear-full

Letting Go

Garden of the Gods, Lana'i, Hawaii

Gillian Cornwall, c December 2102

How many people reading this have enough to eat every day?

How many own your homes or have a place to which you can go no matter what happens in your life?

How many of you have steady incomes or are self-employed with sufficient income? 

How many of us have at least one person we an call a friend?

How many are afraid of losing what they have?

How many would do just about anything to keep what they have no matter how it impacted others?

These are some of the questions I have been asking myself lately. As some of you know, I am in a time of income uncertainty. I could find myself in fairly dire straits should I not find work. 

This has raised questions in me with respect to privileged humanity's state of fear in the early 21st century. The privileged in North America and in financially and politically stable nations around the globe have enjoyed a great deal of breathing room and financial comfort for some time; however, there appears to be a change afoot. the earth is moving below peoples' feet and they are holding on to what they have for dear life as the shaking begins and possessions start to topple. 

A certain political clown in a nearby nation to me is causing said nation to lose its status as world political leader as it swirls the drain as some terrible cosmic joke that it created for itself. This will have a massive global impact. "Curiouser and curiouser" - to quote Lewis Carroll. 

Individually, for some of us, our situation is tenuous and we hold ourselves there through fear of loss, by being fear-full. Politics and news drive us to maintain this through their fear-mongering and conjuring of images and words that drive us into passive fear and a desire to follow, to keep, to hold what we have known....

What if the ways we have known are not the best ways? What if they are not the most sustainable ways? What if it is one giant dog and pony show that fictionalizes our true well-being into a fortress of "Work, pay and rest." Not so very long ago our work was entirely for ourselves. pre-industrial revolution, we created that which we required and desired to live. WE made our homes, our food, our families ourselves. We skipped the middle man, the boss, the company that pays us to now buy that which we require. Is it easier? Perhaps. But it takes twice as long to get to the result and it takes us away from our families, our children, our Elders. This weird way we have created for ourselves has forced us into working for more, a bottomless pit into which we pour our lives in order to have more, provide more, get more education - to GET AHEAD. Ahead of what? Your neighbour? To get the better job? The more money to buy more stuff? 

Too complicated. We have made our lives way too complicated and it has made us fear-full of losing what we have. It's made us fear-full that we have done the wrong thing. I think we are running even faster just to prove it was the right choice, the best way. Perhaps it is time for me, for all of us, to take a beat. STOP. THINK. REST. Play with your kids or your friends. STOP. Give some of what you have to someone else - as an act of goodness or just to see what it brings up in you.

Does giving make you feel that the person now owes you or was it truly a gift? Does giving away that which you earned and possess make you fear-full? 

Breathe. Let go of the fear a little. I know it's hard. I struggle with it every single minute of every day right now. Look around at the heaven in which we exist. give something back to the Mother Earth that sustains you today. Plant a tree. tend the earth. Pick up trash of the beach. Put some water out for the bees and birds and butterflies. Breathe. Let go of being full of fear. Replace it with being full of joy, love, gratitude. Try it for a minute. 

Love to each of you.

Gillian Cornwall, c. July 16, 2017

Bruce. Munro Trail

Lana'i, Hawaii

Gillian Cornwall, c. December 2012

Food

Fresh farm produce in exchange for work

Lana'i, Hawaii, c. 2008

Food. Sustenance. It is the fuel for our bodies, our minds and, yes, I believe, our souls. They call it soul food for a reason, right? So, why does food cause so many people so much trouble?

First, I want to acknowledge the biggest problem around the world with respect to food: hunger. Millions of people around the world, from the richest countries to the poorest, experience hunger. In Canada, there are many poverty stricken families with insufficient income to provide food for their children and themselves. There are places around the world that suffer from this appalling and unnecessary condition. I do believe that there is enough for everyone, but some people are just too greedy and selfish to share what they have while wasting enough in a year to feed a family of four. We all need to consider this and choose how we move forward.

Secondly, I acknowledge that these are just my thoughts - I'm no food expert and I know that millions of people suffer with disordered eating and I have only a cursory understanding of the path the people who suffer with eating walk. I send each of you love on your journeys.

I love food. I love to eat. Often, I have loved to eat too much of foods which taste delicious, but are silent killers. They get in with us on their good looks and charm and then start tearing us down from the inside out. I don't have to tell you what they are. I don't need to set up a mug shot of the villainous french fry and decry its offenses. I am quite certain we are all aware of this. 

A year ago, I had a wee health scare, enough to make me really stop and think ...again - because I have been here before. What is my relationship with that which I put into this incredible, hard-working machine I call my body? What is my relationship with my food, my sustenance? 

I want to talk about the concept of treats. Through the passage of time and the industrial revolution, treats have become processed foods: chocolate bars, chips, candy, ice cream, cup cakes and, in my case, boozy treats. All of these are delicious to the taste buds, but can be hard as heck on our machines, our bodies, particularly in excess and particularly for those of us with addictive personalities (usually folks who have suffered and need self-soothing). Read Dr. Gabor Mate! Back in the day, a treat might have been an exotic fruit - a banana or an orange - sweet and delicious, expensive and rare. 

As a result of my scare, I chose to cut out most of the stuff that will cause me pain: dairy, coffee, chocolate and all unhealthy fats. It's not been so bad and, yes, I'll still have a drink now and then but nothing excessive. I have found the change to be quite good so far - particularly if I pack my own lunches for work and I am not forced to eat the quick and easy foods presented at my workplace. I am not counting calories, but lose weight when I stick to it and add in some exercise - mostly sustained, brisk walks. I am changing my perspective to look at the natural bounty of the earth as the treats and the rest as junk that will do me harm.

I think a huge part of my relationship with food is indicative of my relationship with my body. I am overweight. I know this to be true. My knees and back hurt more because I am carrying around about 30 to 40 pounds on top of my optimum weight and it is causing me pain and discomfort. I do not enjoy pain; therefore, I am choosing to make a change because I want to have less pain and less pain will make me happier. 

I don't deny that there is also an aspect of my physical appearance that excites me about losing weight. I am not proud of it but I want to wear different clothes than I can wear now and I am not comfortable wearing them with my current body size - not necessarily because of how they look (although I think that is part of it), but because they are uncomfortable for me in this current iteration of myself. 

It's very hard to approach it without feeling like I have failed myself somehow or that my body, injuries, health issues and menopause have betrayed me, but I acknowledge that I have been more in my head for the past five years or so than I have been in my body. My mind is sharp. I have worked through a great deal of my life's mental traumas and finished the first draft of my novel, but I forgot to bring my body along for the journey in the course of it all. I am fortunate to have supportive people in my life who will always accept and love every iteration of my physical, emotional and spiritual self. It's been a long and winding road! 

I have gone from being an incredible athlete - able to surf, swim over two kilometres, run 5 kilometres and lift epic amounts of weight to someone who now sounds like my dad used to when he was getting out of his chair and I feel like it is way too soon for me to get there. I can do better and I can do it for me. I can do it because I want to be independent and strong and able and well. I want to be grateful to this physical temple that has carried me through all that my life has brought over 54 years even though, sometimes, I have treated it like "the temple of doom!"

Awareness. For me, that is where I have started again and, with great effort on my part, without judgement of how I got here. I am doing my best and every day that looks different. I am who I am. I have done well at surviving and, at times I have thrived, despite "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..."

I often speak in my blog about kindness and acceptance. Let us not forget that this can, and perhaps must, start with ourselves. Let us treat ourselves to our own well-being. Let the treat be wellness. Let the self-soothing behaviours be done with love. In fact, perhaps we can make the self-soothing behaviours be self-love. You are worthy. You are perfect on your path. 

I don't need a brownie to comfort me. I need to know that I am worthy, that I am loved - firstly by me and then by others. I need to remember that I am whole without another person to tell me I am. I am strong. My wellness counts on it and this body of mine deserves my best efforts as a thank you for all it has done and continues to do for me. Really, It is our bodies that are our unconditional lovers of our essence. They do their best for us always. They stand by us with their every last piece of energy. They carry our souls through this life selflessly and, at times, at the expense of their own infrastructure. 

I hope this makes sense. It is starting to, for me, and I am grateful to my body for keeping going and staying with me through all the times I have ignored and mistreated her. It's time for me to take care of my body as it has taken care of me for so long. Our bodies are our mothers to our souls. Let us treat them well for they have given us life and carried us through our greatest pleasures and difficulties. 

Today, say thank you to your body with some healthy fuel. Say thank you to mother earth for providing that fuel and give back to her. Be grateful for what you have and work together, in love, for the collective wellness of the universal energy of which we are all a part. 

For all of those with insufficient means, I will do what I can to help as I hope everyone who reads this will. We must think of one another and serve one another. There is enough if we all share. If one is suffering, we all suffer. Let's work together to end the suffering.

The World Food Programme is part of the United Nations system and is voluntarily funded. There are many other ways to share what you have with others, including food banks, for immediate aid, and local meal programmes that always need support. Here is a list of some of the options in Victoria, BC:

http://victoriahomelessness.ca/community-resources/meals-food-banks/

For great reads on wellness and healthy eating, check out April Danann's Blog. 

Gillian Cornwall, re-posted July 9, 0217

Original post, c. July 17, 2016

Banana Trees, Lana'i, Hawaii

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2008

Land Tenure

Somerset, UK

Gillian Cornwall, c. September, 2015

FACT: No one owns anything, most particularly, the earth. No one owns land. The best you can be is her caretaker and, if you are gifted with this role, the mother may support you in return. 

It is interesting to review the term, land tenure etymologically. When we consider the French word tenir, meaning to hold, that, in itself, suggests more the role of caretaker than owner. Personally, I see the earth and all life as having the same rights as those we have fought for as humans. I believe that all living things are inherently entitled to the same rights of autonomy. 

If you attempt to own Mother Earth, you take from her - you take from her inherent perfection. It is not wise to mess with nature. Humanity has lost its relationship with its own instinctual capacity, with nature. We fail over and over again because of our greed. We take. We hold too tightly. 

I don't condone borders, land ownership and wars over land and resource - there can be no winner in these situations and the biggest loser is always the earth herself. Why do we feel this need to demarcate territory, lines on the sand, temporary streaks of our own blood that seep into the surface and poison her perfection. 

Stop. Step back. Acknowledge your fears of loss and let go. 

-Gillian Cornwall, c. July 2, 2017

Northeast England

Gillian Cornwall, c. October 2015